Free The Year My Mother Came Back by Alice Eve Cohen

branches, a squirrel spiraling rapidly down a tree. The leaves are just beginning to change. A bright red cardinal streaks by. I breathe deeply, inhaling the smell of dry leaves and crisp fall air. I didn’t realize I’d been so nature-deprived. When I arrive at my appointment, my body is warm, perspiring, loosened up. My lungs have had an expansive hour to limber up for their daily ten-minute regime of shallow breathing.
    I LIE STILL, head turned to the right, left cheek on the sheet. With my peripheral vision, I follow the ascent of the metal arm of the radiation machine, making her silent arabesque, circling me in her strange dance. The bed itself now approaches the machine, as if she were an enormous octopus, pulling me toward her with her one long tentacle, to hold me in her maternal embrace, or to squeeze the life out of me. I soften my vision, listen to my breath, the fan, the mechanical beeps, a Mozart string quartet.
    Time stands still.
    Beep, beep, beep.
    Mom. Mommy. Louise. She’s here.
    I tried so hard not to think about her, for such a long time. Now she’s right in front of my eyes. I can’t even turn my head to look away; I’m not allowed to move for ten minutes. My young, beautiful mother is standing beside the radiation bed, so close to me that I feel the warmth radiating from her body and her breath on my face—more vivid and tangible than any flashback.
    Memories flood into the space left empty for thirty years. I don’t resist. I want my mother with me. At this moment I don’t need to be a mother, I just want to be a daughter. I need her right now. For the first time in decades, I want to remember everything about her. She holds out her hand. I reach for her, sliding my fingers over the threshold of her palm. With a crackle of electricity, her hand envelopes mine, and we tumble and swirl in a rush and roar of wind, traveling out of the room and back in time.

    I held Mommy’s hand, trying to keep up with her. I was five years old.
    â€œCome with me, Alice.”
    Madeline had to stay home to take care of Jennifer, who was only two. Campaigning for Civil Rights with Mom was a privilege. This was my first time. I felt my face blush. I wanted her to be proud of me. We went door to door. It was a warm summer evening, before dinnertime and the evening news, and she walked fast in her clippity cloppity high heels.
    Knock knock knock.
    We waited outside the door. I looked up at my mother. She smiled at me and squeezed my hand. She looked like a movie star, with red lips and shiny black curls, wearing the blue dress Daddy gave her on her birthday, the one he said gave her a good figure. She looked like Jackie Kennedy, from on television, except Mom was in color.
    Knock knock knock.
    â€œOh, it’s you. Mrs.
Cohen.
What do you want?” said a man, opening the door halfway.
    â€œWould you sign this petition and support antisegregation legisla—”
    Bang!
Door slammed in Mom’s face. Why did he do that? It was rude.
    She gripped my hand tighter. “C’mon, Alice.” She pulled me faster than before. “This is important work, Sweetheart.” The way she said that made me feel so special that I blushed again. We got to the next house on the block.
    Knock knock knock.
    â€œWhat do
you
want, Louise?” said a wife.
    â€œHi, Jeannie, how are you?” said my mother.
    â€œWho is that?” called a man’s voice, from deeper inside the house.
    â€œIt’s Louise
Cohen,
” said the wife.
    I didn’t like the way the neighbors said
Cohen.
    â€œShe’s here with her petition again. What should I do?”
    â€œTell her we’re not interested,” said the husband’s voice.
    â€œWhy aren’t they interested?” I asked, when the door had closed.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said, her voice grumpy.
    At the next house, a girl from my school peeked from behind her mother’s legs. I was too shy