Mom would take off her wig at the ocean that summer. She would feel the breeze over her head, free again.
Later, years later, 28 years later, she would forgo the wig again for me, my dad, the nurse who came to our house and weighed her.
“You’re gaining weight!” I’d say.
“It’s all water weight,” she’d say, looking at her protruding stomach, the fluid stuck inside. When dad said she was getting drained the week before she died, I thought, well, good, she must feel better now.
That summer, at the ocean in South Carolina (or was it North. No, it was North), she would take off her wig when no one else was out there, rub her hands over her head, no bathing cap, no wig, just her, her skin, the air, the water.
The sand shifted beneath our feet, because sand shifts beneath everyone’s feet, the sandpipers, the dog chasing the stick, the footprints of our sneakers on our early morning run wiped out by the waves by the time turned back.
The fisherman would have their lines out. I was worried I’d run into one of those invisible wires, get hooked in the eye. Was she?
Was she scared?
That moment, in the hospital, when we made the choice (we all made the choice), finally caught up in the invisible lines and the shifting sand.
“Do you understand what we are talking about?” my sister said to her.
Do you understand what we are talking about.
She cried then. Later. Moments later. Seconds later she cried and I left and took a nap and Amy stayed and I couldn’t stay. Or wouldn’t.
Do you understand.
Do you understand.
Do you understand.
Do you understand.
Do you understand.
Do you understand.