Free All the Dancing Birds by Auburn McCanta Page B

her smile in triumph. “You should be doing this every two weeks,” she says, waving her fingers at me. “Twenty bucks and you’ll feel like a beautiful new woman.”
    “Your MeeMaw,” I say, “now she was a beautiful woman, and never once did she have a manicure. Oh, I wish you could have known her.”
    “Mom, please,” Allison says, her eyes screwing sideways. “You really need to get out of those awful fat woman pants. We only have two weeks before our trip… . Why don’t we run out and get you some really stunning items? I have a friend who works in designer clothes at Nordys. You’ll be gorgeous. Trust me.”
    “Your MeeMaw, now, she was a beautiful woman. I wish you could have known her.”
    “You just said that a minute ago. You’ve said that at least twice now… don’t you remember?”
    “Ahh,” I say.
YOU TRIP. You trip over tangles of things that lie along the path of your memories. For all your vigilance over words that might repeat themselves without your permission, you find yourself once more wondering how you missed some sort of slippery string of thought that threads out from your mind. An obstacle over which to fall. “Ahh,” you say when your daughter reminds you that you’ve repeated a thought. Your ears tingle red with shame because duplicate thoughts keep falling onto your tongue, and “Ahh” is the only explanation you can manage. You picture words looping out again and again, like some crazy spirographic drawing and you can’t seem to stop yourself from adding more and more loops, until you have nothing but a jumble of black squiggles and a mouthful of “Ahhs” to mutter in apology. The horror is not that you repeat yourself; you don’t mind retelling your thoughts or your stories. Certainly, you understand your children saying, with a roll of their eyes, “Mom, you’ve already said that twice.” It’s clear you say things over and over, but still that’s not the terror of it all. No. Here’s the horror: your brain is breaking and no one can stop it. No one.
    “Stay with me here,” Allison says, looping words around my neck and pulling me back to her. “Hawaii. We’re going to Hawaii. It’ll be good for you.”
    Her words feel like her twenty-dollar fingernails have just scraped across the skin of my soul. “I understand,” I say, “but I need my pockets. For my notebooks.”
    Allison groans.
    “And,” I add, “of all the things I shall very soon forget, I hope this conversation is the first to go. You’re being rude and it doesn’t suit you.”
    “Come on, Mom. I get it. You have a rotten disease. I know that and I understand… really. Here, I have an idea… if you have to repeat something, just keep thinking, Hawaii, Hawaii.” She spreads open a hopeful smile and I take advantage.
    “Fair enough,” I say. “Still, I need something to carry my notebooks in. I can’t do without them and that’s just that.”
    “How about a nice purse, then? Something colorful.” She still carries the remnant of a five-year-old girl wheedling her mother for a new toy.
    The childishness of my daughter is off-putting.
    Sighing, I do the only thing available to someone in my position. “Fine, then,” I say. “We’ll go shopping for new pants for your frumpy old mother, and as soon as we’re back, I’ll wear whatever I want. Deal?”
    Allison’s lips curl up at the corners like delicious little red-skinned apple wedges. I want to eat them; I’m helpless against her soft mouth.
    “Yay, shopping,” Allison says.
    “Yay, indeed,” I say.
    Before I’m able to change my addled mind, Allison maneuvers me to the car. By the time we reach the mall, all lingering traces of argument are scrubbed clean. We are once more chattering magpies, La La La Girls holding hands, smiles decorating our faces. With Allison’s encouragement, I buy three sleek, hip-smoothing slacks, not a pocket to be found anywhere. She’s delighted. While she trots off to the ladies room, I