Literally

                Brrriiiiiing!

                Sheila looked at the caller ID and sighed.  She loved her mother—she really did—but Mom was someone she could only enjoy in small doses, and only when she was fully awake and in control.  Right now it was early morning and the winter sun was blinding its way through her curtains, adding to her caffeine withdrawal headache.  She was not in the mood for this.

                But if she didn’t pick up the phone, Mom would keep calling.  Sheila could turn off the ringer, but the last time she’d done that Mom had left twelve frantic messages on her answering machine and eventually called the police to make sure she was still alive.  She’d given the police such a detailed scenario—down to the shattered skull and the kind of soap she’d slipped on—that they’d mistaken her fear for reality and had shattered the lock on her front door.  Sheila wasn’t sure who was more startled when they burst in to find her eating chips and reading a trashy romance novel in bed.

                Sheila couldn’t be too angry at her mother for that, though.  It had scored her half a dozen dates with the young and good-looking Officer Sandy.  He had an aunt with bipolar disorder, so they’d had a lot to talk about.

                Sheila sighed and pushed TALK.  “Hello?”

                “Hello Sheila, how are you?”  Trilling, grating, relentlessly cheerful.  Well, it was better than her other mode of greeting, which was a heavy sigh and a laundry list of grievances.

                “Hi mom.  How’s it going?”

                “Oh, I guess it’s going all right.  You know, I’m reading this new science fiction novel by that young guy you like so much.  It’s pretty unique.”

                “Isn’t that like being a little big pregnant?” Sheila asked.  Mom had been an English major before dropping out and marrying Sheila’s dad.  She ought to know better than to use “unique” with a modifier.  It was silly, but stuff like that grated in her ears like fingernails on a blackboard.

                “What?”

                “Never mind.  Tell me about the book.”  Sheila opened the cabinet over the stove, looking for the filters.

                “Well, like I said, it’s really unique.”  (Sheila ground her teeth.)  “It’s set on this desert planet, which I really liked because it was so cold last night.  I literally froze to death last night.”

                And there was that other thing she did that drove Sheila completely nuts: misuse of the word “literally.”  “If you literally froze to death, how are we having this conversation?”  Sheila knew she was being a bitch, but her head was pounding.  The sun was blinding her, and she couldn’t find the coffee filters.  She could get dressed and go buy some, but that would ruin her leisurely morning of watching cartoons and sipping coffee in her pajamas.  She was too crabby to be a good sport about her mother’s atrocious grammar.

                “Well, I don’t know how I’m talking to you sweetie, but I do know that I literally froze to death.  It was that cold.”

                “How did you freeze to death?  Don’t you have central heating in your apartment?”

                “Oh, I was so stupid.  I went out to get away from my neighbors, those two women who drink and fight all the time.  They were screaming at each other again, and something got broke—“

                “Broken,” Sheila muttered, but Mom didn’t hear her.

                “—and I just couldn’t handle it, and I went out.  I shouldn’t have done that, I was so stupid, I should have just called the police like I did the last time, but they must have known it was me because they both gave me the dirtiest looks for weeks afterward, and I couldn’t handle it again, so I went out and I got a bowl of chili at Bill’s…”

                Mom’s voice was rising and falling, reaching that strident pitch that still sent trickles of apprehension down Sheila’s back.  She was hitting the manic button, as Sheila’s father would say. 

                “Yeah, it was really cold last night,” Sheila interrupted, knowing that it was hopeless.  “The weather said that it got to thirty below.  Did you forget your good mittens?”

                “No, I had my mittens, but what happened was, I accidentally locked myself out.  I forgot my key, and I couldn’t get back in.  I buzzed the neighbors, but maybe they were fighting too loud or maybe they were passed-out drunk, or maybe they knew it was me and didn’t want to let me in.  Wouldn’t that be just shitty?  Isn’t it shitty, to know that I’m out there, literally freezing to death, and not letting me in?  What kind of people would do that, Sheila?”

                “I don’t know?” Sheila said.  She rubbed her face with her free hand.  Maybe she could just eat a spoonful of coffee grounds and get a buzz that way.  “So what did you end up doing?”

                “Well I started to head back to Bill’s to get warm and maybe have another cup of coffee, but I slipped on a patch of black ice.  The sidewalk hadn’t been salted, it’s so stupid to not put salt down, maybe I should sue the landlord but I don’t think I can now.  I hit my head and got dizzy and I guess I fell asleep, and that’s how I froze to death.”

                “Okay Mom, that’s really freaky,” Sheila said.  “Did you get frostbite?”

                “I might have, but it doesn’t hurt.  I froze to death, and now I can’t feel anything.”

                Sheila finally started to hear what her mother was telling her.  “Wait.  You’re telling me that you actually died last night?  You think that you’re dead?”

                “Well it’s the only thing that makes sense.  I fell down, I passed out, and when I woke up I was here.”

                This was a new delusion.  Usually it was related to someone looking at her wrong or plotting against her. 

                “Where’s here, Mom?” Sheila asked.  “Does it look like a hospital room?”

                “Noooo—it looks more like a library.  But the stacks are so high I can’t see the ceiling.  And I can’t find the circulation desk.”

                “But you still have your cell phone with you?”

                “Oh—I probably shouldn’t be talking to you here, should I?  Libraries usually have rules about talking on the phone.  They want you to only use them in the lobby.  But I can’t find the lobby either.  Just books and books and books.”

                “Sounds like you’re in heaven.”  Sheila smiled.  If she was going to imagine herself going anywhere after death, it would be to a never-ending library.  She and Mom had that much in common.

                “I don’t know where I am, but there’s someone coming so I’ll call you back.”

                Click.

                Sheila looked at the phone in her hand then put it down slowly.  That was definitely one of the stranger conversations she’d had, with her mother or anyone.

                Sheila was reluctantly dressed and heading for the door—she really needed those coffee filters, there weren’t even any paper towels that she could use—when the phone rang again.  “Please don’t let it be Mom again,” she said aloud as she went for it.

                It wasn’t Mom.  It was Officer Sandy.  “Hi—Sheila?” he said.

                “Yeah babe, what’s going on?”  Sheila grinned. 

                “Sheila hun, I have some really bad news.  It’s about your mom.”

                Ten seconds later, Sheila dropped the phone.

                After the funeral, Sheila stopped at the Book Nook and found the sci-fi novel Mom had been reading when she died.

                It was pretty unique.