“Are you sure?” my mother said, voice clear. “Does it have to be this way?”
I heard the metallic clunk of the side rail of the bed being lowered.
I raced down the stairs, ran smack into the growling dog in the center of the living room.
“It’s okay, girl,” I said. “It’s just Mother.”
There was a low droning hum coming from my mother’s room.
Moxie backed away, went over to her bed, and whimpered.
I crossed the living room and dining room, went down the hall toward the guest room.
As I drew near, I heard her singing:“Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”her voice crackly as an old vinyl record.
“Mother?” I said, stepping into the room.
She laughed. “Is that what you think?”
The room smelled rank, like she’d soiled the bed.
“Did you have an accident?” I asked, moving closer. But the sheets looked clean.
She laughed again. “Life is one big accident, don’t you think? The very fact that human beings are here at all is nothing but a series of accidents. Right place at the right time, wrong place at the wrong time. Stars colliding. Primordial muck holding just the right elements to support life.”
She was sitting at the edge of the bed with the railing down. It was cold. Too cold. I looked and saw that the window was open.
“It’s freezing in here,” I said, hurrying to close and latch it. “Why didyou open the window?” I was horrified by the idea that she’d gotten out of bed on her own. She was so weak and frail, so unsteady on her feet.
She didn’t answer. Just sat, rocking slightly.
“Mother?”
She lifted her face, looked at me. Her hair hung down into her eyes, which looked almost black, like the eyes of a doll. “I am not your mother.”
“Of course you are.”
“No. I most certainly am not.”
Even though I’d closed the window, I still felt a blast of cold air. It seemed to be coming directly from her. Like she was a woman made of ice.
I took a step back, swallowed. I made myself say the words, ask the question. “Who are you, then?”
She grinned. “Have you truly forgotten?”
She reached for me, her hand long and bony. Were her fingers stretching, arms unfurling like terrible wings? I jumped back and flipped on the light switch.
She was just my mother, breathing a little too hard, hunched over at the edge of the mattress, looking like she might go tumbling off at any minute.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get you back into bed. And get you something to take the edge off. How’s your pain?”
“Terrible,” she said, voice shaking. “Unspeakably terrible.”
I guided her back into bed, tucked the covers around her, and slid the bed rails up. Then I gave her both the short-acting morphine and the little Ativan tablet that dissolved under her tongue. I wrote down the doses and the time on the chart beside her bed.
She looked up at me, blinking, like she was trying to recognize me. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you freezing me like this?”
“You had your window open,” I said. “I’ll grab you another blanket. Make you a nice hot cup of tea.”
