strep and mono. “I’m taking penicillin,” I said. “I just wanted you to
know.”
She began talking rapidly but I didn’t hear much of it, I was so tired.
When she seemed to be winding down, I said “I love you” and hung up.
Two days later a package arrived, express from Idaho. Inside were
six bottles of tincture, two vials of essential oil, and a bag of white clay.
I recognized the formulas—the oils and tinctures were to fortify the
liver and kidneys, and the clay was a foot soak to draw toxins. There
was a note from Mother: These herbs will flush the antibiotics from
your system. Please use them for as long as you insist on taking the
drugs. Love you.
I leaned back into my pillow and fell asleep almost instantly, but
before I did I laughed out loud. She hadn’t sent any remedies for the
strep or the mono. Only for the penicillin.
—I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING to my phone ringing. It was Audrey.
“There’s been an accident,” she said.
Her words transported me to another moment, to the last time I’d
answered a phone and heard those words instead of a greeting. I
thought of that day, and of what Mother had said next. I hoped Audrey
was reading from a different script.
“It’s Dad,” she said. “If you hurry—leave right now—you can say
goodbye.”