"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.*
*All gone.*
Mimi looked at him and cocked her head. "What?" she said.
He touched her lips with a finger, forgetting to be mindful of the
swelling there, and she flinched away. There was a rustle of wings and
clothing.
*My sons, all my sons, gone.*
The voice emerged from that white-noise roar of water humming and
sloshing back and forth in her basket.
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