Harmony House by Nic Sheff

front of me. Like it had all happenedin this house a long time ago.
    But that doesn’t make any sense.
    It must’ve just been a nightmare.
    Or maybe some kind of fever dream. Because I’m sick as hell.
    I cough and retch and gag over the sink.
    I splash water on my face and try to breathe.
    When I close my eyes I can still see that older nun with her face all lined and full of hatred. In the image I have of her now her eyes are black, scribbled out, and dead-looking.
    I face myself in the mirror. What the hell am I thinking?
    You’re crazy, I tell myself.
    â€œYou’re crazy,” I say out loud.
    Then I open my mouth and look down my throat and gnash my teeth. “Get it together,” I say.
    I open the bathroom door and see that the house is dark. It feels very late—or maybe very early. I make my way back to the pink Pepto-Bismol room, crawling under the thick down comforter. I lie there until the nausea passes. I drift off to sleep. And in sleep, I dream.
    I dream of my mom.
    When she picked me up from school in our oldgreen Volvo station wagon—surprising me, since I usually had to stay in the after-school program. She was so pretty then. Her eyes were blue and she smiled big—her two front teeth pushed in a little so it made her canines stand out sharp and feline-looking. She had a small, angular nose and high cheekbones and a narrow jaw. Her neck was long and elegant and she wore a silver cross necklace. She took my backpack from me, and I had to reach up to take her hand.
    Driving through the bright spring afternoon, she played David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane on the six-CD changer and we both sang along. The surrounding country was coming back to life green and vibrant after the long winter. In the parks families were out walking their dogs and kids were playing pickup baseball games and people were out boating on the lake.
    My mom had the windows rolled down and we sang together as we passed through downtown and drove out the old highway to the thrift store owned by my mom’s friend Mrs. Douglas—who would call my mom and tell her when she got in special fabrics, clothes, or records. My mom was a seamstress and would sew dresses for me.
    She never got to use her talents as much as she liked,working the way she did at the makeup counter at Peebles. But she was very talented. That day she bought a length of bright, floral-patterned fabric she would make into a blouse and a pair of matching shorts for me. And she let me buy a Jackson 5 record they had on sale for a dollar.
    Then, on the way home, we stopped to get ice cream and she told me not to tell my dad, because it would ruin my dinner. Then she stopped at the packaged goods store and bought something in a brown paper bag for herself. Dad didn’t know about that either.
    We had a lot of secrets like that. We had to hide so many things from him.
    Though, eventually, she started hiding things from me, too.
    And soon she disappeared from both of us completely.
    But in my dream, I remember her as she was before.
    Sitting on the bench outside the ice-cream parlor, my legs dangling, swinging back and forth.
    She laughed and told me stories about when she’d been my age and how she used to chase the boys in school and try to kiss them. She told me that when she caught one boy and kissed him on the cheek, he burstinto tears and went and told the teacher and she got in trouble.
    â€œI want you to promise me something,” she said, the flash of her smile gone—her eyes unblinking, staring straight into me. “Promise me you’ll make better decisions than I did.”
    Wanting to say the right thing, I nodded and told her yes. I promised that of course— of course I would.
    â€œYou know I love you more than anything in the world,” she continued. “But I want you to have choices, okay? Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t have choices. You always do.”
    And then she