"Ma?" He approached the bathroom door, hearing the squeak of wet skin on porcelain. "You okay in there?"

"Martin, get Norma, dear. I'm shriveled up like an old prune."

He leaned over the stairwell. Sheila and Norma were talking loudly to hear each other over the oven exhaust fan and clanging pots. He'd have to go down to the kitchen to get her and she would probably castigate him for bothering her while she prepped dinner when he could easily help the old woman himself.

"I can help you, Ma," he said, resigning himself to having to glimpse his mother's withered, naked body.

"Don't trouble yourself," she said brusquely. "Norma is perfectly capable."

"She's busy with dinner, Ma." And though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he added, "Let me help you."

"I don't have my face on."

"It's just me, Ma. You don't need makeup."

She sighed heavily, resigned herself. "My towel's on the door."

He opened it cautiously and reached for the towel. Her back was facing him but he caught a flash of her in the foggy mirror, hunched over herself like a wizened crone with her chin jutting out and a dour expression. The sharp ridges of her spine poked through waves of loose, damp gray hair. Her body riddled with dark Rorschach splotches he supposed were a combination of collapsed veins and liver spots. The old white scar on her right wrist was still visible after all these years, just like his own on his left palm.

The White Place, he thought. It was the name he'd given to Saints of Mercy Sanitarium when he was little. Because of the white walls, the white furniture, the white bedspreads and covers and uniforms and gowns.

He'd forgotten all about that name until now.

He held the towel in front of her and grasped her upper arm. She sucked in a hissed breath.

"Be gentle, for Pete's sake! I brought you into this world, I can just as easily take you out."

"Sorry." He loosened his grip. "Better?"

She scowled up at him. "Do you always require constant affirmation? Yes, it is much better, thank you. Now help me out."

He slipped a hand around her, feeling her ribs as if there was no muscle beneath her skin. She stepped out cautiously and he wrapped the towel around her, careful not to look in the mirror. She stood there huddled in it, holding her walker with one hand while she shivered and scowled at him.

The thought that he'd have to help her get dressed made him shudder internally.

"You don't need help, uh...?"

She clucked her tongue. "Don't be a prude, Martin. And no, I won't need your help toweling myself or dressing myself. I'm a grown woman and woe betide you for suggesting otherwise."

He grinned. Same old Ruby, fiercely independent despite the limitations of her age and body. It almost made him laugh to think of how Nadine had described her, as some all-powerful magic woman.