As I wipe the counters, I come across the pill box my mother stores all her medicine in. Pain management meds, anti-nausea, steroids, blood thinners—all tossed together to help make my mom’s life more manageable. It’s separated into fourteen sections: two for each day of the week, A.M. and P.M. She leaves each top open after she’s taken that day’s pills, and I refill it on Sundays for her. However, today’s Wednesday A.M. pills haven’t been taken.
This shouldn’t be happening. Not with a nurse coming to check on her, and I … I should be making sure she’s doing everything she needs to do. Ideally, she needs a live-in nurse, or even a caretaker, to stay with her full time. I’ve pitched the idea of me moving in with her, but she refuses to let me.
I dump the pills into a tiny paper cup and fill a glass of cold water from the tap before marching into the living room.
“You didn’t take your morning pills. Didn’t your nurse check?” I ask, holding out the cup of medication to her.
She takes it, dumping the gamut into her mouth and swallowing them with a sip of the water I brought her. “I fired Anna,” she says.
“Her name was Adrienne.”
“Whatever.” She turns up the volume to hear the local meteorologist give a warning about an intense storm system set to move into our area this weekend.
“Mom,” I say, folding myself onto the floral couch next to her recliner. “How about I move in. I’ll stay in my old room, and it’ll be?—”
“No.”
“Mom. You can’t be missing your medicine and firing your nurses.”
“You will not move in with me, Noah. End of discussion.” Her dry lips purse as if the discomfort of her raising her voice at me caused her pain. A subtle rasp accompanies her exhalations, her chest rising and falling with added effort.
I’m torn between saying more and not causing her anymore stress.
Max barks at something from the back porch, and I glance out the sliding glass doors that run parallel to the couch. The neighbor’s horses made their way toward the fence to graze, and Max is itching to jump down and go say hi.
I push up from the couch, catching my mother’s glaring eye, and I shake my head. When I open the door to the porch, Max greets me, whining and licking his lips.
“Nein.Platz,” I command. He whines but lays down as instructed, and I take a seat next to him in one of the ragged outdoor chairs. Arm hanging loose at my side, I rub his head.
I love this view. Pines as far as the eye can see, weaving throughout the open pasture and fanning in clumps on each side of the fence line. No wonder my mother never wanted to leave. Even after I moved out on my own after college. Honestly, I think this place has done wonders for her health. Allowing her the two years and counting she’s had since her diagnosis.
If only she’d let me do more.
My stomach twists into knots and I swallow. Max nudges my hand, looking up at me with knowing eyes.
I want to honor my mother’s wishes, to allow her peace in her own world, but the other part of me, the selfish son who needs to keep his mother as long as possible, wants to subject her to every treatment, every medicine, twenty-four-hour care—to prolong her precious life at any cost.
The horses gallop free with strong hooves that pound the earth as I lean forward and bury my head in my hands.
It’s a crushing and relentless weight. No matter what I do, the shadow of failure haunts me and over and over a gnawing voice whispers,you’re not doing enough.Eventually, you’ll be alone.
I cast a look at my mother through the glass as she licks the tip of her pointer finger and flips a page in her book.
I’m not ready for that.
Chapter 3
Lily
Night, dead and vacant, wraps around me. Chokes me.
Stop, stop, stop!I try to scream through the salty hand covering my mouth.
Fury withers under my skin. Pain. There’s so much pain, a drought of promised pleasure.
Torn and dirty, my clothes lay beside me, shredded on the squishy, moss-covered forest floor. Above me, eyes so dark—oily pits void of emotion except for a flash—no, a gleam of satisfaction. Take, take, take, they seem to say.
Hope soars out of reach, like a rose buried in thorns. Extending a hand toward it cuts and snags the skin, ripping into flesh. Pine trees spin in my peripheral—such beauty twisted into endless cruelty. Dried tears cling to the corners of my eyes as I struggle to push the suffocating weight off me.
