Lisa loved the feeling of after a phone call with her mother — of being done. Having it accomplished. The before made her skittery with dread. It was worse now that Carol was sick, because there was the added fear of bad news from the doctor, but Lisa had felt this way about calling her mother ever since leaving home over twenty years ago. Every time she dialed that same home number, unchanged since before she was born, Lisa felt she was on the edge of something bad, something that would hurt. Carol had never once spoken words of judgment against Lisa for her life choices, but some dark and cold space persisted between them and they couldn’t quite seem to bridge it, no matter the frequency of their phone calls nor the warmth of the sentiments expressed.

Lisa was petrified that her mother would someday say a thing that would gut her, like, “Do you miss me?” But she knew her mother would never say this.

Carol sounded winded when she answered. She’d had to move too far and too fast to get to the phone.

Lisa said, “Hi, Mom.”

Carol heaved, a small grunt. “Let me just . . .”

Lisa pictured her mother easing herself back into the blue recliner where she spent her days, gingerly accommodating all the aches as she sank into the chair.

“Take your time,” Lisa said. “You should really keep the phone next to your chair.”

“I do.” Carol sighed. “But I forget. How’s the beach?”

“It’s nice,” Lisa said. “Sunny. The house is great. The girls are loving it.”

“And how’s Poppy?” Carol asked this with such fondness and familiarity that Lisa felt a jolt of painful longing. Her mother always spoke of Poppy with affection and gratitude when describing the appointment Poppy had taken her to or the meal Poppy had delivered, and this had never bothered Lisa. But somehow it felt different today, since she and Poppy were here vacationing together; they were on equal ground. It seemed unfair that Carol should ask about Poppy this way, with this lift to her voice, like thoughts of Poppy were a greater pleasure than a phone call from her own daughter.

“We’re having a ball,” Lisa said. “How are you feeling?”

“I wish they’d fix my TV. They keep saying they’ll send a guy.”

“Are you sleeping alright?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Taking your pills?”

“Sure.”

Lisa was out of questions. She wanted to ask her mother, Do you miss me? and Where did we go off track? and Will we be able to fix this before you’re gone? But all of these questions died long before they reached her throat; they were knotted somewhere low inside her. She wanted to ask, Do you wish I was a different person? Instead, she said, “OK, then, I guess. Love you.”

Carol said, “Love you.”

Lisa hung up the phone and ate another grape. She gazed out the window and down to the beach, where everyone was in the water except for Rae, who was lying in the shade of an umbrella, small and curled like a snake. Lisa thought of herself at age fourteen and the little life she had shared with her mother. The wallpaper in the kitchen featuring rows of cherries that had faded to pink. Carol bent over the bathtub doing laundry by hand after the machine broke and they didn’t have the money to replace it. The smell of Wonder Bread toasted for ten seconds too long. Tears warmed Lisa’s eyes and the world became bright and blurred. Nostalgia, she’d once been told, was one of the most powerful and least useful sensations. God, did it hurt.