Free Unprotected by Kristin Lee Johnson

them.
    “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? It would add to the melodrama of the lone daughter watching her mother die.” He put his head down in his hands and rubbed his hair hard.
    “What the hell is wrong with you?!” Amanda yelled at him, her voice shaking with rage and exhaustion. “What are you mad at me for? Go home if you don’t want to be here. I never asked you to stay.”
    “You bet I’m mad at you. I’m sick of you moping around like some victim, just letting shitty things happen to you so people like my mother can rescue you.”
    Amanda almost fell off her chair in shock. She was furious, but she also needed to cower from his sudden angry attack. She wanted to curl in a corner and disappear like a wounded, orphaned puppy. She couldn’t find a word to say. So Jake continued.
    “There you go again, sitting there with your chin quivering because I’m yelling at you. Why don’t you go scratch yourself up again, or dig some new welts in your hands? Yell at me. Yell at her, your bitch of a mother who did a shitty job being your mom and then goes off and dies on you, leaving you a freaking orphan. Yell at that doctor that cares so much he’ll be two floors down, but you can call him when she croaks. Yell at me for being such a bastard. Do something, Amanda! Stand up for yourself or this world is going to swallow you up whole!”
    Amanda jumped up and wanted to walk out, but she let herself explode on him instead. “Go to hell, Jacob. I’ll be just fine after you and the rest of your family go back to your lives and drop my charity case from your roster. I have a life, and I can take care of myself.” She went to Trix’s chair by the window and sat down again in a huff. Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Amanda swore he looked like he felt better.
     
    * * *
     
    They spoke very little the rest of that day. Trix returned with bags of food, which Jake devoured and Amanda barely touched. Amanda and Trix alternately played rummy and did crosswords together. Jake slept or watched MTV, still with the volume down to nothing. He didn’t go home to change, but went into the hallway bathroom at one point to brush his teeth and add some gel to his hair. Amanda called into work and said she wouldn’t be coming in until further notice. Michael brought them dinner and stayed into the evening.
    April died later that evening uneventfully. Her breathing got faster, then labored, then slower, and finally her chest didn’t rise again. Amanda stared blankly at the flat line, and then at her mother. She waited for her mother’s chest to rise, as though needing to confirm what the machine was obviously telling her. She was gone. There were five bodies, but four lives in the room. Amanda wondered if her soul was floating out of her, or if a ghostly apparition sat up and walked out, invisible to the mortals in the room. She looked up, as if to look at heaven and try to see if her mother was there yet, but of course all she saw were the water stained tiles of the ceiling.
    Michael slipped out of the room, presumably to find a nurse. Jake and Trix were watching her. She was truly alone now that her mother was gone, but she felt no different than she did the moment before she died. She felt no more alone. Trix came over, knelt in front of Amanda and grabbed her hands. Amanda met her tearful eyes and shrugged, almost in apology. No emotion came.
    The next hours drifted by in surreal images. The doctor checked her mom’s vital signs and confirmed that she had died. There was some discussion about the time it had occurred. A nurse came in and began turning off and unplugging machines. Someone asked Amanda if she would like some time alone with her mother. She shook her head. Amanda could think of nothing to say to her.
    “She left instructions about which funeral home to use,” the nurse was saying to Trix. A small corner of Amanda’s brain registered how strange it was that April left instructions about the