Mimi sat on her hunkers before him and took his hand and tried to tilt his chin up with one finger, but he resisted her pull and she rose and began to explore the cave. He heard her stop near Marci’s skeleton for a long while, then move some more. She circled him and his mother, then opened her lid and stared into her hamper. He wanted to tell her not to touch his mother, but the words sounded ridiculous in his head and he didn’t dare find out how stupid they sounded moving through freespace.
And then the washing machine bucked and made a snapping sound and hummed to life.
The generator’s dead, he thought. And she’s all rusted through. And still the washing machine moved. He heard the gush of water filling her, a wet and muddy sound.
“What did you do?” he asked. He climbed slowly to his feet, facing away from his mother, not wanting to see her terrible bucking as she wobbled on her broken foot.
“Nothing,” Mimi said. “I just looked inside and it started up.”
He stared at his mother, enraptured, mesmerized. Mimi stole alongside of him and he noticed that she’d taken off her jacket and the sweatshirt, splaying out her wings around her.
Her hand found his and squeezed. The machine rocked. His mother rocked and gurgled and rushed, and then she found some local point of stability and settled into a soft rocking rhythm.
The rush of water echoed off the cave walls, a white-noise shushing that sounded like skis cutting through powder. It was a beautiful sound, one that transported him to a million mornings spent waiting for the boys’ laundry to finish and be hung on the line.
All gone.
He jerked his head up so fast that something in his neck cracked, needling pain up into his temples and forehead. He looked at Mimi, but she gave no sign of having heard the voice, the words, All gone.