She swore at me.  I ignored her.  It was just a typical Mothers’ Day.  Until I thought I could lose her.

The heroine had decided to go down into the basement.  Alone.  It was a trap.  I knew she was making a mistake.  But she was the last hope — the only one who could prevent the apocalypse and spare the world from domination by fiery demons…

And then Mom walked in to where I was plugged into my audiobook, measuring out the spices for sausage making.  She asked me something.  Couldn’t she see the earbuds in my ears? Couldn’t she see the mask over my face, protecting me from inhaling the spice dust?  If I stopped to talk, I would be in a tangle of wires, violent sneezes and elastic, and I risked losing my place in the ingredient list, which could result in the chorizo having way too much cumin.  More importantly, I needed to know if the heroine was going to figure out a way to bind the demon before he made her his bride and then ripped out her heart and ate it.  I pretended not to hear her.

Mom swore at me.  I pretended I didn’t hear that, either.  Then she stormed back outside.  The heat’s getting to her, I thought.  I backed up the audiobook a little to make sure I didn’t miss anything.  It was Mother’s day, for Pete’s sake.  I’d already cooked her a special dinner the night before.  I was done pandering to her for the weekend.   Since I’m ALSO a mother, I just wanted a day to be in my own head, listening to a great book while I chipped away at my to-do list.

There’s not a therapist anywhere who wouldn’t have a hay day teasing apart Mom’s and my dynamics.  Give two strong women a direct genetic link, and then throw them into business together on a family farm, along with their husbands, and you have a pretty volatile relationship.

We’re used to it.  I figured she’d forget swearing at me within the next 20 minutes, especially since I was pretending it never happened.  I finished measuring out the spices for all the sausages, sealed up the bags, then went out to find her.  She was standing in the driveway, staring at the house.

“Are the chickens ready for tomorrow?” I asked.  I’d seen her and Dad bending and stooping to box up the birds that were ready for processing two hours earlier, when I’d pulled in.  She shrugged. That was an odd answer.  Saoirse came whipping by the side of the house and ran to hide behind the brooder.  I could hear Ula counting time by the big pine tree out front.  They were both dripping sweat, apparently just happy for the sudden reprieve from winter.  Mom watched them play.   “How was your visit with Carol?” Her friend Carol and John had come and visited on the back porch for a bit after the chickens were boxed up. Again, I didn’t get a direct answer.

“I feel dizzy.”

“Have you had any water?”  She shrugged again.  I touched her arm and pushed her gently toward the kitchen. “Let’s go to the house and get some water.”

I walked with her back to the house.  I began packing up my stuff to bring the girls home as she went toward the sink.  But as soon as she got there, she turned around and went toward the sunroom instead, forgetting the water.  “Would you look at these seedling?” She asked me.  I kept packing.  “Come here and look at these seedlings,” she insisted.

I walked over and touched my fingers to the soil where a few broccoli plants were just poking their heads up.  “They look good,” I said.  “What’s the matter?” I saw nothing wrong.

“I just don’t know what to do with them,” and she tossed them back on the shelf in disgust.

Dad came in and sat down. “It’s HOT!” he exclaimed over the din of Saoirse and Ula running and giggling outside.  Mom went and sat down too, putting her feet up.

“I feel kind of dizzy,” she said.

“Mom!  You never drank any water!”  I admonished her, shaking my head. “I swear, you’ve got ADD!”  I went over to the sink and filled a glass of water and walked back to her.

And that’s when she rolled her eyes back in her head and stuck her tongue out at me. Dad began to laugh.

“Mom?”  She didn’t move.  “Mom!”  I shoved the glass on the table beside her.  My hands free, I began to shake her.  “MOM!”  I screamed at the top of my lungs.  Dad looked at me, confused.  “Dad!  Something’s wrong!  MOM! COME BACK!”

“What’s happening?”  Suddenly he realized that this wasn’t the normal schtick between Mom and me.  He launched from his chair as I dove for the telephone to dial 9-1-1.  The call wouldn’t go through.

“Adele!  Adele!”  He was screaming at her now, slapping her face.  “Oh my God! What if she’s having a stroke! ADELE!”

It was a pathetic scene, really.  Both Dad and I kept thinking that if we only screamed louder, she’d come back to us.  That’s how things usually work on a family farm, I guess.

But she wasn’t coming back to us.  Saoirse came running in.  “What’s happening?”  She looked at me, her eyes wide with fear.

“I don’t know!  Something’s wrong.  And I can’t get through to 9-1-1!”  I was still shouting. “Go get Ginny and Victor!  Tell them to call!  Run!”  And without another word, she ran out the door and down the road to the neighbors.  Dad began pressing on her heart.  He slapped her face again.  I gave up on the house phone and tried using my new iPhone.  It asked for my security code.  Stupidlly, I punched 9-1-1.  The screen shook madly side to side.  I dropped the stupid thing and tried the house phone again.  This time I got through.

“She’s awake!”  Dad screamed from across the room.  “I’m going to get her aspirin!”

