I am silent. She studies my face, and the motel curtains catch the headlights of some car in the parking lot.

Of course not.

She looks down, shaking her head. That’s what he told your Aunt Jessica.

She must’ve got it wrong.

He told her you told him I was your maid.

Then he’s lying, I say. I stand in the corner now, the wall close to my back. From the muffled TV noises you can tell it is drywall and hollow. The dim lamp throws a shadow over the lower half of my body.

A maid.

I thought I told you he was lying.

Why would he lie, Gabe?

When did he supposedly tell her? He wouldn’t have gotten the chance.

He told her by the register, she says.

He didn’t have the chance.

Yes he did.

I tell her it is a lie and he was never near my aunt and did not say anything. I add that if she does not want to believe me, then I am sorry she found me. Mom sits very quietly. The more quiet she is, the quicker my words come, and they spill upon me like vomit, my jeans, my face, the walls, the floor. It is dark, this room, and I am talking and thinking and believing that maybe she believes me.

Then the words stop coming.

I am still angry at her when she begins to cry, softly.

I hesitate. I step towards her.

Mom?

She does not move. Her head is lowered and I can only see the top of her crown, the matted hair. For the first time I notice her hair roots are gray. I want to reach out but do not know how. Finally I sit timidly on the bed beside her. My arm just barely touches hers. Still, she doesn’t move.

Mom?

I lift my arm and wrap it awkwardly over her shoulder, and though she does not pull back, neither does she respond. I let it stay there for a moment, limp like a fish.

Please don’t cry.

Now she does shrug my arm off and I jerk it back as if it had been hurting her. We sit not touching and I want to do something, but she will not let me.

Then a key scrapes in the door lock and it opens, and Aunt Jessica comes into the doorway clutching the ice bucket and three cans of cold soda, and in the crook of her elbow is a Milky Way bar, my favorite. She stops, staring at me.

My mother does not look up.

Without a word Aunt Jessica sets down the ice bucket and the sodas and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

PART THREE

Dear Ika,