Rachel Lyon

THE FRAGRANT CONSCIOUS WORLD

When the test results came back no one was surprised. Kitty had been acting strangely for years. Warren’s mother called to tell him. He was in the middle of a shift at the restaurant but by then he was sick enough of the job that he’d taken to going out the back entrance for smoke breaks whenever there was a rush, though he didn’t smoke. Needless to say, his coworkers loathed him. When he stepped out to take the call by the recycling bins of cardboard boxes and wine bottles, through the slow-closing door one of them gave him the finger. She was a pocked-face girl with an exquisite neck tattoo. He’d never bothered to learn her name. He gave her the finger back, then felt guilty about it.

Listen, Wren, his mother said. Nana Kitty has Alzheimer’s.

The Chicago wind blew hard into the phone, releasing tears from his eyes.

Hello? said his mother.

I’m here, he said.

She said, I think you should come home and take care of her.

What? Me? Why?

Who else is there? his mother asked.

You?

I have a job, Warren.

So do I, Mother.

Barely. Come on. You hate your roommates, you hate your room, you hate the commute, you hate the cold. You’ve been in Chicago two years—

Sixteen months, he said.

—and you haven’t found your footing. It’s not your ecosystem, bud. Why don’t you come home?

What about a home health aide? he said.

Do you know how much that would cost?

I’m not going to do it for free.

I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a week. You’ll have your own room, rent-free. You can save up to go back to school.

Why are you so obsessed with school?

What? she said. I can’t hear you. It’s so windy there!

So he quit his job—no one was disappointed to see him go—and took a Greyhound back to Ohio, where his mother’s house sat waiting for him on a flat gray lawn, under flat gray skies, squat and flimsy as an ant trap.

*

When he opened the door she wasn’t home. He wandered the house like a tourist from the future. Everything felt old and strangely small. His Nerf basketball hoop seemed to have slid three or four inches down the closet door. Had he grown in the last sixteen months? He regarded his face in the bedroom mirror. Never had that mirror reflected so much facial hair. Who was his hairiest friend? Chia, no contest, poor fucker—nicknamed for his Chia Pet face—but Chia had never come over. No one had. Warren’s mom’s house was just not the kind of place people liked to hang out. It wasn’t that they didn’t like her. She was cool enough, for a mom. She wasn’t strict. Wasn’t sad. She was just smart. Annoyingly so. She could really suck the fun out of a room. What was the phrase? High maintenance.

A thought occurred to him and he took a moment to rummage in his sock drawer. Yes, there it was: a small Ziploc baggie, wrinkled dry by time, and the measly remains of his stash. He rolled a doll-sized joint and smoked it out back among the snow-coated patio furniture. The weed was stale but he got a faint buzz. A bright ruby cardinal alit on a power line, shaking free a psoriasis of snow.

He was watching cartoons, eating Veggie Stix, drinking a diet ginger ale, fully regressed, when his mother opened the door. She knew before she’d even hugged him that he was high. Did you find my weed? she demanded. Even she was smaller than he remembered.

Your weed? His mind entered and interrogated an unlikely version of reality. Come to think of it, her absent son’s sock drawer wouldn’t be the worst place to keep her own drugs. Although he was a little hurt that she’d set him up like that.

Your sock drawer? she said.

He said, Did I say that out loud?

She fished in her purse and produced a slick, feminine vape pen. When she pulled on it and exhaled, an almost scentless vapor clouded the room. I’ve had a medical card for years, she replied to his gaping stare. This isn’t strong stuff. Mostly CBD. Better than opiates! Am I right?

Let me get a hit, he said.

She passed it to him. He inhaled and coughed. It certainly didn’t seem to be mostly CBD. It seemed pretty THC-heavy, in fact.

It doesn’t kill pain, she said, but it sure makes me happy.

They spent that night packing for Nana Kitty’s. To the understuffed duffel he’d brought from Chicago they added a sweater he hated, a baseball cap, rain boots, swim trunks, half a package of gluten-free brownies, an unopened bag of Veggie Stix, and a teddy bear he didn’t have the heart to tell her he didn’t remember. The next morning he removed most of it and got in the passenger’s seat of her car.

