TUNNEL VISION

Elizabeth Mercado

University of California, Davis

“I keep losing track of things,” my mother said. No one knows I didn’t believe her at first. There was no fear in her voice. She said it like it was incidental, like it was weather. “What kinds of things?” What kind of weather? “Like what time you’re off work, when your classes start, or the last thing I

ate.”

I spoke to my mother more than most. She called in the mornings. She called in the afternoon after I got out of class, during dinner, and once more before she went to sleep. If I woke up early to take a shower, I made sure to let her know so she wouldn’t call at a time I couldn’t answer. Freshman year of college, I was always the one who called. Curled into myself on the top bunk, her voice in my ear telling me when she’d woken up that day, what dish she’d cooked Dad and Teddy for dinner, or the route she’d walked through town that day. I knew when, what, and where before she would rattle them off. Her voice let me imagine myself back in the bed she and I shared for eighteen years. Sophomore year, I grew some backbone, moved into my first apartment, and she had memorized exactly when to call. More often than not I overheard students just like me who had no shame in walking around with Mommy in their ear. Once I was out of uniform, back to being one of the students clinging to voices through their speakers, I realized she was right. I had three missed calls from her during the middle of my shift. “Don’t worry about it. My classes change all the time. You don’t need to know them all. If you forget something, I’ll just remind you.” Being young, I had the ability to be morbid without facing consequences. It was safe to poke that fleshy, terrified part of the brain and ask questions like, “What if Mom or Dad died today?” There’s nothing to fear because we are small and time is in abundant supply. I foolishly overestimated mine, and hers. “Are you forgetting anything else?” I imagined her hand over her eyes rubbing tiredness out of them. She let out a long sigh on the other end of the line. Her soft breath hummed and tickled the inside of my ear. “No, nothing else. Nothing important.”

The day before I flew home to visit my sick mother, Peter aimed to impress

by surprising me with a birthday brunch. Wrangling half a dozen twenty-four-year olds into one place before noon was, indeed, quite a feat. Everyone had a good time.

“I could tell you didn’t like it,” he said. “No, I did not.” I called out for blouses, and he tossed options to me from the closet. My trip home would just be for a weekend. At first, I only visited her every couple months and only ever just for weekends. Flights back and forth wouldn’t pile up for another year. Peter tossed me pajama bottoms. “Noted,” he said. Peter liked to scare people at parties by telling them our relationship was built on lies. We’d met at one of the parties he liked to throw in college. Peter enjoyed speaking to everyone. He willingly offered his home, his time, his silence for others to feel comfortable. He found me against a wall having less than a good time.

“You look like you’re having fun,” he had said. “I am.” He squinted either to read me for truth or force my face into focus in his dark living room. He shook his head. “Don’t lie to me. You and me, let’s avoid lying to each other.” I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think you’d like that.” “Try me.” Not lying in the first hours of meeting someone can move things along pretty quickly. “Ask me anything,” he’d said. “Is no one allowed to have a bad time at one of your parties?” “No one,” he replied. “Show me, then.” I threw back a green jumper for him to hang back in our closet. Realistically, we were forced to break our promise to never lie to each other. The pact became never to trick each other. “Did you have a good time, at least?” I asked. “Yes, because I threw a very good brunch.” “Takeout, proposals, and surprise parties. All of them need approval beforehand.” “You needed to get out. You’re either at your parents’ or you work here. You’re either home or you’re home. I thought you could use some fun.” “Now?” “It’s not going like things are going to get better.” He tossed my denim jacket, but I didn’t catch it. It landed onto folded socks and three pairs of jeans. I had overpacked as usual. The trip would hopefully be dull. I prayed for dull instead of worse every time I flew. At least at home, Dad and Teddy knew better to leave any of our birthdays alone for a while. “Look,” I said. “I behaved. I don’t have to like the party, but at least I

