It's the equinox. Autumnal--and yet the world around me has been dying for a long time. The grasses are brown. The garden has already seen its best days. Seed pods on everything--a sign of new life, next year's life, but right now it just looks desiccated, undone.

I pour myself a glass of wine and go back to the porch. The weight of this season presses my chest for what might be forever. I sound like a melodrama, without a villain, no one in a black hat to hiss at.

Far away, the phone jangles. Probably Becky. I think she's tired of coming over here to chat. I think she's tired of me. Or I depress her. Maybe I'm the villain. Hissssssss.

As heavy as Sisyphus's stone, I get up to answer the ringing.

My coffee mug feels warm in my hands as I watch the wind blow the September sky blue. Inside, I still feel chilled, or empty. I swing back and forth. We're all walking around in a state of shock, but I'm not even walking much. I sit on the porch and watch the weather. I feel anchored to this home.

Becky and Mark think we should put the house up on the market. It's a good time of year. I ask about probate, knowing nothing about it really.

"Misha, there isn' t enough money in the estate to trigger probate," Mark explains. I try to remind myself that he isn't being condescending. We're all a little on edge.

Selling the house makes sense. I certainly need the money, and Becky and Mark could probably use it.

"Can I just stay here for a while?"

I'm stalling. And I guess that Becky's pulled in different directions. She's probably wondering why I'm hunkering down here now, when I haven't been around for so long, why I'm holding up this final bit of business, and yet I don't think she's ready to lose her home, her past.

Gulls wheel, ride the drafts. I feel safe here. I need to feel safe here.

From here, the clean sheets look prim and impersonal. Like a big sign saying Empty or Gone. Becky sticks her head in the door.

"They're starting to arrive. You need to come down."

It's true I haven't been much help. I've been hiding in here while Becky's scrubbed and dusted and vacuumed, getting the house ready for the gathering after the service.

This has happened too quickly. Mother slipped away the first night home. Then finding the plans she'd written down and setting all of that in motion and talking about the service and the service on this oddly sunny day. The words Reverend Bigelow said still float in the air in front of me.

I walk downstairs to greet this new life.

The living room is full of dahlias and gladiolas, chrysanthemums in a tasteful palette. Mom didn't want flowers, but we were slow getting the word out. It's too much, and it's what we can do.

She is leaving the hospital.

She is leaving us. I want to sit in the back seat and hold her, but we rig up a way for her to be more comfortable, and there isn't room up there.

Becky looks like a blown egg, all shell and air--and that's exactly how I feel.

Mom's breath sounds heavy. She dozes, but we don't talk in case that would wake her. And then there's the fear that she doesn't wake up, that she slips away before we can get her home.

I tell myself we should have known. The statistics were never good for this disease. But that doesn't change this gaping yawn inside of me, inside of us.

More road, and more road, and then the night.

She is pale and frail, tiny on the hospital bed. Becky looks like knives held together by rubber bands. I can't imagine the mask of my face right now. I hug my mother as gently as I can. I hug Becky almost as gently.

I want to ask her how this happened--but I know it's no one's fault, and I'm afraid she'll think I'm blaming her, or I'm afraid she'll blame me for leaving.

This is not about me.

As Mom drifts into sleep, Becky gives me the update in whispers.

"They're still trying some chemo, hoping they can knock it back out."

"When will they know?"

"I'm not sure. Sometimes, the doctor's talking and the words go right past my head."

I try to hang on to her words now.

"She wants to go home."

"If it doesn't work?"

"I don't know. She just keeps saying that she wants to go home."

That doesn't sound good.

Vigil

Too many wheels. I took the buses to South Bend, only to find a note on the door--they're in Seattle now, at the hospital. That can't be good. And I've wasted all this time.

But they had no way to get a hold of me.

So I'm on another bus. The wheels on the bus go… and I'm going.

I'm not a going kind of person. I'm a stayer.

The miles of Douglas fir stream by, stopped by patches of clear cut. A devastation or a living, depending on who signs your paycheck. Right now, I have no energy for those arguments. The knot in my gut sits hard.

I set my knitting down as the bus swings onto 101 South--it never makes sense when I want to be going North. Why can't the highway just go there, instead of criss-crossing like a sailboat tacking upwind. I think. Sailing is not my strong suit.

A couple more hours.

I'm on a plane again, and I feel so heavy that how can the wings possibly lift us into the air? We're trapped. I'm trapped.

Becky called with the news that Mom's had a reversal. She's back in the hospital. We have no time.

But it takes so much time to fly--first to anywhere I can get a flight to the U.S., and then the hours over the pole.

Oslo, which means one more flight, and then buses home.

My hands fidget like birds in cages, but I'm too restless to do anything.

Fear and grief sag in my gut--along with my last letter to Sevario. I told him I wasn't ready--which was a lie. How can I lie to someone I like so much? Is that what it is? Nattering through this takes my mind off my mother.

I could have told Sevario there'd been a death in the family--but that's a lie. No one has died. Not yet.

I'm scared--all the while the engines are revving up and the plane taxis down to the runway, while it gathers speed and somehow, against any physics I trust, lifts into the air.

Then my hands are tired of feeling empty. I pick up my needles and yarn.