Interwoven

A Fictional Short Story by Maya Shadid

“Pink lightning,” Mother used to call them—but they were just scars. Where her nipples once bloomed and spouted breastmilk, there remained only dusky seams of flayed flesh. But no scar was wide enough to excise what festered within her. I watched her decay until she was a fragment of herself—the woman who cared for me, protected me, trapped in a rotting body. 

“Mom?” I called, pushing open the door to my childhood home. I placed the spare key back underneath the welcome mat before stepping inside. “Your favorite daughter has arrived,” I playfully called— a joke, being that I was an only child.

“I’m in my room,” she strained, voice ringing through the boxy, one-story house. “Bring water, please. No ice.”

“Okey-dokey,” I hummed back, walking to the tiny kitchen. Though the sink was empty, there were few cups remaining in the cupboard. I reached to the top shelf and grabbed a mason jar, filling it with tap water. “Coming!”

It took only a few steps to cross from the kitchen to her bedroom. In my youth, the house felt so much larger. There was a beauty to that: the changes of time made physical. And when I opened the door to my mother’s room, I half-expected her to look the way she did when I was a child: lips painted with bubblegum lipstick, salt-and-pepper hair slicked into a ponytail, click-clacking around in her glossy work heels. 

Instead, she lay in her bed, naked. I blinked at her bare, wrinkled chest—then at her stomach, a roll of fat peaking just above the sheets. Small clumps of her hair, which had turned completely silver throughout the years, surrounded her pillows. Her pain leaked out of her pores, staining her countenance and contorting her features into those of a much older woman. 

“Here’s your water,” I said. I went to place the jar on her nightstand, but it was littered with unwashed cups.

“Sorry, you can just hand it to me,” she said, embarrassed. “No ice, right?” I shook my head, no ice, and she offered a weak smile. Ice burned her mouth—a side effect of the chemotherapy drugs. She received treatment that morning, accounting for her particularly rough state that day.

We paused for a moment for her to take her pills, and I watched her gulp away all the water and add the jar to her messy nightstand.

She took her pills almost desperately, and a wave of emotion struck me. My mother—the woman who took care of me—too drained after treatment to leave her bed, to stay dressed. The cancer stripped her raw, swallowing her spirit into itself. Something about her suffering reminded me of a wounded animal, pouring all energy into survival. And I couldn’t do anything to save her.

Before then, I had never visited her right after chemotherapy. She was so weak; I realized I needed to maximize my time with her. After that day, I increased my visits from once a week to every day after work. 

As her condition worsened, so did her frustration. About a month or so later, I held her in her bed as she wept. “It’s taken so much, and it keeps on taking. My time. My energy. My soul.” Her voice broke. “And my hair, my hair. First, they cut off my breasts. Now, I’m balding. I look at myself, and I see a stranger.” She ran her fingers between her long trestles, steely strands breaking free and littering the sheets. 

“You aren’t a stranger. When I look at you, I see my mom. My beautiful, strong, kind mother, who raised me to be the person I am—who poured endless love into me.” I took her hand, and she sniffled. “I’m here for you, and I love you, and you need to give yourself some love, too.” I tapped her nose lightly, and she chuckled, tears slowly subsiding. “Who needs hair?”

“It’s just—it took so long to grow it out this long. And I know, I know how vain I sound, but I can’t help myself.” A sad sigh escaped her as she caressed her mane. “I just don’t know how to part with it.” 

“What if you saved it?” I thought, and she furrowed her brows in confusion. “Hang on.”

I looked to her nightstand for a vessel, where the empty water jar from last month remained. I plucked up each of the fallen silver strands that surrounded, reached for the glass, and placed them inside. 

“You’re not vain for wanting to hang on to a part of yourself. You love your hair, so keep it. It’s still yours.” I could see the doubt in her eyes, but she nodded and took the jar from my hands.

As the hairs accumulated over time, her uncertainties about the jar dissipated, and a strange attachment began to form. On one of my visits, I caught her cradling it and whispering. On another, she counted each of the saved hairs. Another, she shined her phone flashlight through the glass, watching the strands glisten. “They’re like tinsel,” she observed with wonder.

When it eventually filled, she upgraded to a larger jar, and as her scalp grew barer, the vessel became more packed. Often, she’d just hold it. Admire it.

The strangest instance was later that year, when the loom first appeared. It was a small loom—about the size of her lap. Pale, unfinished wood composed its pegs and frame.

I stared at her as she sat on the living room sofa, my gaze puzzled. She fastened the warp, its threads glistening in a familiar frosted hue. “What are you doing?” The jar lay beside her, tilted to its side and emptied. 

“I’m making a mini tapestry,” her tone was plain. Tranquil. 

I cocked my head. “With your hair?”

“Yes, with my hair. To give it purpose.” She moved her fingers with great focus, her stare fixed on the rectangular frame. I tried to meet her eyes, to peer into her pupils and understand the thoughts behind them, but I saw only my reflection—confused and searching. At the time, I couldn’t comprehend why it was worth it. The hair was simply hers, and to me, that was purpose enough. I decided that she was just coping, in her own strange way. Though I saw the project as off-putting, I found solace in the comfort it gave her, and that was enough to silence my growing concern.

She worked on the tapestry for about three months, weaving a sheet of silver that reached about three-quarters of the rectangular loom’s size. Her progress slowed as her body weakened, but she kept at it with admirable persistence. When she was strong enough, she’d often sit on the living room sofa during our visits and weave. As she grew weaker, her time in bed increased. Her weaving became a sign of her energy-level—that she was having a good day. As the good days became few and far between, I found myself getting excited when she’d work on the tapestry. 

During that time, a week-long stretch passed when she stopped weaving altogether. Each day, I hoped she’d pull out her loom, and my worry swelled at her lack of advance. 

“Is today going to be a tapestry day?” I asked at the end of the week, trying to encourage some liveliness. 

“I don’t think so, honey.” She sighed. She looked so frail, so tired. Anxiety festered within me.  

“C’mon, don’t you want to finish it?” I persisted.

“I don’t know,” she uttered. Slowly. Quietly. “I don’t know if I ever will.” Her eyes shut for a moment, and she heaved in a deep breath before meeting my eyes. “Can you promise me something?” She didn’t wait for me to agree before continuing, “If I can’t finish this, if I run out of time,” her lip quivered, “Would you finish it for me?”

“Mom.” I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes, “You’ll finish it.”

“Just promise.”

I paused, trying to suppress my urge to cry. I felt like a child. Helpless. I needed my mother, and she was sick, and she could die, and I didn’t want her to. She suffered every single day. Every day I visited her. All I wanted was for her to be okay. Though I witnessed her pain, though I saw her slowly withering throughout the year, part of me wished I could just keep visiting. Because the alternative was that my mom was dead, and I didn’t know what to do with myself without her. I sobbed, deeply and powerfully. 

“Oh, baby, come here.” She reached out her arms, holding me in her bed as I wept. We stayed like that for a while— a final, beautiful instance of my mother comforting me. We shared no words; if I spoke, I’d have to acknowledge what I refused to admit: this was the eleventh hour of my mom’s life.When my emotions subsided, I broke the silence.

“If you don’t finish the tapestry— if—I will. I promise.”

Years later, long after her death, the tapestry remains mounted in my home. Most of it shines opalescent, metallic, a part of her body that stays with me, even when she’s buried. But the final quarter is made with my own black strands, woven between hers. And, in the smallest of ways, we’re together again.