Okay, Wren, his mother said, in a businesslike manner. Nana Kitty is not who she used to be. I want you to be prepared for that. She goes in and out. She may not know you. Especially not since that beard of yours. If you can call it a beard. Have you considered shaving? You look like something from the island of the lost toys.

She herself was dressed in a skirt-suit. Since he’d left home she’d gotten a new job in HR at a big corporate outfit that had opened an outpost in their meager downtown, with lots of fanfare and hoo-hah about giving back to the community, about redevelopment. From the passenger’s side window, downtown still looked about as depressed and depressing as he remembered it. At least something had stayed the same.

Lost boys, you mean? he said, looking out the car window at a couple of dudes nodding off at a bus stop. Like Never-never-land?

What? she said. Oh. No, toys. Like one of those wooden dogs on a string with flappy legs attached to his wheels, but a couple of wheels have popped off, and he’s covered in marker. Like a doll with a pull string in the back but when you pull it she only says creepy garble. And she’s missing an eye.

Did you get high again this morning? he said.

I’m high most of the time. I’ve always been a wake-and-baker. She shot him a sudden look, more surprise than concern. Honey, did you not know that?

No, he said, and regretted not having invited his friends over more often, years ago. 

*

Nana Kitty’s house hadn’t weathered the winters too well. The middle of the roof was slumped in. The porch was missing a step. The siding had come unstuck and was peeling up like a Post-it note.

I feel like I’ve been away a lot longer than a couple of years, Warren said.

Sixteen months, said his mom, correcting him, and then added: Hey, are you ever going back to college?

Oh! he said, you know what? I would? But I just got this job babysitting my nana.

Wise-ass, she said.

Where’s her car? he said.

I had to confiscate it. The doctor said to stop driving.

What’d you do with it? He attempted to keep the hope out of his voice.

Sold it, she said, and got out.

The respective slams of their car doors stood out with contour and precision against the matte winter soundscape. They climbed the porch and peered in at the door like a couple of window-shoppers at the world’s saddest thrift store.

Mom! Mom, you up? His mother knocked. In a low voice, she added: If she’s still asleep I might have to just leave you here. Are you dressed warm?

Don’t leave me here, said Warren, aghast.

Honey, isn’t that the whole deal? Isn’t that what you agreed to?

It’s thirty degrees! He pointed at the outdoor thermometer, stuck like a mezuzah to the doorjamb, and its dwindling levels of mercury. After a moment, past the grime on the pane, amid the shadows inside, a four-and-a-half-foot-tall form materialized in the hallway. Nana Kitty was not coming to the door. She was just standing there, peering back at them, holding a baseball bat.

Mom! Warren’s mother called loudly. Put the bat down. It’s just me. Your loving daughter! And look who I brought with me. Little Wren! Not so little anymore, huh?

A quiet, age-rusted voice came from within.

What’d she say? Warren asked.

Who knows, said his mom. Unlock the door, Mother, please. I’ll be late.

Nana Kitty shuffled hesitantly closer. She stood a couple of feet from the window, looking out with suspicion, clinging to the bat. Her white hair was a mess. She was wearing a nightgown and a pair of old hiking boots, the laces untied.

God, said Warren’s mom. Every day she doesn’t fall and break a hip is a fucking miracle. Look, Mom, it’s Warren! Remember Warren? Your grandson!

Warren’s big smile didn’t seem to have much effect. Why don’t you have a key? he asked.

I tried to get a copy made. The lock’s too old. They don’t make keys like hers anymore, apparently. Has to do with the shape of the—. His mother glanced at her cell phone. I don’t have time for this shit. Can you deal with this? Get her dressed. Brush her hair. Make sure she takes her medications at noon and five. They’re all sorted out in that days-of-the-week thinger in the drawer by the sink. A little TV is fine, but try not to watch TV all day, all right? Take her for a walk! Keep her engaged! I’ll drop by after work to check in on you. Shit, maybe not tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. I’ll come by soon, though. I’ll bring dinner. I’ll bring pizza!

