 She's the editor and publisher of the alternative press award winning magazine hip mama, and she's the author of eight books Deal with it Handle it. They're so good. Please welcome Ariel gore So this little story is called Muffy McPherson Muffy McPherson lives across the street her house has two stories and a swimming pool in the backyard Muffy McPherson has a pink canopy over her bed and a Barbie dream house under her bedroom window in her backyard Behind the pool Muffy McPherson has a big red playhouse with a Barbie oven in it We wear red and white checkered aprons and we pretend to make chocolate chip cookies When we're done we go inside and Muffy McPherson's mother has made us real chocolate chip cookies that cool on a tray and an island In the middle of the kitchen That's what it's called when you have a counter in the middle of your kitchen that you can walk all the way around an island Muffy McPherson doesn't come over to my house to play and I'm glad my mother wouldn't make us Cookies and if my stepdad did that have carob chips that he bought in bulk from buyer patch co-op market And then he might take out his teeth Muffy McPherson's mother wears a lavender leisure suit and she uses real chocolate and she never takes out her teeth Muffy's father goes to work in the morning and he doesn't come home until dinner time Muffy McPherson is in love with Harrison Ford. It's not a crush. It's true love I'm going to marry him. She says and she dances Across her pink canopy bed swishing her straight blonde hair back and forth My hair is dark and curly and I know there's not much I can do about it But I think maybe if I had a pink canopy over my bed, I wouldn't feel so scared all the time. I Have a poster of Harrison Ford I tell Muffy You do she stops moving stares at me. Yeah, I say you can have it I shrug cool as I know how she nods real slow and I can't believe I actually have something Muffy McPherson wants It makes me feel calm and powerful at the same time like maybe we're not so different Muffy and me like maybe even with my hair I can be one of the pretty people when we get back to school in September The next day I come back with my poster of Harrison Ford rolled up all nice. It's not actually my poster I stole it from Leslie my sister stole it right off her wall But I've already practiced my denial a practice the blank look on my face when I'll claim I don't know what happened to the poster Muffy McPherson's mother answers the door and calls upstairs to Muffy I bound up those soft stairs close the door to Muffy's room behind me and begin to unfurl the poster Muffy McPherson's face is all thrill at first, but then she frowns That's not Harrison Ford. She scowls then squints her eyes at the picture. That's some old man It isn't I look at it Harrison Ford the guy who's Dr. Dolittle in the movie Muffy McPherson Muffy McPherson clenches her teeth and crosses her arms and shakes her head her hair swishing a little that's Rex Harrison It says so right there She points her thin finger to the signature at the bottom corner of the poster Rex Harrison. She says again Are you stupid? Do you even know who Harrison Ford is? I look at the poster at Rex Harrison with his sideburns and sly smile Then at Muffy McPherson with her long blonde hair and stern look I roll up the poster I glance at the Barbie dream house behind Muffy and I already miss playing with the Ken doll. I swallow hard I say yeah, I know who Harrison Ford is I was just I was only kidding and I feel something in the back of my throat That's hot and sore like a coal from the campfire that got stuck there and I don't know who Harrison Ford is I don't know who Harrison Ford is So that's from all the pretty people about all the things that happen to you when you are Not allowed to have any access to pop culture And our fed a strict diet of carob instead So so this book of the end of Eve is about my mom got diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and showed up at my door And she didn't really want me to take care of her, but she said pitifully tiniest you're all I have and The doctor said told her she had a year to live But when you looked it up in the Merck manual I was living with my girlfriend and my preschool son at the time and In the Merck manual it said, you know, if you have stage 4 lung cancer and you don't treat it You know, you'll only live three or four weeks. So we thought well, we can do anything for three or four weeks So we agreed to tell her house in Portland and move to Santa Fe To take care of her we bought a duplex with her in Santa Fe but she got there first and Had the duplex got it. So when we got there, it was not only not a duplex, but it was not inhabitable Anyway, so I'm gonna read to you from like the middle of the book She'd written on her calendar her death date, which was supposed to be October I believe 18th 2010 Two months shy of the death date. My mother had written on her calendar in red pen My girlfriend's soul and I sublet our studio apartment to an art student for the school year would keep our shop space downstairs Your situation is interesting the art student said as he signed the lease agreement if there's a gay kid in the family It's always the gay kid who has to take care of the sick parent I always thought that was because the gay kid wouldn't have any children of their own, but that's obviously not true for you I shrugged always great to be the gay kid and we packed up the car again for our move across town Let's make a pact soul said as she turned the key in the ignition if we start plotting to murder your mother We have to move out. I laughed agreed, but I knew she wasn't kidding The house wasn't a duplex anymore But my mother's now master bedroom was separated from our smaller bedrooms by the dining room living room and the huge unusable kitchen Our first weeks in the house. I focused on cooking on the camping stove in the backyard I made calabasitas ancho and mild green chili stew when the doorbell rang and my mother spied one of the hospice nurses She'd hiss in my ear. It's one of those maidens of death sent her away We had moved here to help But what could we do our joint tasks included shopping for organic groceries and cooking when my mother was home Not asking where she was going when she left and being polite to Ronald who came and went at odd hours Carrying expensive building supplies and appliances. He didn't seem to know how to install. I'm here with electrical wire He announced one night after dark. He had a key to the front door. Anyone know how to wire a place My solo tasks included paying all the bills keeping track of my mother's alternative healer appointments and making sure there was a Steady stream of Netflix Noir's coming to the mailbox Soul for her part was to make herself available to move heavy furniture from one end of the house to the other and back Again, whenever my mother screamed her name. I Stumbled all the time. I couldn't feel my feet on the ground I didn't