Free The First Last Day by Dorian Cirrone

Mom. So that afternoon, I decided to fake sickness and stay home instead of going to Atlantic City.
    As soon as Mom was done planting her seeds, she sat on the couch with her laptop, and I curled up beside her.
    â€œFeeling better?” she asked.
    â€œA little. But . . . I’ve been thinking about things.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œDad taught me about Einstein, so I’ve been reading more about time and space.”
    â€œThat’s an awfully serious thing to be thinking about, particularly during summer vacation.” Mom put her arm around me. “Tell me what you learned.”
    â€œOne thing I read was about how the Earth gains a few minutes every century. In the time of the dinosaurs, there were only twenty-three hours in a day. And millions of years from now, a day will be twenty-five hours.”
    â€œInteresting,” Mom said. “I guess we won’t be around to see that twenty-five-hour day, which is probably a good thing.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThese days, I’m exhausted by eight o’clock at night. I can’t imagine having to work an extra hour.” She smiled. “Especially if I were more than a million years old.”
    â€œI guess you’re right,” I said. “It would be great if we never had to get older, wouldn’t it?”
    Mom squeezed my shoulder. “As much as I’d love for you to stay my little girl forever, I don’t think I’d like that.”
    â€œBut isn’t this a great summer? Wouldn’t you want it to last forever?”
    Mom closed her laptop. “I do love being here at the shore with you and your father. And I do like the idea of never getting wrinkles or arthritis . . . but there are a few reasons why I wouldn’t want to keep living this day over and over.”
    â€œLike what?”
    She picked up a stack of paper next to her on the couch. “I’d love to finish all this work on van Gogh, so I can finally publish my book.”
    â€œBut what if you didn’t know that you’d never finish. Isn’t doing the research fun enough?”
    â€œSure it is, but I’d love the satisfaction of seeing a finished book and having people enjoy it. Do you know that van Gogh created more than two thousand works of art and only sold one painting in his lifetime?”
    â€œWow! Two thousand! No wonder he was such a good artist—he got a lot of practice.”
    â€œCan you imagine doing all that work and never knowing how the world appreciated it?” Mom said. “He never had any idea how many people would admire his work in museums all over the world.”
    I nodded, thinking about how good my drawings were getting—and only Mom had seen them. “That is sad.”
    Mom’s eyes turned even more serious. “It’s a shame he couldn’t have known the future. Maybe he would have been happier. And maybe he wouldn’t have taken his own life at such a young age. We’ll never know.”
    I thought about how van Gogh didn’t know his future and how, if the time loop continued, I would never know mine. Would I be a famous artist, like van Gogh? Or an art history professor, like Mom? Then I thought of all the bad things that could happen in the future, and my head started to hurt.
    â€œAre you okay?” Mom asked.
    â€œYes. But you’re sure you wouldn’t want this summer to last forever?”
    â€œI don’t have that choice. But even if I did, this morning when I woke up, I wasn’t feeling too well.” Mom put her hand on her stomach. “I would hate for that to happen every day of my life.”
    I hadn’t really noticed, but after Mom mentioned it, I remembered she’d been in the bathroom for a long time. My own stomach tightened, and I wondered ifMom was sick. I studied her face. Had she always had those dark circles under her eyes? How could I have been so selfish not to notice what