What if she never lets me in?

With surprising grace, given her heels and skirt-suit, she skipped over the missing porch step, got into the car, backed out of the driveway, and, with a little wave, shouted: Just crawl in through the window! I do it all the time.

Helpless, he waved back. He could feel Nana Kitty looking at him through the window, but he didn’t really want to turn around. He really didn’t want to turn around. He watched a little brown bird land on a branch, take stock, and fly off again, as if realizing it had made a wrong turn. Listened past the sound of his own heartbeat to the faintly oceanic rush of traffic on the highway. The road was obscured by snow-clotted pines and overgrown boxwood stiffened by ice. He could remember crawling under those bushes, hot summer days, sixteen-seventeen years ago. Dozing off to the zippery buzz of the crickets, festive clunking of ice in his mother’s and grandmother’s plastic cups, and the music of the two of them talking about things he was too young to understand. It was cozy and safe in there, with the packed earth underneath him and the bush all around him, its prickly branches and fragrant leaves.

Behind him the door unlocked. Nana Kitty’s voice broadcast deep and crackling as an old radio: Well, come in.

He turned and followed her, duffel slung over his shoulder. The odors of her home made a powerful agent of nostalgia—dust, coffee, laundry, roast chicken, the faint ghost of cat piss past—that conspired to fire off a series of long-forgotten synapses in the way-back of his mind. He let his bag slump to the floor and melted into a kitchen chair. She examined him coldly, a portrait of dignity despite the worn nightgown and sleep-tufted hair, despite the underpainting of kitchen clutter behind her.

Are you homeless? she inquired.

Um, he said. Technically, maybe he was.

Are you employed?

Nana, he began.

Don’t Nana me, she said.

It’s me, Warren. I’m here to stay with you for a while.

You’d do better than to show up here looking like roadkill, she said, if you’re angling to marry my daughter.

Oh, whoa, he said. No, I’m not Bill. Bill never married your daughter. Bill—uh—Bill’s not important. I’m Warren, Wren, Bill’s son. Your daughter’s son. Your grandson!

She leaned toward him, squinting, and tripped on her shoelaces. He sprang up and caught her; she fell into his arms like a dream of an old woman, tiny and weightless. Her skin felt like Play-Doh. She smelled like unclean scalp, baby powder, and pee.

Get your hands off me! she said.

He held her out, arm’s length. You know what? You’re right. I could use a shave. Let’s go to the bathroom and get ourselves freshened up. He gave her an encouraging smile: That’ll be fun, right?

So commenced Warren’s first day as Nana Kitty’s home health aide. He brought her to the bathroom and rooted around in the drawers until, with a paleontologist’s luck, he uncovered an antique straight razor. He lathered his scraggly beard with a dry brick of soap that was probably older than he was, and managed to scrape his face smooth, cutting himself only once. Success! He hadn’t seen his face bare in months, maybe years. It was big and splotchy and childish. He turned to her, intending to show off, and pointed at it: Now do you remember me? In response she ripped two fibrous bits of TP from the roll beside her and beckoned him down. He knelt before her so that with soft tremulous fingers she could stick the paper to his jaw to tamp the blood. He was surprised and embarrassed to find that the intimacy of the gesture brought tears to his eyes. He was just twenty-one, a fatherless boy who’d had little success in the world so far. He put his head on his grandmother’s lap. Warren, she said in that staticky voice of hers, as if waking from a dream. Oh little Wren, honey, don’t cry. But by the time Warren’s mother called to remind him about the pills with lunch, Nana Kitty had forgotten him again.

He heated up some soup from a can and peeled up the foil on a plastic cup of applesauce. He fed her each pill in a heaping spoonful and wiped her mouth when she dribbled. She spoke in non sequiturs, alternately playful and fearful, wheedling and imperious, assured and confused. After lunch she became sleepy. The sky darkened. Flurries materialized in the wind. He installed her in front of the TV and let her nod off while he put his things away.

