Everything Is Fine. by Ann Dee Ellis Page B

in her knees.
    “Do what, Mom?”
    She sniffs and says even more quietly, “I can’t be normal. I can’t face Dave. I can’t face anyone.” She looks up at me. “And
     I can’t be a mom.”
    I try to do three yoga breaths because for some reason I can’t get air.
    “Mom, don’t say that. You’re a good mom.”
    She is shaking now, and the Elmer’s glue looks almost transparent.
    “I let her die, Mazzy. I watched my own baby girl die.” She is shaking harder now and I can feel tears coming up in my head
     but I don’t want them to come. I don’t want them to come. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you,” she says. “I have
     no one to talk to.” And then her voice trails off.
    “Mom,” I whisper. She is shaking and shaking and then sobbing. Sobbing so loud — louder than anything I’ve ever heard in my
     life and suddenly I’m shaking too.
    “Mom,” I whisper louder. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”
    Her head snaps up. “Then whose fault was it?” Her voice all of a sudden steady, her face a mess of snot and tears.
    For some reason I feel scared. I’m scared.
    “Nobody’s,” I say.
    “What?” she says back.
    “Nobody’s.”
    “Mazzy, if it wasn’t my fault, whose fault do you think it was?” she asks, her voice suddenly more than strong, almost a yell.
    I take a deep breath.
    Three deep breaths.
    And then I say it.
    I whisper it.
    “Mazzy, I can’t hear you.” There is a tremor in the air. “What did you say?”
    Finally, I look straight at her and say what we both know is the truth. What Dad knows is the truth. What probably the whole
     neighborhood and the cops and the paramedics and everybody know is the truth. “Mine, Mom. I said it was my fault.”
HOT
    The day Olivia died it was hot outside just like now.
    Sweaty hot.
    And it was 9:43. My first gymnastics class ever started at 10:00 and it was in Springville, which was a half hour away.
    For two weeks I had put up signs: Gymnastics 10:00 Saturday, August 4th, Springville Center.
    I put them up in the kitchen, in my parents bathroom, on the fridge, on my dad’s steering wheel. Everywhere.
    It was because I saw this flyer at the grocery store for Xtreme Gymnastics and I wanted to do it and I got all my friends
     to sign up and it was going to be perfect.
    But sometimes things didn’t always happen how they were supposed to.
    Dad said, “Mazzy, you’ve papered the whole house,” and then he laughed. “You’d think this was the most important gymnastics
     class on the planet.”
    I karate chopped at him and said, “I just don’t want to miss it.”
    “Yeah. I get it.” He laughed again. And he karate chopped back.
    But then the day of the class he was called in to work.
    And Mom was mad because she had art critiques and didn’t have time and she’d have to take Olivia with her and she didn’t have
     time for this and why did Dad always do this. I was sitting by the door waiting and Mom was rushing around and I said, “You
     can just drop me off early and come back,” but she said, “I don’t have time, Maz. I have to get to the art center by 10:30,”
     and then she was getting in the shower but it was 9:15 and she wouldn’t be ready in time.
    I didn’t want to go if I was going to be late. I could feel the heat rising in my throat.
    “Mom, I don’t want to go,” I said.
    But she wasn’t listening. She was yelling to get everything ready, to get Olivia wiped up, and she was putting on her makeup
     and she was almost ready, she said, and I was still standing by the door waiting and waiting and waiting.
    Then it was 9:49 and I said, “I’ll just stay home.”
    Mom poked her head in the hall. “You are not staying home.” Olivia was sitting on the floor.
    Finally she came out of her room with bags and some books and her art portfolio and hurry hurry we’re late, get your sister
     and let’s go. The phone rang. Her cell rang. Olivia started crying. Hurry Hurry. This is