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diseases. I wonder how many of those four-inch-by-four-inch days it will be until I’m consumed by the little dots that clump together, or sunk into a coma by the long stringy things that interweave. The doctor walks by, and I wave him down. “Doctor?”
    He stops and looks up from another patient’s chart, this one full of jagged penmanship. “Yes?”
    â€œCould you say that again?”
    â€œAbout your results?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAs long as a week, probably closer to a day?”
    â€œThanks.”
    The doctor searches my eyes back and forth, back and forth, like the manic expressions of soap opera actors on Univision just before they shed tears. He talks softly then, but forcefully. “Let’s not worry about anything until we see what we’ve got, okay? It might be nothing at all.” His face changes then, possibly intowhat he feels is a compassionate smile, but it comes off as slight dental discomfort. He looks back at his chart and continues his purposeful walk down the hall.
    I want to tell him that I’m sure it’s really nothing too, and that I’m not worried about it. I want to assure him that the wild lilac bush in my head randomly blooms because of something unrelated to the medical field, and that whoever has a chart with extra dots on the i ’s is probably in more dire need of his help. But I keep my mouth shut.
    Outside the weather is gray and cold, much less pleasant than inside the giant humming machine. I walk to my car, and inside is the bag of postcards. I pick one at random. London Bridges, it says. It’s as good as the rest of them, I think, and immediately know that a Wanderlust #15 will do the trick. I congratulate myself on selling one more vacation package. It’s time to cash in on my flex-time privileges, and make use of that employee discount. I’ll tell Steve I’m doing some guerrilla-style vacation research; he should be thrilled.

chapter 16
    â€œYou forgot all about me,” a voice cries.
    I sit up in bed. My alarm clock rests innocently on its night stand, quiet as can be, so the voice probably woke me again. It’s dawn, or near it, as evidenced by the slats of orange light penetrating the window blinds. I shade my eyes. I’ve got to get some curtains.
    â€œAll of you forgot about me,” the voice says. It’s my mother, whimpering in an uncharacteristically desperate tone. A whine is more like it, but laden with true grief, real suffering. It’s coming from the wine bottle under the stairs. A whine from the wine.
    I get out of bed and make my way to the basement, down the carpeted stairs, following the voice. The lilacs that sometimes bloom in my head often accompany her voice, and I guess that makes sense, given how much she loved those flowers, although I’d never tell that to Dr. Singh or Natalie. And while the scent can be disconcerting, her voice is less of a threat, due to its predictability and sheer repetition.
    â€œHow could you all forget me?” she asks.
    â€œNobody forgot about you,” I say. “We could never forget you.”
    Her voice changes to a finger-shaking tone. “I don’t remember telling anyone that this was okay with me,” she says, “but people do what they want.”
    I believe it’s better not to respond, so I keep quiet and listen. I’m concerned about committing too much energy arguing with alcoholic beverages.
    The bottle is a ’67 Bordeaux, plainly labeled with blue print on white paper. My mother’s spirit is trapped inside. I know this because I moved the bottle from the bottom rung of my wine rack to another location entirely—under the staircase and behind the box of green army blankets. The voice followed. I heard her muffled crying a second time and was hoping it might be something more acceptable, like a lost kitten or stray squirrel baby, but it was Mom, cooing and whining under the stairs,