wasn’t a dick about it.” “What about right now?” “I can’t be a dick in the privacy of our own home?” The clock read 12:35 a.m. Peter shut the closet and got into bed instead of arguing further. He knew me well enough to do that. I joined him. “Did you think of what to write about your mom?” Peter’s mother is a nurse. A friend of hers in psychiatry told her that journaling was a healthy way to deal with loss, even in cases like mine. It helped to write about the loved ones in ways that made them more permanent. Happy memories, hypothetical conversations you might have, descriptions of what they looked like at different times in your life. Take the focus off of you and your grief. Don’t hold your own hand throughout the process, his mother advised. You’ll never let anyone else hold it again. If you get stumped, she said, start by asking yourself: “What’s my favorite thing about her?” “No. I didn’t like the question.” I couldn’t condense her like that. She was too big. I stretched my bare arms over my head, and stared blankly at the clock. Peter leaned his head on his propped arm and looked at me with heavy eyelids. Peter spoke in favorites. His favorite fruit is blackberries. He likes to eat them over bread. His favorite time of day is 11 a.m., preferably sunny. His favorite car seat is the middle seat in the back row but only in a full car. The middle seat will let you sit next to everyone. “Just start with what you like about her,” he offered. I tried humming myself to sleep and thought. “I like her hair. It’s light, coppery. Not red, but she dyes it, and sometimes it’ll come out redder than she wants. I like her eyelids. They’re very wrinkly and darker than the rest of her face. She either doesn’t laugh or laughs so hard she cries. There’s not a lot of in-between there. She can really yell, but she’s so small. Not weak, but she carries so much I’d think she must feel pretty small by now.” “That’s one of your favorite things about her?” “No. I think I just started talking about her.” I still don’t know what my favorite Peter thing is. He listens, which I like. “Are you tired?” he asked. “No one loves me like she does.” I don’t think I listen very well. I tried thanking him for the party, but he wouldn’t let me. I still couldn’t trick him.

Every trip to and from Mom and Dad’s, I arrived as a daughter and left as an intruder. Halfway up the house’s staircase toward the second floor, Teddy demanded I come back down. I turned to face him. His arms were stretched, gripping the banisters. If I didn’t watch myself, he might yank his bratty little sister by the arm and drag her onto the lawn. “You can’t go up there,” he said.

“I want to see her.” “Today’s not a good day. She just about bit Dad’s head off. Wake her up and she’ll try to kick us all out of the house.” Dad didn’t have anything to say, so he sulked in the dining room. He hid his eyes and clenched his jaw. Anything he could say would be too harsh, so he ground his teeth instead. That used to work on me when I was a kid. When I used to swallow chunks of food whole at the dinner table. Or if I ever asked to have friends over. I thought I’d made him so angry he’d never speak to me again. “I flew all the way over here for my time with her. This is the time we agreed on.” I knew Dad wasn’t ever really mad. He just felt small, and he was stubborn. We both were. Teddy was not. “Work with me here,” Teddy pleaded. “Come back tomorrow. What is so important about right now?” “Because it’s mine.” The second-floor balcony wrapped around my head, and I could see the door to my childhood bedroom. I checked my voice, careful not to wake her. The house was small but stretched upward for space. Two bedrooms on the second floor that had heard every dish clink, channel switch, and back and forth uttered within its walls since we’d lived here. “This time is mine,” I hissed. “She’s mine. I lived here my whole life—” “Not all of it.” “ —why am I being treated like I’m here for visitor’s hours? I slept in that bed with her every night. This is still my house, and I will see her if I want to.” Teddy didn’t follow me. The bottom of our off-white walls were still streaked in gray grime accumulated over twenty plus years. The pictures on the wall hung crooked in black, plastic frames. Some of them still featured the stock family portraits when Dad bought them. There wasn’t enough of us to fill them. The dryer living in the closet was in the middle of a cycle. Denim jean buttons and jacket zippers smacked from inside the metal tumbler issuing a low rumble topped with pops loud enough to keep my mother lulled asleep. I still stepped lightly just in case. I brandished my thumbnail and shoved the metal groove on the doorknob onto its side, unlocking it. I used to walk in on naps all the time. Dad’s naps after church. Mom and Dad when they went to bed early at eight o’clock. Bedtime at any time before ten, I called a nap. I pressed my head against the door and pushed it open. She laid on the bed the same way she had her entire life. Or my life, at least. Slightly curled into herself. Both her knees stacked on top of each other. Her hands sandwiched on top of each other underneath her cheek. She actually slept like that. She still used two pillows and slept on top of the comforter. Sheets were always too hot. The queen bed was pushed against the wall and she faced it with her back to me. Her hair was just recently dyed. The color was closer to brown than

copper. Either Teddy or Dad were guessing at her color and likely dying it for her. When we shared this room, the bed was big enough that we could spread out and have enough space to stretch our legs. But I clung to her anyway. When I was nine, I fell asleep that way. When I was fourteen, I was much too mature. When I was eighteen, I went back to hugging her but after about five minutes we’d both had enough, turned around, and fell asleep. What would our way be now? Every night, I waited for her to climb stairs no matter how late it got. I wouldn’t fall asleep without her. Today, she was not waiting for me. Or perhaps in waiting for me, the reason for doing so faded from her memory, and she fell to sleep unburdened. I landed as quietly as I could onto the red futon. It took up the whole second half of the room. The upholstery is perforated in squares onto finger-width fabric wrapped around a harsh metal brace. Once I got too big, Dad somehow slept on that thing for years. Someone had removed all the pillows, so I laid down pressing my hands against my face like her. My head faced the foot of the bed, and I watched her. I fell asleep deciding this was close enough.

