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By Root 399 0

myself and in doing so, I could lay these wounds to rest. But I never did, of course. Wounds like this don’t just seal themselves overnight and disappear into the ether. Because even after they’ve healed, even after the scars are entirely undetectable, the memories of the damage are still seared into your brain, like posttraumatic stress from a mugging. You tell everyone that you’re fine and you even convince yourself that this is so, until one day, a man leers a little too close to you on the street, and you find yourself dissolving into fear and panic and sweat all over again. This was what it was like to live with the memory of my mother’s abandonment. Even when I pushed it good-bye, it lingered, like a stench that you’d grown so used to, you couldn’t smell it any longer. And then, later, after we’d married, Henry wouldn’t let me forget it, anyway, as if he thought that reclaiming my maternal bond with her would somehow cure me of all my ills.

Google returns no hits on my mother’s name. I lean back into my chair, almost relieved, and reach for my hot chocolate. It’s only then that I notice that my hands are shaking.

How could someone’s life be so invisible that even Google can’t find them? I wonder.

“You’re still here?” Josie pops her head in the door frame, then wanders in and plunks down in a chair opposite my desk. “I thought I was the only one left.”

“Keeping the midnight oil burning,” I say, turning my head from the computer screen but keeping my eyes on it until they’re forced to look away.

“I hear you,” she says, removing one of her heels to rub the arch of her foot. “Speaking of which, I just got off the phone with the Coke guys—”

“What happened with Bart?” I interrupt.

“Oh, Jesus, nothing.” She waves her free hand and turns crimson. “That was just one too many drinks talking.” She shakes her head and her voice drifts off. “Or something.”

“Or something,” I agree.

“Well, anyway, more important, good news. Coke’s decided to hire us not just for this campaign, but for all their advertising: print, radio, TV.”

“Wow!” I say. “That’s amazing! Congratulations, Jo.”

“Don’t congratulate me . . . you’re the one who did this. And so . . .” she pauses for effect, “as of Monday, consider yourself an account director.”

“Seriously?” This definitely didn’t happen in my old life. Back then, my back was patted and I heard “job well done,” but never was I heralded as an advertising genius, which is more or less what this promotion—two years early—trumpeted. “Thank you, Jo!” I rock back in my chair, as some sort of exclamation, and it creaks in reply.

“My pleasure,” she says, slipping her shoe back on. “You’ve earned it. Now go grab that boyfriend of yours and celebrate.”

“Oh, well, he’s actually at his parents’ house this weekend. His mother broke her hip, and he likes to be at her beck and call and all of that.” I feel the enthusiasm sucked from my body much like a punctured tire. “But you should head home yourself. Hang with the kids and all that.”

She shrugs. “They’re actually visiting Art in San Jose. Their last gasp of summer before school starts next week.”

We both stare at the floor, embarrassed to acknowledge the obvious: that neither of us has any other place to be, that neither of us has anyone who needs us badly enough to vacate our hushed, melancholy offices.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” she says finally to break the silence. She stands to leave. “Don’t work all weekend, okay?”

“Promise.” I smile but drop it as soon as she rounds out of my office. I reach for the phone to call Jack and tell him about the promotion, then think otherwise. Whenever Jack is with his mother, I feel like my calls are an intrusion, like he’s humoring me until he can click off and return to his first priority.

I shuffle papers around on my desk, hunting for busywork, until I realize that my mother’s search results, or lack thereof, still blare out from my screen. I grab her letter and reread it once again, like I haven’t already committed every word and every hint of meaning behind them to memory. Biting my bottom lip, I reconsider