Vonda found me between the drive-thru window and the shelf of vaccination returns. She pressed a bottle of water into my hands. “You went down, Norah. Right in front of a customer at window three.”
I sat on a plastic tote and tried to remember if June’s field trip form was due Tuesday or Wednesday. I couldn’t. The clock on the break-room wall said 12:47. I thought it was 4:30.
That’s when I knew something had snapped loose.
Three years of it. Dad’s stroke left him with a right hand that couldn’t grip a fork and a mood so sour he accused me of losing his car keys every single morning. Mom’s knees were wrecked, but she’d crawl up the porch steps on all fours before she’d let a neighbor see her use a cane. My sister Krista lived twelve minutes away in St. Matthews. She came by every other Sunday with a store-bought lemon bundt cake and a look that said better you than me.
My husband Travis drove a parts van for a brake supplier. He got home after nine, dropped his boots in the laundry room, and disappeared into his recliner with his phone. I worked at a pharmacy on Bardstown Road from eight to four. After work: Kroger, my parents’ house, June’s homework, laundry, bills from Norton Healthcare in a basket by the microwave.
I hadn’t slept through the night in maybe a year. The 2 a.m. wakeups were always the same. Did I call the neurologist? Did Mom pick up Dad’s blood pressure medication? Did I forget the gas bill again?
Vonda opened a pack of crackers and put them on my lap. “You can’t keep doing all of it. Your body just told you.”
I laughed. It came out like air hissing from a tire. “I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t answer.
That night I told Travis I needed him to pick up June on Mondays and Wednesdays. He didn’t look up from a fantasy football trade. “I work ten-hour days, Norah. You’re not the only one who’s tired.”
That word only stuck in my chest like a fishbone. I asked him what he did before work, after work, on weekends. He said we’d talk later. We didn’t.
I called Krista the next morning. She was at a spin class. “You’ve always been better at that stuff. You manage it so well.”
I said I wasn’t managing. I was falling.
She made a noise and promised to call back after errands. She never did.
Saturday, I drove to my parents’ place over by Iroquois Park with a rotisserie chicken and a week of Dad’s meds sorted into little plastic cups. The house smelled like menthol rub and cold coffee. Dad was asleep in the recliner, Gunsmoke blaring. Mom stood at the counter peeling apples for a pie no one had asked for. The window above the sink looked out on a dead azalea bush and the neighbor’s beagle barking at a mail truck.
“I can’t come every day,” I said.
She didn’t turn around. “Then call your sister.”
“I did. She won’t. I need to hire an aide. Three mornings a week.”
Now she turned. The knife stayed in her hand. “A stranger? In my house? Going through my kitchen drawers?”
The words came out before I could stop them. “Then Travis has to help. Or Krista. I fainted at work. I’m not asking. I’m telling you what has to happen next.”
Mom picked up the knife again. “Your father lost his job at the Ford plant in ’92. I worked double shifts at old St. Mary’s with two kids and a dog and never sat down. I never once said I couldn’t.”
“You didn’t. And look what it did to you.”
I hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. But it was out.
“You think we’re a burden? You want to put us on a schedule like we’re a delivery route?”
That was the moment the guilt almost made me fold. The fluorescent light buzzed. Dad coughed in his sleep. I left the med cups on the counter and walked out.
At home I locked myself in the bathroom and sat between the tub and the laundry hamper. I counted the floor tiles. Seventeen. I counted again. Seventeen. Travis didn’t knock. I could hear him on a call through the wall: “I’ll have it to you by morning.” But he couldn’t have me to himself by morning, or any morning.
June did though. Two nights later, she came into the kitchen where I was sitting with a cup of tea that had gone cold. She put her math notebook on the table. “Mom? You’ve been sad since before fall break. I can do my own spelling words. You don’t have to check.”
She set a red pen beside the notebook.
That was the part that cracked me open. Not the fainting, not the fight. My nine-year-old had started folding herself smaller so I wouldn’t have to carry her too.
That night I got out the blue dry-erase calendar from the drawer by the pantry. I wrote TRAVIS PICKUP in black under Monday and Wednesday. I wrote FIRSTLIGHT 9–1 in green under Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Then I opened my laptop and looked up home-care agencies in Louisville. FirstLight had a slot. Three mornings a week, nine to one. The monthly cost was $1,800. I paid my third on the spot: $600. Then I sent Venmo requests to Travis and Krista for $600 each. The note on Krista’s said Your turn.
Then I sent a group text: “Aide starts Monday. Travis picks up June Monday and Wednesday. Krista takes Dad to rehab Thursday or pays an extra $200. I’m not cooking Fridays. I’m not available for anything on Fridays.”
I didn’t ask for approval.
The blowup came Sunday at my parents’ house. Krista said I’d backed her into a corner. Travis said I’d made him look like a deadbeat. Mom cried and said I might as well put her in a home. Dad asked what day it was four times.
I took a printed copy of the month’s schedule from my bag and set it on the coffee table. “The agency has the door code. The aide comes Monday at nine. I paid my share already. The rest is on you.”
Krista knocked the paper off the table. Travis left through the front door hard enough that the little ceramic duck by the key bowl rattled. Mom turned her back and went into the kitchen.
I went home. I got in bed at eight. I didn’t set an alarm. I slept ten hours without waking once.
The first Monday, the aide Patrice showed up. Mom called me at lunch. “She’s putting your father’s socks on wrong.”
I said, “Socks go on feet, Mom. The agency number is on the fridge.”
I hung up and ate my salad. The phone buzzed twice more. I turned it face down on the table.
Travis picked up June that afternoon. He forgot her clarinet and had to go back. He complained about traffic on Shelbyville Road. I sent back a thumbs-up emoji.
Krista paid her $600 that Friday. The Venmo note said For your control problem. I didn’t respond. But she showed up Thursday to take Dad to rehab. She slammed the car door. She still went.
Mom fired Patrice after two weeks. She said the woman smelled like fabric softener. I didn’t argue. I called the agency and got a replacement. I paid my $600 for month two. When Travis said money was tight, I opened the payment app in front of him and set the request to repeat on the first of every month.
“It’s not a request anymore,” I said. “It’s a bill.”
He stood there with his mouth half-open, then dug out his phone and approved it.
Mom never really apologized. But one evening in the middle of the second month, she left a voicemail. “The new aide found your father’s ankles swollen and called the nurse line. We were at the clinic by two. I still don’t like her, but she doesn’t miss things.”
I saved the voicemail.
The next Friday, I didn’t cook. I didn’t go to my parents’ house. I didn’t answer my phone until four. Instead I drove over to Cherokee Park and walked the loop with a black coffee from Fante’s. The sycamores had dropped their leaves. A man was flying a kite in the soccer field. I sat on a bench and watched until my hands went numb.
When I got home, Travis was at the table with June. She had her math homework spread out and a carton of takeout from Ramsey’s between them. He checked my face like he expected a fight.
“Krista paid her share last night,” he said. “Your mom called. She said she forgot to buy Dad’s prune juice and asked if I could pick some up. I did.”
I sat down and slid the takeout container toward me. The calendar on the fridge caught my eye. All the green squares had check marks next to them. Somebody had added one more. Under Friday, in June’s handwriting, it said MOM.