Teddy woke me at sunset. Our mother was still asleep. He put a finger to his lips and walked me downstairs. Dad would keep an eye on her while the two of us went for a drive. I didn’t protest or kiss Dad good-bye. I followed Teddy to his car and let him drive me away. The restaurant he chose was empty except for a mother and her son. I wasn’t hungry. Neither was he, it seemed, but we ordered coffee and blueberry muffins. Teddy chugged his cup, and I let mine get colder in front of me. He folded and unfolded a straw wrapper in his fingers. I rubbed my hands, staring at cars. After a moment I asked, “Do I look like her at all?” We only spoke Spanish with Mom. Once we had learned enough English, she didn’t need to learn. She had the two of us call doctors’ offices and write letters of absence to our teachers for her. Teddy searched my face, but if the answer isn’t Yes after knowing my face for twenty-five years, the answer was: “No.” My reflection stuck onto the storefront window behind him on top of the bug stains and hairline scratches on the glass. He was right. My eyes are Dad’s. My brown skin is Dad’s. Both our noses are Dad’s. Our hair. No, our hair wasn’t coppery, but it was curly. That was hers. I studied Teddy. He carried Dad’s face too, but I was right about the hair. “Why does it matter?” he asked. “If we look like her maybe she’s still here.” “She is still here. You shouldn’t have gone in there.” I shoved a bite into my mouth, convincing myself I was hungry. “I still think I’m entitled to more time with her until I move back permanently,” I mumbled.

“You’re not actually going to do that.” “Yes, I am.”

“I do think you’re entitled, though.” He looked too relaxed, slumped into the chair with legs stretched underneath the table. His feet breached my side forcing me to knot mine underneath the seat and force my back upright. I narrowed my eyes at him, but his hung. He was exhausted. “I take my time here seriously, okay? It means a lot to me,” I assured him. “What do you think I’m doing here?” His boots were caked in white paint. His thumbs were cracked at the tips like Dad’s. Dad would ask me to pump lotion on his fingertips after long day at work to revive them. These days, Dad drove him and Teddy to work and Teddy was the one with dirt under his nails and cracks in his skin. “I’m not talking about you.” “You weren’t this much of a brat growing up. Really playing up the whole ‘favorite’ thing these days.” “I am the favorite,” I sneered. There weren’t any bodies close enough to our table to keep my voice from carrying. Teddy sat a little straighter. If he didn’t brace himself, his little sister might kick his chair out from under him. “You told me all the time. Everyone did. Baby sister, daddy’s little girl. I was born a decade after you. I’m the girl. Her only girl. That kind of love and attention sets a standard for the rest of your life. When it’s gone, it’s big, okay? When you’re someone’s whole world, then suddenly you’re not?” Firstborn wasn’t as good as the kid you didn’t need to try again after because you’d nailed it the second try. Teddy leaned forward. The chair’s metal legs clawed against wood. “Would you care about Dad this much if it was him?” I didn’t entertain the question. “Different story.” “What about me? You are a baby. You’ve only had her half as long as I have. Who’s really losing more here? What about me losing my mom? What about Dad losing a wife?” Teddy thought big picture. I don’t know if I’m actually selfish, but I was raised to be. I didn’t grow up as a babysitter. I didn’t inherit a job from Dad whether I wanted it or not. I was raised to think big, get out as soon as possible, and only come back for the holidays. “It’s different.” I said. “We’ve known her our whole lives. He hasn’t.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He slouched back like he decided I wasn’t a threat anymore. Or maybe he thought I was hopeless. “I’m allowed to be upset. You’re ‘sibling-ly’ inclined to indulge me.” “Am I still your brother if she’s not here anymore?” Teddy wasn’t Mom, but he was up there. When I was twelve, I thought it would be fun to die for him. I thought, how cool must it be to have a little sister who looks up to you that much, who thinks an older brother was the best gift a parent could give. A kid sister that, if asked, would lay down her life for you? Morbid thoughts. At that age I thought I was lucky to love things that much.

“Of course you are.” It’s easy to love that much when you’re in the same house. It’s easier to memorize a person. The older I got, the more he missed. The older I’ll get, the less he’ll know, but I figured at this rate we had another two or three years before I was out of his picture. “Are you sad for her?” he asked. “Sometimes.” “Try feeling sad for her instead of yourself for a change.” “No one else knows me the way she does.” “Do you even know her that way? Or do you just have her hair?”