The house had two bedrooms: Nana Kitty’s and the one that had been his mother’s. In the years just after Bill left, while his mom finished school and worked nights to save up for a place of their own, Warren had slept in here with her, in a collapsible crib next to her twin bed. The nappy wool of the carpet was as familiar to him as the skin of his own hand—more so, in fact, because it hadn’t grown or changed. He had slept on this carpet, face up and face down. He had tantrummed upon it. He had thrown up and peed and spilled juice upon it. On three or four occasions in the throes of adolescence he had snuck in here and ejaculated upon it. Clean enough now, still it bore the indelible stains of him. Impulsively he lay down and rubbed his shaved cheek against its rough surface. The texture and smell of it ignited a long-untouched sense-memory, beyond words: a crackling feeling of childhood secrecy almost akin to arousal. Through the half-open door he could hear faint arguing in a television courtroom and, undergirding that, the gentle rhythm section that was Nana Kitty’s light snores. This place was riddled with booby traps for his brain. He would spend his next months here at once young and old, warden and inmate, caretaker and pet.

*

Time staggered on, and they settled into a routine. In previous jobs Warren had hardly been known for his work ethic, but he had an intuition for caretaking. In retrospect he’d often been the one to take care of people at parties who’d had one too many, or who’d taken something unintentionally, or who were just tripping too hard. Chia once referred to him, sarcastically but flatteringly, as Stink, the Spirit Guide. And indeed now and then the tedious days would be broken up by some Alzheimer’s-related surprise that reminded him all too much of babysitting someone who was on a bad trip.

Sometimes, particularly when his beard was growing out, Kitty would mistake him for his father; other times for her own. She’d affect a high, childish voice until he told her sternly to be a big girl. Sometimes, in deep disorientation, she’d curse him or cry. He learned to get out her old copy of Alice in Wonderland, which she’d memorized front to back eighty years ago in grade school, and read to her until she recognized the text and began chanting along with him, as if singing a familiar song. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat. Every now and then she’d break character completely and say something truly cruel. One afternoon she actually slapped him and called him a failure. She’d called him Barbara just moments before, though, so he chose to believe the insult wasn’t meant for him. Windows into her true self opened rarely, and so were unspeakably holy. He tried not to live for them, for he knew that eventually they would cease altogether.

He tried to milk what amusement he could from his new circumstances, for the purpose of entertaining his mother, but translating Nana Kitty’s weird antics into tellable stories proved difficult. Her behaviors were incongruous, confounding, and usually unforeshadowed, so not super rich in terms of narrative potential. Besides, as his mother visited less and less frequently, what anecdotes he did successfully cook up for her tended to go stale before he could tell them.

In the beginning, weekends and evenings, she’d come by with groceries or takeout, and stay and hang out after Nana Kitty went down, as she put it. He’d sit with her, pass the vape pen back and forth, and listen to her dressings-down of her colleagues and their affairs. The VP of marketing was sleeping with the junior VP of sales. The junior VP of sales was sleeping with two spring semester interns! Total HR nightmare! He found his mom’s sardonic monologues entertaining enough that, now and then, his laughter would wake Nana Kitty. She’d rise like a moaning ghoul in the dark, wild-haired and bewildered, and have to be soothed back to sleep.

Seeing her mother like that was probably why, over time, Warren’s own mom stopped coming by so much. Then again, he suspected she’d never really wanted to hang out with him in the first place. Once she established Warren could be trusted, days would go by, then whole weeks, when he didn’t see her at all.

*

I’m bored, he told her. They were sitting on the porch on a cool night in early spring, on one of her occasional trips. He’d been living chez Nana for a few months. Stars glimmered above them, a breeze fidgeted around them, and a lame spread went soggy between them: Cabot cheese, grapes, and saltines.

Bored, said his mom. Well, it isn’t forever. She sucked on the pen and passed it to him. Don’t you have any friends?

What, around here?

You used to have lots of friends in high school. Didn’t you? Whatever happened to that guy, what’d you call him, Chia?

He died, Warren said.

Died! Of what?

Warren looked at her as if she was being dense, which she was, and watched her face change as she inferred.

