I remember wanting to scream and also wanting to shit. I remember they gave me shots for the pain, but I don’t remember which ones. I remember feeling like I couldn’t do anything more until my body gathered up and said: Yes, you can. You will. I remember pushing with secret muscles tucked between my spine and crotch.

His body was purple and quivering with the force of his screams. When they lifted his head I was the first one who saw his face. His forehead was creased like he was worried and the skull looked soft as putty. His mouth was a round hole where the crying came from, opened wide enough to push folds of skin over his eyes, lips stained dark like he’d been eating blueberries. I thought: Here he is. The one thing I would never regret.

STELLA

We left for Lovelock in the early morning. Tom sat in the passenger seat of my Camry. “This little shitkicker of yours,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust it past city limits.”

But here he was, coming along. “If you’re planning to do this,” he said, “you shouldn’t do it alone.”

It was the part of him I could count on most: not knowing what he would choose or want. He was carrying a letter to Matilda from our mother. She’d been intentional about this, and very clear. It was for him to carry, not me.

On my road map, Lovelock was nothing more than a bump on the red vein of Highway 80. It was hardly a pinkie finger north of Reno. Sherman, the lawyer, was sending his notification in a week. I wanted to reach Matilda before his letter did. Sherman’s voice had the feel of bleached fabric, and he referred to Matilda as the “severed member,” as if she were a thumb.

The freeways were nearly empty. I thought of the other drivers with their knotted stomachs, fingers jittery from coffee and hooked around steering wheels. My own hands were clenched tight, my fingers curled into claws, knuckles flooded white as if they’d been steeped in milk.

The outer suburbs looked desolate outside our windows, the bleary outlines of a dream we hadn’t woken from: long strip malls full of auto dealerships and outlet stores. These towns had names like Rancho Cucamonga and Diamond Bar. Their parking lots lasted for miles.

Tom slept beside me. He’d gotten our mother’s delicate looks, the beakish nose and long lashes. The tendons of his neck pushed taut against his skin like the strings of an instrument you could play. He was the kind of man you’d see and think, Now, there’s a smooth operator. A real heartbreaker, but then he’d surprise you by stammering or blushing, tripping over his words or a chair leg.