“What’s going on?”  Mom’s voice was softer than usual.  Confused.  Saoirse was back now, breathing heavily, fiercely holding onto her grammie’s arm.  “Grammie?  Are you okay?”

“Mom?  Do you know where you are?” I asked from across the room, where I held the phone receiver to my ear. She looked at me for a second, then nodded.  “Can you tell me what year it is?”

She paused and thought, then slowly said “2015.”

I returned my attention to the 9-1-1 operator.  “I’m not sure, but I think she might have just passed out from the heat.”

“Would you like us to send an ambulance?”

“Yes, please.”

Dad pushed two aspirin on her.  Ginny and Victor pulled in the driveway and came to sit with us.  Ula poked her head in from the porch and looked at me.  “Is Grammie going to be okay?” she asked softly, afraid to come in.  I held out my arms to her.  “I think it’s okay,” I said.  She ran and hugged me, then threw her arms around her grandmother.

Mom was still pretty groggy.  I made her drink.  “You can sleep,” I said, “but you have to hold my hand.  I need to know if you go out like that again.”  She took it and closed her eyes.

She opened them again when the ambulance came up the driveway. “What are they going to do to me?”  She asked.  “I won’t leave you for a second,” I assured her.  “We’re just going to make sure you’re okay.”  She hates hospitals.

She had some nausea afterward.  She wasn’t very hungry, but she did manage to take a little bit of food.  Once we were confident that she hadn’t suffered a stroke or heart attack, we convinced the paramedics that she didn’t need to go to the hospital.  We assured them we’d follow up with her doctor.  Saoirse and I decided that we’d stay the night in case there was any trouble.  I took Ula home to Bob.

When we got back to the farm, we got Mom up to bed, then Saoirse and I made up the pull-out couch in the living room, which was just below the vent to their bedroom.  We read together for a bit, and then she settled down in the dark with her own audiobook while  I closed my eyes to meditate in an effort to calm my nerves.

I breathed deeply.  I let my body surrender to gravity.  I watched my thoughts.  Then I focused on the feelings in my chest.  And I began to weep.  I stayed quiet as the tears rolled down my face, not wanting to alarm my eleven-year-old daughter.  My mother is supposed to be a permanent pain in my ass, I thought, not a temporary one.  So much shit flies between us on this farm.  So many insults.  Manipulations.  So many middle fingers.

But she’s my mother.  And I love her fiercely.  And I cannot bear the thought of losing her.

The tears kept flowing.  I wept for relief.  I wept for fear that someday I won’t have that relief.  I wept because, in that moment, I hated my choice to be so close with my family, to share this farm — this sweaty, invective-laden, accident-prone, minefield of grassfed meat and family dysfunction.  I wept for the pain that I cannot walk away from, because my heart would never allow me to make any different choice than to be there, on that stupid saggy pull-out couch, beneath their bedroom, listening for any signs of trouble on the final hours of Mothers’ Day.  I wept because, unlike the heroine in my book, I will never have to go down into a scary basement alone. Instead, I face a different horror: the fact that I have so many people to love, I have so much pain to feel when I someday lose them.  My heart will be ripped out again, and again, and again.

I opened my eyes and looked over at Saoirse.  She had her own earbuds in, immersed in her audiobook.  I dried my eyes and sat up.  In spite of the heat of the day, I began to shiver.

“Are you okay, Mom?”  My teeth chattered.  I could barely speak.  We both stood up and scrounged around the living room to find extra blankets.  I laid back down on the mattress and pulled the covers up.  She climbed beneath and entwined her arms through my arms, her legs over my legs, then pressed her stomach to my back, ignoring the heat that must have been driving her crazy, feeding me her warmth.  My trembling calmed.  I heard Mom and Dad’s snores from upstairs.

In the dark, she whispered to me.  “It was actually a pretty good day,” she said.  “You finished your manuscript.  And Ula and I had a great game of hide and seek.”

“And I finally got the grass cut,” I added, following her lead, “and lunch out on the screen porch with Daddy was really nice.”

“And we got to have hollandaise with asparagus again!  I love hollandaise!”

“And the raspberries are all cleaned out, and the blueberry bushes look good,”

“It was just one bad moment with Grammie,” she murmered, her voice growing sleepy, “and that turned out okay, too. It was actually a nice Mothers’ Day”

She slept deeply.  I dozed fitfully. Each time I woke, I listened for signs of slumbering upstairs, then rolled over and resumed the game Saoirse had begun. The spices are mixed and ready for sausage, the sheep are almost done lambing, the garden is ready for planting…And I would find my way to sleep once more by counting my blessings, until I heard Mom and Dad’s alarm finally go off at 4am.  Dad came down to get ready for their morning affairs.  Mom lingered under the covers a bit longer.  I crept up the stairs and perched on the edge of her bed.  We sat in the dark and we talked.  About the chickens.  About the sausage.  About the vacation she and Dad were going to take.  About the farmers’ market.  About her visit with her friend yesterday afternoon.  About how she was feeling.  About meat deliveries and processing schedules.

And I hung on every mundane word, realizing how precious they were.  And the next time she swears at me (which will likely happen very very soon), it will be a sweet, sweet sound.