Dune fumed for hours until the truth of it broke open in her own awareness. She could not move around the absence of her mother thinking, feeling, being.

A salt-and-peppered Black doctor named Rogers pulled Dune to the side and explained that Kama’s brain activity was limited to the temporal lobe, the amygdala, and that no stimulation had generated any other responses. “She’s not technically brain dead, it’s more the kind of inactive prefrontal cortex we see in the severely depressed, but with the elevated stress hormonal flooding in the hippocampus that we associate with, well, with PTSD. As severe as her symptoms are, this does seem to be psychosomatic.”

This meant nothing to Dune.

Rogers recommended a few weeks of observation, and shared what it would cost each day to keep Kama on life support now that she was stabilized. The number didn’t strike Dune as possible in the real world. The hospital just needed proof that payment was possible, then they would transfer Kama to a long-term room. Dune knew she couldn’t even cover the stay so far.

Kama would have to come home.

“But what do I do? How do I feed her?”

“Broth. Water. And keep talking to her. You never know, the brain is still quite mysterious.” Dr. Rogers had a kind face, but closed. She spread her latex gloved hands, emphasizing how empty they were.

Two weeks later the city named the sickness Syndrome H-8. Dr. Rogers called and left Dune an urgent message. “We are sorry to bother you, but we believe your mother might be patient zero of Syndrome H-8. Please call me back, or when you get this please just bring her back down to the clinic.”

Dune missed that call. She was busy cremating her mother in the yard.

chapter two: Gather

The morning after her mother was made into ash, Dune came to as the sun crested the horizon. She had passed the night on the couch in the living room, an alchemy of whiskey and weed helping her mind quiet for a couple of hours. The detritus was still on the coffee table.

The afternoon before, after sitting by the bed until her mama’s skin was cold, Dune had wrapped Kama in the yellow flowered sheets of her deathbed and dragged her into the yard. She had piled wood, leaves, old print-outs of nonprofit strategic plans and other kindling under and around her mother, thrown matches into the chaotic pyre and blown her lungs out until everything was fire.