I didn’t know Chia was into that kind of stuff.

Chia? He was the biggest pothead I ever met. Except for you, turns out.

Yeah, she said, but pot’s pot. You can’t OD on pot.

Well, said Warren, irritated. He didn’t.

His mom sucked hard and held the vapor in her lungs. Are you into that kind of stuff? Her voice was feeble and strained.

No, he said. Not that kind of stuff. She was still staring, so he elaborated: I’m more of a psychedelics type of guy.

The truth was he’d never tried anything stronger than pot. He’d never even drunk more than a couple of beers in a sitting. He didn’t know why he’d lied. Was he trying to be cool? For his mother?

Good, she replied when her lungs were empty. Never trust any drug that claims to relieve pain. Pain is life. Life is pain.

Life is boredom, he complained.

Think of it this way, she said. Most people don’t get to spend all this time with their nanas before they die.

Jealous? he said. Want to trade places?

Think of it this way, she repeated. You’re helping me. This shit is too hard when it’s your own mom. Would you want to spend all this time with me, if I were like her?

No, he admitted, and, imagining his mother in a nightgown and hiking boots, he laughed. You won’t be like her.

She laughed too at some mental image of her own, invisible to him. God, she said, I’m going to be such a pain in the ass. What are you going to do with me?

Put you in a home, probably!

That quieted both of them.

He looked at her. His mother, his friend. She was not beautiful, but her face was the kind of face you wanted to crawl inside of. It did not falter. It did not cry. It was a face that protected. A face like a home.

Eventually he broke the silence. I want a raise, he said.

Oh, she said. Okay.

*

When he received two hundred dollars direct deposit that week, his bank account hit a record high, and he thought he’d celebrate. He asked his mom for her dealer’s number, but she didn’t have one. I have a medical card, she reminded him. He scrolled through the numbers in his phone, looking for someone who might know someone. At Chia’s old number, he paused. Why hadn’t he ever deleted it? On impulse, he called.

A girl’s voice answered. Damien?

Paralyzed, he didn’t reply.

Damien, said the girl, I swear to God if you’re fucking with me again—

Sorry, no, he said. You have my friend’s old number?

Oh. She recalibrated. You a friend of Chia’s? What’s your name?

Warren, he said.

Warren? Wait a minute, she said. You wore a blue beanie, right? What’d it say—

With the dinosaur on it? he said. Yeah.

But it said something, though.

The dinosaur was farting?

She erupted in laughter. Ex-STINK-tion! OMG I used to laugh so hard about that. Wait a minute, that’s why Chi called you Stink!

Wait a sec, he said, is this Chia’s sister?

Fuck yes it is, she said proudly.

An image from years ago rose to the surface of his mind: a gangly ten-year-old in braids and LA Lights. The way she’d run around after them like a pup. Jeannie? he said.

Janine.

Janine! He said, You used to do all those scooter tricks in the driveway.

I’m a mom now, she said.

In a moment of human slapstick, he dropped the phone. When he picked it up again she was going on about her baby boy: nine months old and fat as a cheeseburger. I’ll let Chia know you called, she said. I talk to him every night.

Delicately Warren asked, Does he… talk back?

He could hear her breathing. Stink, she said. You know he’s dead. Right?

Oh! Yeah, no, I know. You meant, like, prayer. Yeah, uh, let him know I said what’s up. Is that how that works? Hey, also—

Thinking better of it, he cut himself off.

What? she said.

Forget it.

Are you trying to score drugs from me, Warren?

Good talking to you!

That’s pretty fucked up, she said, don’t you think? Considering how my brother died?

I’m sorry, he said. I meant no disrespect.

Laughter rippled again from the phone. Stink! LOL I’m just fucking with you! I mean if I thought you were after the shit that killed Chia, I’d never help you out. But you’re not that type of dude, right?

I’m more of a psychedelics type of dude, Warren said.

That’s what I took you for. Ex-Stink-tion. Gets me. Here, I’ll share you my guy’s contact, okay? Hang on, I’m about to put you on speaker—

His phone buzzed.

