The walls are an old eggshell color that’s yellowing by the minute, and on top of that they’re bare except for two identical seascape prints she got from a garage sale. The carpet is an atrocious rusty brown. Always been ugly, but she works around it. I wish I could buy her a new house, full of brand-new furniture, with shiny hardwood floors, area rugs from some other country, and at least one original piece of art.

“Thank you for coming,” she says.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know. But I already feel better, knowing y’all are here.”

“That’s what kids are for, Mama. To give you some degree of comfort.”

“I wish Charlotte felt that way.”

“She does, Mama.”

“Who you kidding? I think she like adding to my misery, but it’s okay. Three out of four ain’t bad.”

“Charlotte’s always been jealous of anybody you show some attention to besides her. In your heart, you should know she doesn’t really want to hurt you, Mama.”

“All kids don’t like their parents, you know. And ain’t no rule that say you gotta like your kids either. Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about her. I want you to listen to me and listen to me good, you understand?”

“Okay.”

“And take everything at face value.”

“Mama, please don’t let this be one of those if-I-die-today-or-tomorrow speeches. Please?”

“Be quiet, Paris. You can call it anything you wanna call it, I don’t care. Just pay attention, would you, Miss Know-It-All?”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“This attack scared the hell out of me.”

“They all should, Mama.”

“No, baby. This one was a doozy.”

“But you’re still here,” I say, trying my damnedest to sound positive even though my cheery voice is fake.

“Yeah, but I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Fighting.”

“What do you mean, ‘fighting’?”

“Every time I feel one of these things coming on, I panic, and that’s what makes it harder and harder to breathe, and it’s taking all the strength I have to keep doing it.”

“So what are you saying, Mama?”

“I’m saying that, if the day should come when I can’t fight no more, I wanna make sure you see to it that the other kids don’t completely fuck up their lives. They need guidance, Paris, and you might have to be the one to give it to ’em.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Just because I’m the oldest?”

“Naw, that ain’t the only reason. You got good sense. And you using it the way I always prayed all of you would, and you also doing something the rest of us ain’t.”

“What’s that?”

“Making money.”

“Oh, really. Well, first of all, Mama, you might want to consider giving up this gloomy notion of dying altogether, because, as soon as you get on this new diet—if you can force yourself to give up that stupid beer, among other things—and you go see a holistic doctor instead of these pill pushers, you’ll see how you can learn to manage this disease.”