She caught me staring at her hair and sighed. “Don’t say a word. Must have picked up the wrong color at the supermarket. You know how my eyes are. I’ve already bought new color. I’ll dye it back this week, when I—”

There was a moan, like the hum of an engine. Nan swallowed, but the smile returned, bigger than before.

“How long has she been going on like that?” I asked, even though I already knew. Mom and I were like two sides of a coin. Whenever I cycled, she did, too. Whenever my future spun out of control, her future, which was tied to mine, did, too.

“Since lunchtime. You must have done a doozy.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. Mom moaned again. It made my eardrums rattle. “Why is she so melodramatic? It doesn’t hurt that bad anymore.”

Nan clucked her tongue and turned down the radio. The band, her favorite, was singing something about holding on to a dream. When I was younger, she used to sing the song to me before I went to sleep. She leaned in as if telling me a secret. “You know how your mom thinks. Why just react when you can overreact?”

She said that all the time. Usually it got a laugh out of me, but now I looked at the ground. “Nan, I screwed up something big. A girl died. I killed her.”

She drew in a breath and crossed herself. Her voice was gentle. “Oh, dear. How?”

“I got sidetracked. It looked like someone was in danger, and by the time I finished with her, the girl I was supposed to save had drowned.”

She exhaled. “You didn’t kill her. You just didn’t save her. There’s a difference.”

“I was supposed to be at my post. And Pedro was—”

“You are always too hard on yourself.”

Her words didn’t comfort me. Because I knew the truth. I gnashed my teeth and dug my fingers into my sides just thinking about it. And then there was the words—You killed our Emma—that echoed in my brain. Her parents, I guessed. “Her parents think I killed her.”

Nan’s eyes narrowed. “They told you that?”

I shook my head. “They will. I’m not sure if they know now, but they will. I saw it in my vision.”

“Your vision? Are you sure? It could have been your imagination. Remember Ginger?”

I nodded. Ginger was the puppy I’d been convinced I was going to get when I was ten. I took him everywhere, and I really loved him … but I never got him. He wasn’t real. Sometimes I would think so much about something, want it so badly, I convinced myself that it was in my future. But those were only things I wanted, and I definitely did not want Emma’s parents hating me.

“Don’t let that bother you, honey bunny. I know you did the best you could.” She whipped my thigh with the dish towel. “Get yourself on course. Give her time to breathe.”

She turned back to the stove and started to season the fish. I realized at that moment that the fish would be too salty, but I didn’t tell her. She didn’t want to know the future, and would usually stop me midsentence whenever I tried to explain anything. Plus, Nan’s life was hard enough, since she constantly had to care for us, so I always tried to tread lightly around her. And I’d like to think I was more sensitive to the living because I could taste the grief that would linger after their deaths. My mother and I both knew Nan would die in just over three years. Despite the many cycles we went through day after day, that was constant. Really, there were only two constants in my life: Mom would never leave her bedroom, and Nan would die in her recliner. She would pass away peacefully, of old age, while watching her soaps. Neither of us had told her that, though, because telling her could change the outcome. And my mother and I figured if there was any nice way to die, that would be it.

Another moan. I looked up the staircase.

Nan, wait—

It wasn’t even a fragment of a vision that popped into my mind that moment. It was just those words, and an overwhelming feeling that racked my entire body with chills. I grabbed the edge of the counter for support, nearly knocking over a milk jug. As I did, I caught a glimpse of the dusty, faded mural that had been under the cabinets ever since I could remember. It said, Heaven’s a little closer in a house by the sea.

Yeah, right.

Your past makes you who you are. You might not remember all of it, but even the things you forget can leave a mark. My future did the same to me. Things I hadn’t experienced yet weighed on my brain like bricks. At any one time, those images of my future would lie in wait somewhere in my brain, waiting for something to happen, something that would call them up. A lot of times, they were just pieces. But because I hadn’t experienced them yet, I couldn’t put them in context. They didn’t make sense. Like the one I saw as I began to loosen my grip on the counter.

The image I saw was me, standing in the dark hallway, looking down the steps, screaming No! In that vision, I couldn’t catch my breath. I’d never felt that pain before. Like everything inside me was being sucked out with a straw.

Definitely not good.

After the pain subsided, I let out a string of curses. I threw the jug to the ground, and milk splattered everywhere. Then I tore at my hair until I heard it ripping at the roots, scraped at the skin on my face until it felt red and raw. I hated myself.

It was stupid to think I could hold on to one future for longer than a few months. But I’d liked that future. I’d liked the way I died in it. I couldn’t remember much after playing in the sand with my grandson; I’d just gone back to the beach house, collapsed into my favorite rocking chair, and drifted off. That memory was like a dream now. Who knew what kind of death I’d have?

I’d screwed everything up.

Nan stared at me, her eyes warm with understanding, though she really didn’t have any idea. She came over and wrapped her arms around me, squeezed me, but I didn’t squeeze back because her bones felt small, breakable, like twigs. The top of her head barely reached my chest, so she had to bend her neck all the way back to look into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” I answered. Really, it was everything, but my head was still cycling dully, which made even talking hurt.

The lucky and the brave, Bruce Willis, rotting inside.

I helped Nan clean up the stupid mess I’d made. She tried to swat me on the backside with the towel again, but this time I anticipated it and skirted away. I climbed the stairs, which were covered in worn green shag carpet. Since all she had was a measly monthly social security check, Nan hadn’t brought anything new into the house in decades, save for a bunch of crucifixes and worthless statues of saints, which she put on every available surface or wall. All the furniture was from when she was growing up here in the sixties, Formica, with shapes that looked like germs under a microscope everywhere. My sheets had dump trucks and airplanes on them, and the matching curtains were so worn, they did little to block out the morning light. Not that I cared. I didn’t have friends who’d see my room, and I never slept much, anyway.

When I reached her door, there was silence. I stood outside it longer than I had to. Going in there was never fun. I knocked and whispered, “Mom?”, then went inside.

The room was hot and dark and stank of incense and sweat. Mom was lying on her stomach on the bed in boxers and a tank. She’s young as far as moms go. I think she’d be considered a MILF if there weren’t thick dark rings around her eyes that matched the color of her waist-length hair, which was pulled up in a messy loop on top of her head. When I looked at her, I could almost see her resemblance to Nan. They have the same deep-set, fathomless eyes, the same soft, even voice. They laugh the same, boldly, though my mother’s laugh is always tinged with bitterness and irony. They have the same thin lips and I suppose they might even have the same smile, but I didn’t know my mother’s smile. I’d never seen it. I’d always wondered what else she would have in common with my grandmother, had things been different. Would she make great pancakes? Find pleasure in things like gardening and weeding? Go to church every Sunday?