“If you want it, find it yourself,” I say.

“It seems silly,” she says, “but of all the things in the house, that’s all I have left of my mother, and . . . ” She makes a strange sound, almost like a hiccup, and her eyes fill with tears. “I need that sugar bowl. You have to give it back.”

I look both ways down the street, but I don’t see any car a woman like her could have driven here.

“I followed you,” she says, looking down at her shoes.

“None of that,” says my mother, keeping her gaze forward, and that’s the last thing she says during the whole drive.

“What are you looking for, Mom? What is all of this?”

“What kind of madness was all that?”

Today, however, she has crossed a big line. She insisted on driving. She contrived to get us inside this house, into the master bedroom, and now she’s just come back from the bathroom after dumping two jars of salts into the tub, and she’s starting to throw some products from the dressing table into the trash.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve gone out to look at houses, removed unsuitable flowers and pots from their gardens. We’ve moved sprinklers, straightened mailboxes, relocated lawn ornaments that were too heavy for the grass. As soon as my feet reached the pedals, I started to take over driving, which gave my mother more freedom. Once, by herself, she moved a white wooden bench and put it in the yard of the house across the street. She unhooked hammocks. Yanked up malignant weeds. Three times she pulled off the name “Marilú 2” from a terribly cheesy sign. My father found out about one or another of these events, but I don’t think that was why he left my mother. When he went, my father took all his things except the car key, which he left on one of the piles of my mother’s home and garden magazines, and for some years after that she almost never got out of the car on any of our excursions. She’d sit in the passenger seat and say “That’s kikuyu,” “That bow window is not American,” “The cascading geranium flowers should not be beside the spotted lady’s thumb,” “If I ever decide to paint the house that shade of pearl pink, please, hire someone to just shoot me.”

“My sugar bowl? Please, it was my mother’s.”

“Where do people get all these things? And did you see there’s a staircase on either side of the living room?” She rests her face in the palms of her hands. “It makes me so sad I just want to die.”

“Don’t even get me started on those pillowcases,” she says, and then, peering out from behind the door to be sure I hear: “And I want to see that sugar bowl when I come out of the bathroom. Don’t you do anything crazy.”

“And what are we going to do with all of this?” asks my mother, gesturing around herself. “Someone has to talk to these people.”

“I’m going to get the car out,” I say, picking the wood up again. “I want you out there with me in two minutes. You’d better be there.” The woman is in the hall talking on a cell phone, but she sees me and hangs up. “It’s my husband, he’s on his way.” I wait for an expression that will tell me whether the man is coming to help my mother and me, or to help the woman get us out of the house. But the woman just stares at me, taking care not to give me any clues. I go outside and walk to the car, and I can hear the boy running behind me. I don’t say anything as I prop the wood under the wheels and look around to see where my mother could have left the keys. Then I start the car. It takes several tries, but finally the ramp trick works. I close the car door, and the boy has to run so I don’t hit him. I don’t stop, I

I have to get my mother out of this house.

“They say the ambulance will be here in fifteen minutes.”

the sugar bowl

“Is this white marble? How do they get white marble? What does your daddy do, sweetheart?”

wonder when the first time was

I’m worried because night is falling, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the car out in the dark.

she wants us to disappear, bu

“I feel terrible. Call an ambulance, please.”

She looks the same age as my mother.

That my mother is not well.

The boy looks on, hugging one of the columns by the entrance.

A woman pushes aside the window curtains and looks out at us, at her yard. The boy is next to her, pointing. The curtain closes again, and my mother sinks the car deeper and deeper.

My mother shifts gears, accelerates again, and manages to move in reverse. And this is what she does now: with the car in reverse, she drives across the street, goes into the yard in front of the boy’s house, and draws, from one side to the other across the wide blanket of freshly cut grass, a double-lined semicircle of mud.

“There’s no way out of this.”

r shifts into first gear, and to my surprise the wheels spin for a moment but she manages to move the car forward.

Any attempt to figure out why could turn into the straw that breaks the camel’s back, confirmation of the fact that my mother has been throwing her own daughter’s time into the garbage for as long as I can remember.

e’re lost,” says my mother.

I know exactly what it is we’re doing, but I’ve only just realized how strange it is.

just “watch the video and be done with it.” He checks their notes and requires each student to come to class with a question.

A judge in Oklahoma on Monday ruled

One Monday morning, Carol returned from one of those errand runs to

But don’t get close to them, as it only makes it more difficult when they leave. And they always leave. You can be sure of that.

Voicemail System Manual.

You must pace your work. What do I mean? I’m glad you asked that. We pace our work according to the eight-hour workday. If you have twelve hours of work in your in-box, for example, you must compress that work into the eight-hour day. If you have one hour of work in your in-box, you must expand that work to fill the eight- hour day. That was a good question. Feel free to ask questions. Ask too many questions, however, and you may be let go.

your

Those are the offices and these are the cubicles. That’s my cubicle there, and this is your cubicle.

Orientation: