1503951243 by Laurel Saville Page B

tripping and stumbling over railroad ties that were skewed by decades of disuse and severe weather. She found her mother prone, arms folded neatly across her chest, newly manicured fingernails interlaced, her freshly darkened and blown-dry hair spread out over the blackened gravel around her head, with grass sticking up around her legs and feet. She did not open her eyes as her daughter approached.
    “Mummy?”
    Miranda slowed and kneeled in the dirt. Her mother was breathing. She seemed asleep. Deeply, quietly asleep.
    Was this her plan? Miranda’s thoughts raced. When she left this morning, was this what she had wanted to do—get primped for death? Or was this a spontaneous action, an inspiration that had come upon her when she bumped over the tracks?
    Miranda had been so hopeful about her mother’s focus that morning, hoped it was the result of a desire to return to life, not leave it. Yet here she was, waiting for a train on tracks that hadn’t seen one in thirty years.
    “Mum? Please. Mummy. Please don’t leave me. Not like this. Not this way,” Miranda pleaded.
    And then she thought, How sad. So sad. She can’t even get her own suicide right.
    Miranda stroked her mother’s cheek. Her eyes opened. Her expression was full of dull surprise, like she’d forgotten where she was and how she’d gotten there. She slowly sat up and rubbed her forehead with the back of her fist. In Miranda’s tear-filled vision, her mother looked far away and watery, as if she were at the bottom of a pool. Miranda blinked to clear her eyes. It didn’t help. There was something wrong with her mother’s face. One side of her mouth drooped and her cheek sagged, a wet tea bag. Her mother tried to speak, but only one half of her mouth moved. A thread of drool slid out of the slack side. Her brow furrowed in confusion. She tried to speak again, but her lips would not cooperate in the forming of words.
    A stroke, Miranda thought. She’s had a stroke. And neither that train that isn’t coming nor the stroke will take her where she wants to go. Which is away from here, away from all this agonizing pain.
    Miranda screamed for help, but her voice merely drifted upward into the darkening sky. She left her mother, crawled and stumbled, got to her car, found her phone, thanked the God she didn’t believe in that she had the merest of signals, and called for an ambulance. Then she went back to the tracks and held her mother, a rag doll, in her arms.

    The next time Warren saw Miranda, she was much changed. She came in alone this time—there were delicate matters to be discussed—and he saw how the skin around her eyes was darker and their rims were reddened, her hair was twisted into a sloppy knot, her lips were tight and her gaze was clouded. Her eyes skittered over things, and she looked everywhere except at him. She slumped into a chair. Warren cleared his throat. He wished Dix was there, privacy be damned. He wondered if he should postpone. But there was nothing to be gained by delay. The quicker he got to the issues, the quicker they could be resolved. Things had been pushed off far too long as it was.
    “I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you, Miranda,” Warren said.
    He tended toward bluntness. This preamble was the best he could do to ease her into what he had to say. He watched as she tried to arrange her features into a simulacrum of strength. He was relieved that she didn’t start to cry. He was no good with women and tears. He glanced at a box of tissues on his credenza. Miranda finally looked directly at him. He took this as evidence that he could continue.
    “How much do you know about your father’s financial and professional affairs?” he asked.
    He was stalling a bit. For her and himself. He knew the answer would be zero. Miranda bit her lip, shrugged, and shook her head.
    She’s too young, too protected, for all this, Warren thought. Her mother should be here.
    “Normally, I’d want to talk to your mother