Blown Away by Shane Gericke Page B

screams and ran outside,” Goldie choked. “The streetlight’s out, and I couldn’t get the license. No one did. Mr. Czerwinski chased him but couldn’t catch up.” She shuddered. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you, darling, but your father’s dead. Mama’s in the hospital. We’ll take you right now….”
    The doctors pronounced Mama “lucky.” Emily found the word obscene. With a crushed spine, Mama couldn’t walk or talk, move head or limb, scratch her feet, or lick her thumb. She could breathe, blink, take nutrition through one tube and release it out another. That was as good as it would get.
    Emily buried Daddy three days later—Mama couldn’t attend her own husband’s funeral—then welded rebar around her heart so she could attend to Mama’s needs without mushing out. She moved home and talked Northern Illinois University into accepting her credits. She spent her senior year commuting to DeKalb—an hour west of Chicago via the same Interstate 88 that ran through Naperville—and taking care of Mama. First at the hospital, then at the nursing home when the insurance company decided she’d never get any better.
    From seven to nine every night, they discussed the news of the day—Mama’s brain was unaffected, she just couldn’t move or speak—decided Daddy could eat as much French vanilla as he liked without getting fat, otherwise what’s a heaven for, and played a game from the Thompson Family Game and Ice Cream Festival, Mama blinking instructions and Emily moving game pieces. One blink meant yes, two blinks no. Mama had tried “semaphoring”—five blinks for E , thirteen for M , nine for I , and so on—but her eyelid muscles went spastic around G . So daughter asked yes-and-no questions, and mother answered one blink or two. When Alexandra Thompson’s heart gave out, two weeks short of her daughter’s graduation, Emily packed the games away for what she assumed would be forever.
    Then she married Jack and moved to his hometown, Naperville, in the western suburbs. She watched the storage carton segue from cellar to basement and found herself longing to at least see the games again. She wouldn’t play—too many dreadful memories in those game pieces—but the colorful boxes perked up her spirits on lousy days. Jack built a shelf large enough to display the games, and she spread them out so she could eye them when doing laundry. When Jack died, she covered them with a tattered old army blanket and never looked again.
    Till tonight.
    She reengaged her imagination and patted Mama’s hair into place. “Which game piece do you want?” she asked, feeling a little ridiculous talking to thin air. The muse, however, demanded it. “The Scottish terrier?”
    Blink.
    Yes.
    Emily set Mama’s favorite game piece on GO—“collect $200.00 salary as you pass”—and picked up her own favorite, a cowboy riding a bucking horse. She eased into the chair, yipping when her back touched the cold brown metal. She doled out $1,500 in Monopoly money, rolled snake eyes for herself and a six for Mama. “You always win the first toss,” she complained. She thought she saw Mama smile. But that was impossible, as this entire conversation was ersatz. Sighing, she nibbled some French vanilla, put the carton on the dryer, and tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tapped the Scottie dog to Oriental Avenue. “One hundred dollars,” she announced. “Want to buy it?”
    Blink.
    Emily paid the bank, slid the baby-blue card to Mama’s side, rolled herself a twelve. Electric Company, a $150 utility. She laid her money down….
    â€œYou don’t have to worry, you know,” Emily said an hour later as she galloped toward Free Parking. “We’ll get this Unsub long before he hurts me.” She froze above New York Avenue. “Oh my God,” she