For one thing, I wake up and shout my usual hello to Thelma, but there’s no shout back. Her television is quiet. When I cock my head and look in through the crack in the curtain, I can see that the bedding has been changed, and there are new sheets pulled up tight, the IV stand empty just like a coatrack waiting for someone else to hang her jacket and hat. Thelma is gone. When my parents come in, I can’t look at them. “Hi,” my mother says, slowly. “Hello?” My father hovers by the door, his hands in his pockets. I just gulp and look over at Thelma’s side of the room. As usual, they don’t get it. “Are you in pain?” my mother says. “Are you okay, Lizzie?” I nod, though there are tears streaming down my face. This is a different kind of cry. I’ve never realized before how many different kinds there are. But this one, it is a silent cry, the cry, my cry, for another person, a kind of cry I thought was saved for old people. Slowly it registers. I can see the realization take over my mother’s face, first in her eyes and then her twitching nose, then her frowning, trembling mouth.
What do You think about We Were Never Here (2016)?