There you go! Her voice was muffled and echoey, as if she’d gone far away.

Thanks, Janine. He didn’t want her to hang up.

No sweat! she said from the faraway place. Call me again. We can kick it!

*

It was with a euphoric thrill that he called the number she sent him. He was just going to purchase some weed, but Janine’s guy mentioned he had psilocybin. Fresh from the earth, he said. Ground up and packaged conveniently in pill form.

Got any in its original mushroom form? Warren asked warily.

You’re funny, said the guy. Sure, yeah.

In the middle of dinner with Nana Kitty, someone pulled into the driveway. Warren popped outside barefoot and hopped down the steps. The guy’s car was a junker but his stereo system was tight. Lush rhythmic music played through the speakers. Warren forked over the cash and the guy handed him a baggie. He was rolling up his window when Warren added, despite himself, inspired by Janine: Hey man, I’m new in town, I mean, I grew up here, but I left for a while, but I don’t really know anyone anymore, so, uh, I don’t know, let me know if you ever want to… kick it.

Janine’s guy laughed at him, closed the window, and drove off. Warren stood there a moment, drugs in hand, feet on Earth. The sun was on its way down, casting the whole neighborhood in vivid, trippy pink. Dweeb, he thought. I am a dweeb. But for once he was hopeful he might not be a dweeb for life. He shuffled back in, rinsed the dishes and, when Nana Kitty followed the sun to her bedroom, ate a couple of caps. They tasted like poison. Correction: they were poison. He went out on the porch and waited for things to get weird.

The air was cool and liquid. A stripe of sunset lingered, pink and stippled with blue goose-bump clouds. Bats zigzagged in silhouette. A squirrel busied itself in a tree. An owl asked its one, mournful question again and again. Warren became conscious of a curious sensation washing over him in slow, rhythmic waves: one part nausea, one part the feeling like right before laughing, a pre-explosive tightening in the ears and throat. He might puke, he thought. He might laugh. Puke or laugh, laugh or puke: he’d be doing one of the two shortly, for sure. Maybe both. He got up, but slowed halfway. Standing felt like stretching. It was as if, though his feet would remain on the porch floor, his head might never stop rising, through the roof, between the dark, airborne mammals, and into the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little bats.

Laughter. Why not? It was funny. Funny that he’d asked Janine’s dealer to kick it. Funny that he was tripping alone. Funny that it was funny that it was funny that it was funny. Laughter begat laughter, spreading like a dancing virus within him, organ to organ. He thought of the phrase belly laugh. His belly was laughing! The nape of his neck was laughing. His fingers were laughing, scrunched against his palms. His asshole and scrotum and heart were laughing. Tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his face, liquid emissions of his hilarity, his grief. All feelings were the same feeling! How had he never realized it?

Stars had appeared like photon-sized slits in a sieve for light. He looked up and watched the sky breathe. Everything was breathing. His skin was breathing; he was a sieve, too, porous and leaking and soaking up gases, liquids and solids, sound waves and feels. He was nothing but an unstable cluster of living cells, an ecosystem within an ecosystem within an ecosystem. He breathed and was breathed. He watched and was watched. The universe watched him, neither malevolent nor benevolent.

Something was watching him, anyway.

He turned and through the window in the door saw an old child in the kitchen behind him. Four and a half feet tall in a nightgown, holding a baseball bat, heading toward the front door. She was reaching for the lock. She would lock him out! With great presence of mind, he opened the door preemptively.

Get out! barked Nana Kitty, and brought the bat down on the top of his head. Multidimensional sparkles of pain shot through his skull. Twinkle bat. He laughed.

Get out or I’ll call the police! she warned him.

He removed the bat from her hands with ease. He looked in her eyes. He got on his knees. He put his arms gently around her, squeezing her delicate body. His touch seemed to calm her. He leaned his head against her belly and listened to the quiet gurgles in her. She too was an ecosystem. The laughter started up again.

Stop it, she commanded.

He quieted.

What’s that? She was pointing at the baggie that had fallen to the floor beside him.

