On the Other Side
"Don't open it."
I barely recognized my own voice. I was already moving, leaving the bedroom with one hand gripping the quartz beneath my shirt. Behind me, the oxygen machine continued its steady hiss. I couldn't turn it off. Turning it off would mean accepting that Rose no longer needed it, and downstairs Ivy was waiting beside a door my mother had just begged me to keep closed.
"Ivy, step away from the door."
My daughter stood in the entrance hall with Rose's blue mug held carefully between both hands. Marshmallows floated in the hot chocolate, softening around their edges. Through the narrow glass panel beside the door, I could see a pale cardigan, a familiar shoulder, the silver hair my mother had stopped bothering to curl.
"She's getting wet," Ivy said.
Rain ticked against the porch roof. The figure beyond the glass lifted a hand.
I reached the bottom step and caught Ivy by the shoulder, drawing her back. Hot chocolate spilled over the mug's rim onto my daughter's fingers.
"Ow! Mom!"
"I'm sorry." I took the mug and set it on the hall table. My hands were shaking so badly the ceramic rattled against the wood. "Go into the kitchen. Run your hand under cool water."
Ivy looked from me to the door. "Why won't you let Grandma in?"
The handle moved.
I put myself between my daughter and the entrance. For one horrible second, I couldn't remember whether I had locked it. Then the bolt held, and the handle returned slowly to its resting position.
"Lily, sweetheart." Rose's voice sounded muffled through the wood. "You're frightening her."
My daughter's fingers tightened around the back of my shirt.
I stared at the bolt. I had to keep looking at something ordinary. The lock. The umbrella stand. The muddy prints Ivy's shoes had left that afternoon. If I looked through the glass again, I might see my mother's face, and I wasn't certain I could keep refusing it.
"Please," the voice said. "It's cold out here."
Rose was upstairs.
I repeated it silently, matching the words to each breath.
"Grandma knows where the spare key is," Ivy whispered.
The figure's hand disappeared from the glass.
I lunged for the small chain above the bolt. The catch slipped beneath my thumb before I managed to slide it into place. Outside, something scraped against the flowerpot where Rose had always kept a key.
"Kitchen. Now."
This time Ivy obeyed.
I followed, closing the kitchen door behind us. There was no lock. I rested my palm against it anyway, listening while Ivy dragged the little step stool to the sink.
Water rushed from the faucet.
Nothing moved in the hall.
I watched my daughter hold her reddened fingers beneath the stream. Ivy's lower lip trembled, but she was trying not to cry. The sight cut through my panic more sharply than the voice outside had.
I crouched beside the stool. "Let me see."
The skin was pink, without blisters. I stayed there while Ivy cooled it, one hand resting lightly on her back.
"Are you mad at me?"
"No, baby. No."
"Then why are you acting like that?"
My wrist throbbed beneath my sleeve. I tucked it against my stomach.
"Something happened upstairs."
Ivy turned off the water.
I had imagined this conversation during the weeks of Rose's decline. I had planned gentle words, a quiet place, enough time for questions. Now I was kneeling on cold tile while something wearing my mother stood outside.
"Grandma died," I said.
Ivy looked toward the kitchen door.
"But she's—"
"I know what you saw."
"She waved at me."
I drew her close. Ivy resisted for a moment, her body stiff with the need for an explanation, then folded against me.
"Was she alone?" she asked into my shoulder.
"No. I was holding her hand."
That was when Ivy began to cry.
I held her through it, hearing the rain and waiting for another knock. None came. When Ivy finally loosened her grip, I took my phone from my pocket and called the hospice number. I answered the nurse's questions carefully, looking at the refrigerator drawings while I explained that Rose had stopped breathing.
I said nothing about the porch.
The nurse promised to come. After the call, I brought Ivy to the living room, away from the entrance, and wrapped her in the blanket from the couch. I kept Ivy's crystal necklace tucked inside her pajamas and sat beside her until headlights swept across the curtains.
Before opening the door, I looked through the peephole.
The nurse stood beneath an umbrella.
No silver hair. No pale cardigan.
I checked the porch beyond the nurse, then released the chain.
The hours that followed arrived in pieces: quiet footsteps on the stairs, a hand on my shoulder, paperwork I couldn't make myself read. I called my mother's friend to come sit with Ivy. When Rose was carried from the house, I stayed beside the front window until the vehicle disappeared.
Only then did I go upstairs.
The bedroom smelled of hand cream and the lavender sachet tucked beneath Rose's pillow. The machine was silent now. Without it, I could hear the old house settling around me.
On the bedside table sat a small dish containing Rose's wedding ring.
My mother had taken it off when her fingers grew too thin to hold it. I picked it up, remembering Rose turning it absently while she talked, remembering Ivy asking whether she could try it on.
The band slipped onto my finger.
I stood beside the empty bed until a floorboard creaked below me. Ivy called my name, and I wiped my face before answering.
At the bedroom door, I looked once more toward the pillow.
Rose had left me somewhere to begin.
For years, the attic had held Christmas decorations and boxes I never bothered opening. I had walked beneath its entrance without wondering what else was up there. Now I studied the square panel in the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I had seen my mother climb through it.
I crossed the landing and pulled down the attic ladder.
Above me, in the darkness, something knocked three times.