Heartstrings

Zoey kneads the skin on the back of my hand when she is sleepy, scared, clingy. Grabs a pinch of me and rolls it between her fingers slowly as if thinking something over. Sometimes it is my neck, the gobble, the wobble, and I worry that in loving me she will pull my body into the loose coat of a Shar-Pei.

She has done this since she was a tiny baby. Before she could even articulate her fingers, curled in my arms one baby fist would spastically reach up and grab hold of me, paper-thin moons of baby nail folding from the weight of my skin. Mama? I want your hand she now says to me each morning as we cuddle in my bed. Her nails are strong and sharp. I rearrange myself to drape one hand over her chest where she plucks at it in a fugue state of awakening. My shoulder begins to ache, falls asleep, my neck cricked and stiff. Pluck, pull, pinch. My hands, my neck, my skin, my heart is hers.

Six years ago my mother had a heart attack. In the hospital my brother and I stood over her bed like actors, neither of us having memorized our lines. My mother had always been the strong one, pulling the splinters from our fingers like a magician, a nurse who did not believe in doctors. In the hospital bed she looked so small, just a shallow lump of thin cotton. Dust. A magician robbed of her magic. The nurses hurried in to dose her up with something and left us to wait for it to take effect. My mother looked up at me. If I die, she said, I want you to play Major Tom by David Bowie at my funeral. God mom, stop, I said. You're not going to die. Don't say that. But she grabbed my hand and started singing. This is Major Tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door... and I'm floating in a most peculiar waaaaay... She held my hand as she sang. I felt the thin bones of her fingers, rolled them between my own methodically until the nurses came to wheel her away, still singing. She had angioplasty; the doctors inserted her coronary arteries with stents to keep her blood flowing, to keep her heart beating. To keep us all going.

Sometimes I close my eyes when Zoey is pinching my hand and try to imagine her as an adult. Will she still pull at my skin? Will we hold hands? Will I sing to her, or she to me?

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles

I’m feeling very still

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go

Ground Control to Major Tom

Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear....