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the cottage cheese.”
    â€œI heard, I heard. I’ve got it all under control, I’ll get through it, you hear me? This is my mother. Alright, let’s give it a rest. She’s scheduled for an X-ray Tuesday. Can you come help me? To get her in the wheelchair and down to the clinic.”
    Silence.
    Mother smiles.
    â€œI can’t do it by myself. She’s ridiculously heavy. Every muscle in my body is already strained. It hurts here, on the left side. From my ribs to my thigh—it’s like I’m being cut with a knife.”
    â€œAre you crying?”
    â€œNo. It’s some kind of fluid that just drains from my eyes on its own. It’s just that everything hurts. I never thought it would be like this . I’ve never experienced anything like it before, you know? She doesn’t want anything but pity. But I can’t give it to her because of all the shit and the pain. I don’t see anything beyond that anymore, and I’m so scared. There’s nothing to do about it. Let God pity her—that’s his job. I just wash the sheets, get upset, and cry. Eat faster, Mother, I have to go to work!”
    â€œWhat does she do by herself all day?”
    â€œSleeps. What else?”
    Mother smiles. What does she do by herself all day? Time’s a real son of a bitch, she thinks.
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    Time always pretends it’s something else. Sometimes it pretends to be a person. Time pretends to be people’s wrinkles, scars, saggy bits. Sometimes it’s faraway, unreachable roads. Time pretends to be a road that leads to the sea—over hills, past hidden places, past mysterious destinies that are never understood, over roofs, chimneys, castles and huts, fields of cow-wheat and forget-me-nots, and under the silvery smooth beech trees of manor houses. Sometimes it pretends it’s the sea itself. And the sky. Sometimes it pretends to be gravestones, children, the elderly. It pretends to be your veins, your teeth, your dentures, or eyes. In Mother’s eyes, these days time usually pretends to be the wall opposite her bed. The window is time. Day and night. Light and dark. Time is yellowed photographs—black and white, figures disintegrating under her failing vision (what time hides from Mother is that these figures are her own faces throughout the years, her children and her husband). Time is a clock that has stopped. Sometimes Mother’s fingers are time—she holds them up against the light and studies them for hours like a child.
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    â€œI wanted to ask you something.”
    â€œWhat, Mom?”
    â€œI hope it won’t be like that, but if I… If I end up like her, shoot me! Or get rid of me some other way. I’ll write a letter of permission ahead of time. I’ll keep it in my purse with my ID.”
    â€œMom! Don’t talk like that around her!”
    â€œSee, you’re thinking of her again. I’m not blind or deaf—that kind of talk is fine around me.”
    â€œStop it. At least stop making it all about you for a little while.”
    â€œI’ve done nothing else my entire life but put myself second—I wonder why she never bothered to do the same!”
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    There are no more words. They fall silent and hug, then stand next to Mother’s bed. A shadow falls over her face. Mother sticks out her chin—this is how it should be.
    Warmth! She also craves that heat. She’s grown almost completely cold. Tomorrow night’s high tide will extinguish her.
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    A napkin wipes the remains of chocolate from the corners of Mother’s mouth. The voices above her keep talking.
    Mother finally remembers—she remembers. There were female voices back then, too!
    Like a garment cut from nothingness with magic scissors, like a paper crane made of light—she draws closer to the memory—the warm nose of a foal nuzzles her, its breath hot—she has to get a bridle on it!
    Mother leans toward the