She sliced watermelon and poured Perrier and we sat in the shade in the backyard, its earth baked, cracked. As I perched there with my sunglasses, sipping through a straw, I recalled my uncle’s girlfriend, the KTLA reporter. I’d finally grown into her image—I was her now. Little did I know I’d never publish a piece of journalism again.

“Mimico,” Mom said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Mimico. What takes you there?”

I was excited to tell her about the story. She didn’t mean to, but she’d always withheld approval from my cultural work. Nothing could really impress her about an essay on Exile in Guyville or a profile of P.T. Anderson. Yet, as I began, I could see her face harden. I found myself not even telling the story, exactly, but trying to prove to her that it was worth hearing out.

“What’s it made of?” she asked.

“Plastic, basically.”

“Plastic blood? I’ve heard we’re still years away from that.”

To my surprise, I sounded like Dr. Kriss. “You’re not a medical doctor.”

“You don’t have to be a doctor to know the idea is ludicrous. If someone’s going around transfusing plastic into people, they’ve got a serious problem.”

“I’ve seen it myself.”

Mom brought the glass to her lips and looked out over the yard. I pretended to scratch my nose as I fought the emotion turning to mucus in my throat.

She’d taught organic chemistry at USC before the MS forced her into retirement. Science, for Mom, was a way of shutting everything down. Only strictly, narrowly true things commanded her attention, and if you happened to wander near her field of expertise without ample learning, you came away from the encounter feeling demeaned, not enlightened. I couldn’t help but question what the point was of her knowing so much, if it only dried out her imagination.

The sun dipped and went golden, shadows lengthening, and a mockingbird on a telephone pole cycled through the sounds of a car alarm. Time stood still in the backyard. If all else changes, I thought, every building restored and renovated, this jacaranda will still be here, throwing shade on the dead, dusty ground.

“It’s good to be home,” I said into a long silence.

“I’m going to lie down.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

She laughed once, as if I could never understand, and started gathering the dishes.

“Leave those,” I said. “I wish you’d tell me when you’re not feeling well.”

“Why?”

“I’d like to help.”

“That’s impossible.”

Was that why she’d bristled at the story? There was no cure for her. Science can do a lot of things, not everything.

“I was planning to go into the village for groceries,” I said. “I thought I’d make us dinner.”