“As always, we’ll monitor your condition and continue to make you as comfortable as possible,” Dr. Riedel says, and I want to punch him in his slim face—his words are like a company line. Impersonal. Unreasonable. Unattainable.
Monitor her condition. Like the cancer isn’t sucking her dry each day, draining the life out of her. Continue to make her comfortable? It’s a farce. She’s not eating much, unable to breathe, sleep, enjoy life.
I know he’s doing his job—genuinely cares about my mother and her well-being, but it doesn’t stop the selfish desire to make my mother his only patient. Force him to do more.
It’s suffocating, watching the only family you have slip away, knowing there’s nothing you can do, but I’ve made a vow. To be there for her until the end—atthe end.
My mother struggles to stand but does so anyway and offers a bland smile to Dr. Riedel, who shakes my hand.
We don’t speak as we exit his office or as we descend in the elevator. Even when I help her into my truck, she stays quiet, her focus on the window, watching golden yellows and deep crimsons blur against the brown backdrop.
A gust of wind sweeps through the branches of the trees evenly spaced in the center median of the road, dislodging a flurry of leaves that spiral downward, and I glance over at my mom. “Should I make the call to reinstate the nurse rotation?” I ask, wiping my brow with my hand not on the wheel.
“I don’t do nurses, Noah. I can’t.” She continues to avoid looking at me, but her words … her words remind me of someone else’s.
“I don’t do dogs.”
Lily’s words from when I first found her propped on the edge of the trail echo through my mind, and when we pull onto the road through the center of town, I find myself headed to the diner instead of toward my mother’s.
The late afternoon light dances along the window glass, setting off a blinding glare, but I maneuver to a parking spot anyway.
“Where are we?” my mother asks.
“Figured you might be hungry.”
“It’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?” She turns toward me, allowing the corner of her mouth to twitch up, jostling her oxygen.
I know she’s uncomfortable going out with her full-time oxygen, but her appointments have become few and far between and the sharing-a-meal-with-my-mom days are dwindling.
The diner … well, that’s an interesting choice, but I blame it on my recent turkey club and fries, creating a new craving.
She quickly taps my thigh twice. “Come on … I don’t want you to be away from Max for too long.”
I grimace, wondering what pair of shoes he’s chewed through, and climb out of the truck. We walk into the diner, the crowd thin since we’re at the odd time between lunch and dinner.
Immediately I study the waitresses, noticing a younger looking woman fumbling with the coffee maker before I continue to scan the diner—my heart skips a beat when I finally spother. Her dark hair is pulled into a ponytail, that silly uniform wrinkled and bunched around her waist. She looks disheveled, and when I catch sight of her face, I’m taken aback by the loud bags under her eyes.
Is she sleeping?
There’s a slap to my arm, and I jerk, looking at my mother who motions to the standing sign telling us to seat ourselves. We move to an empty booth, and I sit across from my mom as my gaze draws to Lily once more.
She wipes her hands on her apron, listening to her fellow waitress who has her hands full with a tray of food, say something and tilt her head toward our booth. Lily follows, and she does a double take, then squints at me before glancing at my mother, and her eyes … soften?
Lily nonchalantly drags her pad from the counter and saunters over to us, offering me an uneager “hello,” but then she smiles at my mother and suddenly it doesn’t matter how she treats me.
Her worn expression warms instantly as she takes in my mother. She doesn’t offer a pitying stare like my mother is used to when people see her feeble frame and life-giving oxygen. No. She tips her head in silent understanding, and for that I’m grateful.
“Just couldn’t stay away, huh?” Lily asks, turning to me. “What’ll it be this time?”
“You really enjoy your job, don’t you? How about that cake? Did you enjoy that, too?” I ask.
She pinches her lips together and turns to my mother.
“Coffee?”
My mother’s eyes volley between the both of us and she grins. “Is it fresh, or has it been sitting on the burner longer than I’ve been alive?”
Lily’s eyebrows raise. “Fresh is subjective. It’s brown, it’s hot, and it’s caffeinated. Take it or leave it.”