take out my contact lenses even at night didn't want to get caught off guard And then one day a bird fell from the eaves in front of the house a dead bird on the cement walkway just before the front door I didn't think much of that first dead bird But they kept falling every week than every few days then every day dead birds covered with ants when I found them. I Was afraid the dead birds would spook my mother So I scooped them up with a little garden shovel and buried them in a secret bird cemetery in the backyard Did you always have a problem with those birds? I asked the previous owner of the duplex when I saw him in the produce aisle at Healthy wealthy. He was wearing spandex bike shorts falling from their nests on to the walkway every day He bagged his butternut squash. I always loved those birds He hummed with their nests in the trees and in the eaves. I can't remember any falling though Maybe once he walked away Ronald's worker Julio cried over the bathroom sink He was one of the men my mother had saved from early retirement He'd lost his only child in a drunk driving accident and I found him there late one afternoon Just crying my daughter is dead and my wife is married to someone else and all I want is a loving family around me And Eve has exactly that and she can't see it But my mother was standing silent out in the hall and heard him say that so Julio wasn't allowed in the house anymore And the workers who came after that only spoke Spanish and they didn't cry in the bathroom My mother counted the days to October 18th 2010 and said I'll be dead in seven weeks Then I'll be dead in 33 days. I'll be dead in three weeks. That's 21 days, you know, I'll be dead this time next week Her voice was always monotone and I didn't know how to answer her So I just shook my head and said no you're doing good mom. You're doing really well I wanted to make sense of these days, but filled my journal with unconnected notes 8 30 10 been here two weeks Not going well 9 15 10. I asked mom if she's talked to my sister Leslie and she says I'm done with your sister My biological father finds out I'm here taking care of her and emails me pictures of naked nurses with enormous breasts He probably would have posted them on my Facebook page, but he got banned from Facebook last month for inappropriate status updates Leslie texts. I am so ready for both those parental freaks to die 9 27 10 my mom's getting so skinny. She only eats a few bites 10 11 10. There's no way she'll be dead in a week unless she's planning on blowing her brains out 10 13 10. She doesn't sleep 10 16 10. I'm tired 10 17 10 In Paris Alice B took care of everything Gertrude just had to be a genius all her energy and time just to be a genius Sometimes I think seriously. I'm a genius. Where's my Alice B? I have to move boxes call hospice pay the bills pay my as college tuition take Maxito to preschool note My mother's new symptoms. Who's going to take care of me? When do I get to be a genius? On the morning my mother thought she would die. She marched out into the living room in her leopard print robe I was sipping black coffee get a load of this She said as she handed me a printout of an email from Leslie for the record I just told your older sister as nicely and as rationally as I could that I thought she ought to go back to college and finish her BA in anything or come here and live with us Excuse me, but what is she doing with her life and look at this? This is the thanks I get From Leslie Gore date October 18th 2010 to Eve de bona subject re reality limitations options Dear mom when I said never bring it up again I meant just that I am never going back to college and I'm never moving to that God forsaken high desert town You are a broken record stop telling everyone what they ought to do and what they ought to want and listen for a change If you want to see me buy me a ticket if you don't want to see me never mind I would probably need six months of therapy to get over your abuse anywades. See you in the next lifetime love Leslie In the next lifetime my mother said gravely she pointed to the brain tumor under her eyebrow I texted my sister. I can't believe you just contracted for another lifetime. I am so done with her after this one That night I dreamed of the mountain lion I'd never seen the lion paced around the yard slept waited I tried to scare the lion away through the windows I told Maxito and soul to keep the doors closed so it couldn't get in But the lion came and went as she pleased through the dog door in the laundry room No one seemed afraid. We all knew the lion was just looking for my mother and my mother wasn't home. I Opened my eyes in the dark of my bedroom soul snored softly next to me And my mother's silhouette was in the doorway waving a giant kitchen knife over her head I nudged soul, but she didn't wake Maxito's room was across the hall I felt a familiar calm kind of panic racked my brain for what I was supposed to do or say next to make sure nobody died tonight Surely my mother didn't want me to laugh not now or did she? What are you doing mom? The clock that glowed green from my nightstand told me it was just after 3 a.m Look what I found my mother whispered She held the knife by its wooden handle and it glinted a little in the moonlight in my new dishwasher She hummed a few long lines from the sounds of silence and grabbed the tip of the knife with her freehand Move the blade against her throat knives like this don't go in the dishwasher. Do they tiniest? I was careful to move very slowly as I got out of bed. Of course the knife doesn't go in the dishwasher. I Moved closer to her kept my voice low and calm. I don't know how it got there It was a mistake give me the knife. I held out my hand for it My mother glared at me you wish I were dead She pressed the blade into her throat now. I don't wish you were dead mom. Give me the knife I'll wash it properly in the sink with organic soap She narrowed her eyes turned the tip of the knife toward me now pointed it at my chest But held it steady a half inch from my skin Nobody likes the tip of a knife pointed into her chest, but relief flooded my veins I recognized that look on my mother's face just a glimmer of bright behind her eyes I knew what I was supposed to do I laughed so she wouldn't stab me Come on. Give me the knife mom She smiled wide showing the one dead tooth on the right side Stepped back as she loosened her grip on the handle and let me take the knife Wouldn't it be funny? She laughed if I was that crazy She smiled as she backed away kept smiling and backing away her figure disappeared and then her shadow disappeared I poked my head into Maxito's room to make sure he was still alive Watched the rise and fall of his chest in the light of the half moon In the morning three dead birds huddled frozen on the front step The cold season was coming and I worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with all the birds that needed burying Thanks Ariel Gore so great