Peter and I, tipsy, giggling, and bumping knees against tables at 9 p.m. became me crying in our bedroom by 11 p.m. Peter was a bit too dizzy to initially understand why. Our apartment was boiling, and I had taken too many deep breaths too quickly. I tried clipping my breath and exhaled in short bursts. I coughed against my own spit. My hands gripped my cheeks and pressed against them. Being touched even by my own hands might recenter me. The skin felt hot, slick, and I wished my hands were colder. I dug the tips of my fingers into my temples. More tears squeezed onto my cheeks and slid between my fingers. “Martha, stop,” Peter said. He raised his voice, not to frighten me but because he was frightened. He thought I needed a strong, steady voice telling me to snap out of it. I didn’t need him to speak. I needed someone to hold me down. I doubled over and clamped harder against my face trying to get some sort of a grip.

“Stop it,” he gripped my shoulders. “Stop it. Come on. She’ll be fine.” He understood more than I thought. I liked when he surprised me like that. But Peter sounded miles away. I pushed against my head while a surging pressure in my head pushed out. The inside of my scalp tingles and spreads down my neck into my shoulders, making me arch my neck to relieve the sensation. I couldn’t scream. Peter placed his hands gently on my forearms, but I pushed him away with my elbows. No one on this earth knows me the way she does and no one ever will. When She dies, she’ll take me with her. A wheeze rose from my stomach and caught in my throat. I opened my mouth and a sound released like I was regurgitating a small animal. Peter stepped back and widened his eyes. I turned my back to him and fell to my knees in front of the full-length mirror. Whatever I dislodged in my throat let me wail. If I forced myself to look in the mirror, I might discover something she didn’t already know. I might be able take something back before she took it all with her. I didn’t recognize anyone in the mirror. Not my father’s face, or Teddy’s, definitely not my mother’s. I didn’t learn anything. I crawled away from the mirror, ashamed. Peter knelt before me and held my body until my breaths became long and slow again.

We didn’t sleep but he convinced me to lie in bed with him. The washcloth in my hand felt crusty where the congestion had dried and cold where tears soaked through. “Tell me about it,” he asked. “She’s happy when she looks at me, but she doesn’t know why,” I croaked. “I can see it in her eyes. The happiness is right in front. But, sometimes, there’s this guilt. Like she knows. She knows she’s forgotten something, something big. The guilt is right behind the happy. Then, the guilt will move to the front and I can’t look at her anymore.”

Every year for Thanksgiving, the best thing I could’ve brought home with me was a degree. A year before that was in my grasp, the best thing I could have brought home was Peter. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins eyed him or poked my ribs raising their brows comically. “Oh, your guerito is cute,” my mother said. When I called and asked Dad if Peter could stay at the house for Thanksgiving, he said it was unacceptable. I told him I had bought the tickets anyway. When Peter arrived, Dad put on the overeager air of a host who suddenly had a lot to prove. I held his hand whenever he acted too happy Peter was there. Teddy and Peter tried to establish a sort of bond, searching for some sport’s team, movie franchise, or piece of technology they could equally agree or disagree on. Peter didn’t play soccer, Teddy didn’t watch a lot of thrillers, and neither of them really cared about what cell phone or laptop the other owned. They’d both seen Star Wars and started from there. I gripped Peter’s hand to let him know I appreciated him for trying. I propped my head on my mother’s shoulder, watching the crowded dining room, knowing it’d be a memory. She patted my hand clasped in hers in a beat she’d constructed. In Spanish she asked me, “You like him?” I hummed in her shoulder that I did. I’d watched Peter bob around the house that night. Peter still likes talking. He spoke to my cousin Manny more than I had in my entire life. What he said, I had no idea. I knew he had no idea what any of my family members said to him. But Peter tries. I don’t imagine speaking with her in person. If I were to have another conversation with her, it would be a phone call. What might she say? “What’s left of you, then? “A lot of me left,” I’d say. “That’s good.” “But a lot of me is still here.” “Oh.” People don’t meet versions of one other. They meet amounts. I stood behind 1% of a person in line today. In middle school I was a bit overzealous and let my first boyfriend meet a whopping 70% of me. The years have exponentially reduced his knowledge. We’re lucky to meet anyone who ever breaches 60% and

says “Great, what else is there?” “How much of you is left?” she might ask next. I still don’t know just how much of me she held. “Who else is left?” she pressed. “A lot of people.” “What about Peter?” “What about Peter?” “How much do you each have of each other?” “80%, maybe.” “Four years and only 80%.” “We’ve earned it, each little bit.” When she left for good, she didn’t take me with her. She left everything she knew behind. Every bit of me she carried was on my back now. With one person less to carry us all, Dad, Teddy and I try to shift the weight on our shoulders as evenly as we can. It’s hard to see outside the three of us sometimes. “I think they’ve all earned the chance to earn even more,” she’d say. I decided not to risk what might happen if I didn’t believe her this time.