Peter turned away. “Thank you. I’ll be out in a minute.”

His mother’s—Robin—hung there in the doorway for a minute like he was expecting something. Peter looked again, taking in the deep blue scrub pants and top, over which he wore a kind of uniform warm up jacket with his name

embroidered in white over the breast pocket. He had several buttons and pins attached to his coat, the most familiar and telling was the Lambda, beside which he wore a set of dog tags with Love on one and a rainbow on the other. Robin wore his short hair in braids that stuck out from his head like a halo. His wide white smile was embedded in a handsome, rich black-coffee colored face. He looked like he was going to say something more, but then he just drifted out, closing the door behind him.

Peter sat back down on the couch and tried to imagine this was just another day. Maybe he’d have a cup of coffee and check out his mom’s car. It was a classic, a 71 Road Runner with a 426 Hemi, and as far as he knew there was nothing wrong with it he couldn’t fix or build from the ground up if he needed to. If he had the time. It looked like he was going to get the time. He was pretty sure he could cover the cost. Fixing up the car that was his mother’s pride and joy for thirty-eight years could possibly mitigate the guilt he felt for not visiting more often. And it might go a long way toward making her feel…if not better, at least not worse.

If there was a voice in the back of his head saying that fixing a car was the least of his worries he ignored it. Set on his course, he went to the kitchen for coffee, just in time to see Robin lifting a tray that had covered plates and a vase with a flower in it like a hotel room service waiter.

“This is your mama’s, follow me and let’s show her what the cat dragged in last night.” The man grinned.

Peter moved in front of Robin and headed for a coffeemaker on the pristine stainless steel counter. “Uh. Look Robin, I—”

Robin moved up and practically herded him, using his large body and the tray he carried, out of the kitchen and down a long hallway and up the stairs. “Just say hello and as soon as I’m finished serving my princess I will get you breakfast of your own, all right?”

“But—”

“One time only offer, man, lots of coffee?” Peter shrugged and Robin grinned again cheekily. “Right you are. In here then.” He held the tray in one hand and pushed a door open with the other.

Peter’s first look at his mother took him by surprise. So much so that he didn’t respond at all until he felt Robin’s hand at the small of his back pushing him forward.

“Look what I found. Breakfast and a show. Your son appears to be catching flies with his mouth, Shelley. Very talented boy.”

Shelley lay silently, her mouth slightly gaping. Her eyes were closed and Peter could see her struggling for breath. He stood frozen in a spot by the door, watching as Robin put the breakfast tray on a rolling table, which he pushed into position over the bed.

“Shelley,” Robin said, and Peter thought his voice held a warning. “It’s no use, you know. We can both see you’re not dead. Open your eyes and say hello to the man.”

“I’m sure I must have died by now, Robin,” she said in a reedy voice. Peter looked to Robin for a clue how to proceed.

“Shelley, you are not dead. You’re not hungry but you must eat your breakfast.” Robin looked at Peter and then back to Shelley again. “Pay no attention to her Peter. She’s enacting the death scene from ‘Terms of Endearment’ again.” Robin turned back to his mother. “Do I look like Shirley Maclaine to you?”

“How should I know,” she turned her head away as he held a cup of water to her lips. “To hear her tell it she’s been enough people; she could certainly have been you.”

“Drink,” Robin commanded. “You’re not dead.”

“How do you know we’re not both dead?”

“I’m frankly shocked by that suggestion, my Shelley. I am not dead. You are not dead.”

Robin pulled the cover off what looked to be French toast and scrambled eggs, cut up into precise squares. “You are a mere shadow of your former self and unless you eat every bite of this breakfast I will double your lunch or feed you grub worms like in Survivor.” He placed a towel across Peter’s mother’s sunken chest, over her delicate shoulders and smiled as he gave her tiny bites of eggy bread from a small fork, holding a napkin and dabbing occasionally at her face. He did this with such practiced ease and good humor that Peter hated him for it.

Between bites she said. “If you can see me enough to feed me you must be dead.”

“If I were dead I’d be someplace where you’d quit your bitching at me woman,” Robin matter-of-factly scooped up a piece of French toast. “Here, open.”

“I want Tabasco.”

“Fine. I will bring it in a minute. You eat this now, and then you can drink Tabasco from the bottle. If I put it on your eggs you will tell me you won’t eat them because they taste bad, just like you did yesterday.” Peter watched for what seemed an eternity as his mother took several small bites.

“You’re onto me.” She chuckled.

“You haven’t fooled me since the pepper flake incident.” Robin smiled down at Shelley and Peter saw-at last-that the relationship wasn’t adversarial, which he’d believed at first.

“I like spicy things.” Peter’s mother fairly glowed with warmth.

“I know you do,” Robin said gently. “The medication makes things taste different, is all. You know that, my Shelley.”

“I know.”

Peter didn’t know what to say so he stood still until his mother acknowledged him.

“How are you, Petey? Don’t I look dead to you? I was sure I was dead.”

“No.” Peter stood still. “You don’t look…the same, but you don’t look dead.”

Peter’s mother rolled her eyes. She breathed in time with a sucking, bellows kind of sound that came from the floor behind her bed. “Liar. You always were a lousy liar. Don’t let the equipment bother you.” She gestured to her nasal canula. “I’m told blue is not my color, so they keep feeding oxygen into my nose. I breathe through my mouth when they’re not looking to piss them off.”

Peter didn’t respond. His mother’s appearance, her delicate blue-veined hands, the bones of which were clearly visible behind translucent skin, shocked him. She’d always been slim, but now appeared skeletal; dark smudges buoyed up eyes that were cloudy with pain. Her hair, which had gone a silvery color early on and had been one of her most striking features, was shorn off at about an inch long all over.

“Well. At least say something,” she prodded.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he said carefully. He admitted to himself, even if to no one else that he’d tried very hard not to expect anything, and still he felt shocked. Maybe a little sick.

“Don’t be hard on the boy, Shelley.” Robin opened a carton of orange juice and put a straw in it. “You’re terrifying.”

“Really?” She seemed pleased. “Do you find me terrifying, Petey? I’ve always wanted to be terrifying.”

“I’m—” Peter turned and headed for the door, exiting into the hallway, running down the stairs and through the kitchen. He headed out the back door and into the fresh spring morning where he leaned over a bush to vomit, but found he had nothing in his stomach that wanted to be disgorged.

As he gathered himself, he tried breathing normally again. He knew two things absolutely. One, he wasn’t going to be able to handle his mother’s illness; he could do nothing but stand there and watch helplessly as others cared for her.

And two, He didn’t need to worry about that because she had a new pal named Robin and Robin was feeding her French toast and making her laugh while all her son could do was gape at her and hate her for dying.

Peter poked at the battery terminals under the hood of his mom’s Road Runner with a wire brush, idly scouring away a lot of corrosion. He had plans to remove the battery and take his aunt’s truck into the nearest thing that passed for town, Hadleyburg, such as it was, where he would purchase a new one so at least the car would be drivable. He hoped.