my mother says she wants to go out tonight | Camila Cal Mello
i tell her it’s not a good idea it’s halloween it’s crowded outside it’s kind of cold really it’s a strange thing to want when everything is falling apart but she stands up from her bed says i want to dress up so i gather the boxes of costumes from the garage while she vomits what’s left of her stomach into the toilet i pull out wigs tights cracked makeup props of a past i can’t quite remember i hear her retching i wonder what she wants to be this year what we did for this to be our life what made her so ill this time the pinch of plain white rice the spoonful of soup the tiny mountain of pills on her nightstand but there is no dressing it up the answer is always the same and i pull it out of boxes like a repeated costume that never goes out of style the cancer the cancer the cancer
she closes the toilet lid and sits on top i appear at the door holding anything i think she might like though surely she doesn’t want to leave anymore but she points at the white makeup in my palm says i want that so i cover her forehead undereye bags sunken cheeks wrinkled lids in a thick white paste i add fake blood like scars all over try not to think any more about blood just this week she had a transfusion the chemo was too strong trying to kill her before she had a chance to survive now what to do about her hair or lack thereof i buzzed it off in the living room maybe a month ago because her black hair was clumped in every corner of the house discarded piles of a person finally she begged i want you to get it all off me at first i said no please afraid i would not know my mother without her waist length hair already she was yanking it out in fistfuls of evidence i know her body hasn’t belonged to me since birth but now it doesn’t belong to her either who was i to deny a broken body’s wish i tuck a silver wig onto her bald head and ask her to pick out a dress
i am a skeleton face wearing all black heating up the car the chemo has made her so small so cold i cannot cure much but i can offer a warm seat when she walks out the front door she is wearing a long grey dress thick shiny strands framing the ghastly makeup i’m not sure exactly what she means to be but the poison port on her chest is hidden her hair is touching her waist again and right now she is strong enough to put one foot in front of the other to sink into the cushion offer me a weak smile enough to make me press on the gas drive us downtown to watch little kids strut next to their healthy parents do you remember when i chose your costumes she asks me and of course i do angel princess pirate nurse devil walking up a driveway with a mother looming somewhere behind who i once was feels so far away now because i know i know how this skeleton face isn’t fooling anyone she puts her pale hand on mine maybe this year is like all the others my mother chose my costume and i wear it year-round look at me look at me will anyone notice i’m dressed up as a daughter
when we get there i tell her we can always go back home there’s big crowds lots of walking she doesn’t even like candy still she ignores me breathes deep opens the car door we walk down a bustling fifth avenue her arm hooked in mine as superheroes and astronauts blow past us to trick or treat from storefronts some kids stop and stare at us they say children can see ghosts better than anyone else i think they must know just how much i am holding her body upright instead their parents ask for a picture they love my mother’s costume she’s so scary it’s almost real i want to tell them i’ve seen her scarier on wednesday afternoons floating in a chemo chair glazed look in her eyes smooth skin gone sour cheeks lips tongue so pale it’s like her face was erased how i sit beside her watching the rise and fall of her chest i want to tell them give me all the zombies monsters spiders there is nothing scarier than loss i hold my mother’s arm tighter as if she isn’t my worst nightmare
she doesn’t mind the cameras in fact she leans into character for the pictures looming over the children with an angry look they scream she laughs my face paint smears i record the moment so she can listen to it on repeat like an antidote to the wednesday poison press play her laugh her laugh her laugh we go on like this for an hour walking the street slowly stopping every few steps to admire a costume take another picture place a piece of candy into a chubby palm eventually i hear her breathing begin to rasp when i look at her she nods so we make our way back to the car i say ma i hope you had a good time she says yes oh yes the proof is in her white makeup cracked at the edges from her smile windswept wig grey dress trailing behind us i feel like a little girl with a bag full of candy when i tell her i’m glad we came she squeezes my hand says my daughter isn’t it wonderful to only pretend to be dead?
Bonus audio of Camila reading from her essay…
about the author:
Camila Cal Mello is a Uruguayan, first-generation, emerging creative nonfiction writer, and poet. She earned her MFA from the University of Central Florida, where she received a Provost Fellowship in nonfiction. She is currently a PhD student in English, Creative Writing Concentration at the University of Mississippi where she teaches literature on campus and in the Prison-to-College Pipeline program. Her work has been published in Under the Sun, The Acentos Review, and others. Find her on social media @camivcal.