“No, no, no.” I shook my head. My mother was making the biggest fool of herself in this badly made infomercial. She might as well be selling an As Seen On TV product that just didn’t work, or that we never knew we needed—like a handheld device that sliced your cucumbers into perfect heart shapes, because until now we never knew how much we needed heart-shaped cucumbers. I watched in horror as my mother continued.

The camera swooped back down, and now she was sitting at a table with a stack of papers in front of her and a big bottle of champagne in an ice bucket.

“And we will take care of everything, all the tedious paperwork, all the admin—all you have to do is sit back and wait, until we . . .”

She stood up with a huge bunch of keys in her hand.

“ . . . put your dream home in the palm of your hand.”

She smiled as a man’s arm entered the shot. She threw her head back and laughed (I’m not sure why) as she placed the bunch of keys into the hand and then looked straight into the camera again.

“So, call me, Barbara Palmer, and let me make your luxury real estate dreams come true.”

And then, to end this horror show on a high note, she shook the champagne, popped the cork, and laughed as the golden bubbles flew into the air. I slammed my laptop closed. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone—some surreal, strange space where I was no longer in actual reality, but in some strange upside-down version of life.

I jumped off my bed and paced my room a few times. With each passing day, this person who was meant to be my mother was becoming more of a stranger to me. Who was this woman who made bad internet ads, wore leopard print, got her lips and eyes done, and spoke in a corny language? I didn’t know anymore who this new person was that was inhabiting my mother’s body like an alien growing inside her. And I guess I hadn’t really known since that day. The day the doves cried.

14