This was in the middle of my sickness. We knew the problem, I wasn’t eating, but my mom wanted to know the problem behind the problem—a favorite phrase of hers. It meant: cut the bullshit. The problem behind this problem was I wanted to be sick.

When she’d first seen me, she bit her lip in surprise. This was one of the things that gave me power, seeing myself reflected in other people’s eyes—my body shocking, its form unthinkable. “Oh my God,” she’d whispered. “How did we get here?”

We, she said. But the truth was I’d gone somewhere alone. My body was the way I told people I’d gotten there.

And so: Acanthus spinosus. Bear’s breeches. Penstemon barbatus. Bearded tongue. We’d had lunch before we came, an arduous trek across the Charles for dim sum. She believed in the power of activity, in doing things to keep the hours at bay. I could feel the food settling in my stomach, multiplying, a petri dish gone patchy with mold, gray fuzz creeping across the gelatin like windblown ash.

Gypsophila paniculata. Baby’s breath. I craved the pure sounds of their names without any concessions to the body hearing them—this body that was so much heavier than all their brittle petals and fragile syllables. Bearded tongue. My insides were mossy with everything I’d consumed.

My mother stared at me without touching me. “You look like glass,” she said. “The light comes through your cheeks.”

Her voice held the admission that she never could have done this thing that I was doing. This was part of why I’d done it. She had forgotten her body so absolutely that she’d almost dissolved it. She could crackle like pure energy against the cold room, as if composed entirely of its naked, furious light.

“I just keep looking at you,” she said. “I can’t stop.”

I was a mystery to her for once. I’d summoned the full force of her gaze.

Now it was four in the morning and I was arriving at her house. The office light was on, which meant that she was working or else she’d fallen asleep working. As she’d grown older, she’d started to need more rest. She hated this. So I have to lose hours along with years?

She came to the door quickly, ghostly, a stick figure in her white nightgown. Her hair was mussed and unnerving. Dye jobs were one of her only vanities, but now her hair looked like a striated cliff face, red rock beneath a band of gray. Her hand fluttered up to her scalp. “My roots,” she said. “I know.”

We hugged, careful with each other. I recognized the smell of her shampoo. When I was younger, I’d snuck into the bathroom after her showers to feel the humidity of the air, full of smells I associated with her skin.

I told her everything had gone to shit. With Tilly. I’d tried to make it better, but I’d only fucked it up worse. Now things were as bad as they’d ever been.