My joints hurt and I wanted to roll out of bed and onto the floor and I did try but Mom pushed me back and I told her to fuck off and I started crying and Mom left and returned with a warmer washcloth and when she set it on my forehead I took it off and flung it across the room and it splattered against the wall.

I yelled at her all day and then all night and then all day and then all night and when she brought me barley soup I slapped it out of her hands because I thought it was that root club and I thought she wanted to swing at me but then I said I’m sorry and she brought me another bowl which she spooned in my mouth is that Ralph’s spoon and I wondered once and only once if I’d remember this moment and then I threw it all up and rubbed my sore throat while Mom rubbed my head.

For days coming off that methadone I fought with Mom and I cried to her and she shushed me each time I sat up and tried to get up and at some point Mom spoke to me—not to my body—and she said, “You’ll be back soon,” and the next thing I knew I envisioned Fellis’s truck reversing to a stop in front of Daryl on the ground who laughed and pointed at me and said “earthquake” and I split in half.

Mom was in her chair, sleeping. The washcloth on my forehead was cold.

I touched her knee and she lazily stirred. She put her hand to my forehead.

“Did they find him?” I said, and she said yes, that Beth bailed him out and he’s home, sick like me.

My lips were cracked and peeling. “What they get him for?”

“Burglary,” she said.

“What he steal?”

“Like you don’t know,” Mom said.

My nose ran and I wiped at it.

“How far did he get?” I asked.

“Boston,” Mom said. “It’s all over the news.”

I laughed and so did Mom. She left the room and came back with a newspaper.

“I can’t read that,” I said.

“‘Native Man Steals History,’” Mom read. She placed the newspaper over something wet on the floor. “He was caught with over one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of tribal memorabilia and a month’s worth of methadone from someone named Tricia.”

“Tabitha,” I said.

“Whatever.”

I sat up in bed.

“They looking for me?” I said.

“I showed you to them,” Mom said. “Brought the police right in here and they saw you were sick. You told one of them to go fuck themselves.”

I laughed.

Mom coughed. “It’s not funny. They got your friend. You were lucky.”

I was quiet.

“Take off my sock,” I said.