Free Everything Is Fine. by Ann Dee Ellis Page A

or yell or do something.
    Instead I sit scrunched up in the Spyder.
    She’s sick and she didn’t tell me.
    She almost died.
    I scrunch up even more.
MOM
    Inside I put the marshmallow bag in the trash and try to wipe up the counter.
    The shower isn’t on.
    “Mom,” I yell.
    Wait.
    “Mom?”
    Wait.
    “Mom, do you want your pills?”
    Maybe she is in the shower drying off.
    I get the sorbet and the pills and a cup of noni, which maybe is the reason she is feeling so good, and go to her room.
    She isn’t there.
    “Mom?” No answer but the light in her bathroom is on.
    “Mom?” I knock on the door.
    Nothing. I try the knob. It’s locked. “Mom?”
    Knock again. “Mom?”
    I put my ear to the door — I can hear something but I can’t tell what it is. Like a buzzing sound.
    “Mom? What are you doing?”
    She doesn’t answer.
    “Mom, open the door.”
    No answer.
    “Please, Mom. Open the door.”
    Nothing.
    Please no please no please no.
    I pound on the door. “Mom! Open the door!” Pound and pound and pound on the door.
    “Mom, please. Please open the door.” I pound and pound and pound until my fist is red and my throat hurts from yelling.
    I slide to the ground and accidentally knock the sorbet and pills and noni over. The black noni spirals on the white carpet
     and the sorbet falls in a big green pile.
    I am breathing deep and watching the noni slowly spread and touch the sorbet. Then the two are together — pushing against
     each other.
    I’m thinking they would mix but instead they push at each other and make spikes — like they’re fighting for space.
    I put my finger where they touch and trace them together into a spiral — a noni and sorbet spiral around and around and around
     and around.
FUNERAL
    At the funeral, Dad spoke.
    He wore his pink shirt and the tie he wore when he was recognized by his network — his lucky tie that cost over 200 dollars.
    He got a haircut and new shoes and he looked like he was supposed to.
    He tried to have Mom do her hair. “You’ll feel better.”
    But Mom just sat in front of the mirror and wouldn’t move.
    Dad’s eyes were tired.
    “Roxie, please. We have to leave in fifteen minutes.”
    I was sitting on the toilet, watching her get ready.
    Since it happened, I didn’t like to be alone. I followed Mom wherever she went. I slept on the floor in her room. I ate when
     she ate. I did what she did.
    She never said I couldn’t. She never said she was mad.
    So I sat on the toilet, my hair a mess too.
    “Mazzy, get up and get going,” Dad said. His body almost took up the entire doorway. I never realized how big he was.
    I looked at Mom. She didn’t move, just sat looking blankly at the mirror.
    The day before, Dad had gone out and got us both new clothes. He got Mom a silk gray shirt and a black skirt that was a little
     too big even though he took one of her other skirts to size it.
    It had been a week and Mom had already lost weight.
    He got me a purple dress.
    “Purple?” I said when he got back. He shrugged. “The lady said it’d be good for this kind of thing.”
    The dress was bulky — too big everywhere. So Mom and me, we looked like sacks. Dad looked like a TV sports anchor with a shirt
     my mom had picked out.
    After I put on the dress, I was going to go to the kitchen to get some water but then I saw Dad with his head in his hands.
    He was shaking.
    I wasn’t thirsty anymore.
    We sat in the front pew.
    Dad sat at the stand because he was talking.
    The casket was right there. Right in front of me and Mom. It looked like a doll box. Like one of Olivia’s doll beds.
    Pink.
    Silver.
    Shining.
    The picture of Olivia at Newport beach sitting on top — the one we took the year before on our family vacation.
    Next to Mom was Agnes and her five kids and then Ted her husband. They were the only family we had and they flew all the way
     from Kansas, which cost them over a thousand dollars. They had to get a hotel too because there obviously wasn’t