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explained that they didn’t like to use the pills, they just seemed to dope her up. I tried not to roll my eyes—what did she think the drugs were for? Inner peace? She said that before now, they medicated her only during really bad spells, but since the fire they’d had to increase the dosages. Most days, they had managed to get by giving her only the tinctures Gabriel made. There was a memory tincture with ginkgo that she got in tea twice a day. And at night, a sleeping tonic with valerian root. My mouth went bitter at the thought of it and I made a silent promise not to subject my mother to such botanical torture.
    “For now, we’ll stick with the heavy med regime Dr. Crawford prescribed. I’d rather see her doped up than hurt again,” Raven said and I nodded in agreement, making a mental note that we needed a consult with a gerontologist as soon as possible. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the town doctor, but my mother was on some heavy-duty medication, and I questioned how well it was being monitored.
    There was a key to a padlocked kitchen drawer that contained knives, scissors, a nail file, nail clippers, and matches.
    “Never, ever, ever give her matches,” Raven instructed, as if the bandages on my mother’s hands weren’t enough warning.
    “Right,” I said, picturing again my rabid, foaming mother shooting fire from her fingertips. I shook the nightmarish image from my head.
    Raven went on to explain the routine: getting my mother up, cleaned, and dressed; emptying her chamber pot; changing the bandages; serving her breakfast; going for a walk; making her lunch; having her take a nap; and making sure she gets each of her pills. I must have looked a little overwhelmed.
    “I know it’s a lot. And I know it must be a bad shock for you to see her like this. But I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here. How glad Gabriel is, too. We just couldn’t do it anymore. Not like this. Not with winter coming now. She can’t be alone. Not here.” She looked around the cabin, gesturing helplessly at the woodstove, the oil lamps hung from the ceiling, well out of reach. “See what you think once you’ve been here a few days. God, I’m so glad you came.” Then she hugged me—this woman whom I felt I barely knew, who had been only in second grade when I left home for good—put her arms around me and held tight. I was her life raft. I was the one who was going to come in and make everything okay, even if meant packing my mother off to a nursing home. I let all my breath out as she squeezed. Great, I thought, a life raft without air.
    The first thing I did when Raven left was undo the padlock on my mother’s door. I was not going to be her jailer—at least not yet. I jingled the large ring of keys, feeling like a deputy in an old Western: You’re free to roam the open range, partner. Just get out of town before sunset.
    I peeked in and saw that my mother was sound asleep on her brass bed. The wind-up clock ticked loudly on the nightstand beside her. Its hands glowed. Only eight o’clock. It was just five back in Seattle. Jamie would be getting home from work soon. Tina or Ann or whoever his latest was might be there now, in his place waiting, dinner in the oven, white wine chilling. I wondered how he kept track of his girl of the month, sometimes girl of the week. He must have to mark his calendar, keep notes. With bitter amusement, I remembered his index card habit. He kept stacks of them in the office, the glove compartment of the car, next to the bed. He had them stuffed in the pockets of shirts and jackets and was always writing little notes to himself on them. Notes that he would promptly shove in some other pocket or between the pages of a magazine, his reminder to pick up stamps or check out a book he’d heard about on the radio, lost forever. Perhaps he now used the cards to keep a girl file: Sasha—redhead w/ appendectomy scar. Likes martinis, dislikes dogs. I chuckled to myself as I