Sublime

And so I had quit my job. I was loading groceries into the refrigerator when the phone rang. The

Pearl had understood the hierarchy: her mother’s real work was her art, and whatever paid the bills existed only to make that art possible.

So much was out of her hands: What if one of her new neighbors signed a gas lease and one morning she woke up to a well site? What if she or one of the kids contracted cancer; would their cancer insurance actually cover the cost? Her mouth tasted of ash—cortisol, the aftermath of adrenaline. Overwhelmed with catastrophic fantasies, she went to see

And Lydia herself—the reluctant center of their universe—every day, she held the world together. She absorbed her parents’ dreams, quieting the reluctance that bubbled up within.