Mushrooms, he said, feeling the syllables in his mouth. Silo-sigh-bin. The skin of her legs was engrossing, a topographical map.

I want some, she said.

I don’t think that’s a good idea, he murmured. With a finger he followed the spidery roads of her legs, the bulging varicose rivers. You won’t like the way they taste.

What do you know? she said.

Nana, it’s drugs, he said.

I take drugs.

Magic mushrooms. They make you…

I know what they do, Warren. Give your nana some magic.

The window had opened.

He felt a rush of compassion for her, carless and witless in this decaying house, with her decaying brain. Hadn’t there been studies on the use of psilocybin in patients with dementia? or was that PTSD? or OCD? allergies, maybe? Regardless he was sure it was safe. Regardless whatever she was taking on a daily basis sure didn’t seem to do fuck-all. Who was he to deny an adult woman her agency? He coaxed her into a kitchen chair, opened the baggie, and broke off a cap. She gaped the way she did when he gave her pills in applesauce. As she chewed and swallowed her expression was stoic. He took a seat at the table beside her. Became lost in the pattern of trompe l’oeil lacework on the plastic tablecloth. Time passed, or didn’t. What was time? There was only this moment. There had only ever been this moment, singular, infinite. Perhaps they were in heaven. Perhaps Chia was somewhere close by. Yes, Warren thought, he could feel his old friend, could perhaps even hear him laughing, if he listened hard enough, in the next room.

He raised his head and was met with a three-dimensional painting made of light. Nana Kitty sat under the kitchen lamp. Her eyes were clear, her lips dry. Her mouth opened kaleidoscopically. She said, I want to go home.

You are home, Nana. This is your home.

She put her hand on his hand. No, she said. I want to go home.

Nana. He felt his eyes go wide with dawning revelation, heard his voice slip into sing-song. Nana, you are a home. You’re a home for your cells. For your thoughts. For your voice. A home for bacteria. For lots of microscopic little guys. A home for your memories, such as they are. A home for my memories. A home for me.

Her eyes went dark. I’m no home for me. She lifted her hand from his and got up and made her way toward the door. He followed her.

And then they were outside, breathing the starlight. She led him to the tree in the yard. They put their hands on its living bark to feel its glacial heartbeat. She led him along the ragged hedge. They ran their fingers through its prickling. When they reached the spot he remembered from childhood, he helped her onto her hands and knees and together they crawled inside the familiar cavity in the boxwood. They had to lie close together to fit. They lay on their backs side by side. They felt the warmth of each other, and the cool crust of the earth, and in a state beyond language they released their selves into the fragrant conscious world.

*

Light. A racket of birds. The damp chill of dew on his clothing. The weight and scent of Nana’s cottony head on his shoulder. The shuddering of an engine. The slam of a door. His mother’s voice by his feet, shrill and livid:

The fuck happened here? I mean, what the fuck happened here? I come over to deliver her refill and find the two of you on the ground with your heads in a bush? Have you lost your mind? You’re wet to the bone! Get up, Warren! Was she out here all night? Her legs are bare! Get up, Warren, get the fuck up—

Slowly he scooted out into the morning. Gently he helped Nana Kitty out too. There was mud on her face. There were twigs in her hair. Her eyes were blank. Her mouth was slack. They stood on the lawn like disgraced children, absorbing his mother’s invective. Nana Kitty would be put in assisted living. Warren would be fired immediately. It was all right. It was all all right. His time with Nana Kitty had only ever been temporary.

RACHEL LYON is author of the novels Self-Portrait with Boy (Scribner, 2018), a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize; and Fruit of the Dead (Scribner, 2024), named a most anticipated book by Elle, Oprah Daily, and People. Rachel’s short fiction appears in Catapult, One Story, and The Rumpus. Shel lives with her husband and children in Western Massachusetts, where she cohosts the Dream Away Reading Series, and was recently appointed the 2024 Paris Writer in Residence, a position cosponsored by the Paris School of Arts and Culture, the American University of Paris, and the Centre Culturel Irlandais.