The Art of Peeling

Maria sat in the courtyard of Shady Pines, her mother's favorite spot beneath the wind-whipped palm tree. The leaves rattled like dry bones in the December wind.

"Here, Mami," she said, placing a slice of orange on the paper plate. "Your favorite."

Her mother stared past her, eyes fixed on something Maria couldn't see. The dementia had turned her into a kind of zombie — the body remained, warm and breathing, but the person who had once sung lullabies, worried about Maria's grades, pressed her palm against Maria's forehead to check for fever — that woman had been slowly eaten away, neuron by neuron.

Maria peeled another orange section, the citrus spray sharp against the sterile smell of the facility. She'd been coming here every Tuesday and Thursday for eighteen months. Sometimes she wondered which of them was the real zombie — her mother, hollowed out by disease, or herself, hollowed out by duty.

"The palm tree," her mother said suddenly, voice cracking. "Your father planted it. When you were born."

Maria's hands froze. Her mother hadn't spoken a coherent sentence in weeks.

"Mami?"

"So small," her mother whispered, turning her hand palm-up, as if holding something invisible. "Like a little orange."

Maria felt something crack open in her chest, sharp and sudden. She reached across the table and pressed her own palm against her mother's cool, papery skin.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Her mother's fingers curled around hers, just for a moment, just enough.

The orange slices sat uneaten on the plate between them, bright against the fading afternoon. Some Tuesdays were just duty. But this one, this one was something else.