My focus snaps toward the parched voice coming from Mom’s pillow.
Her cracked lips thin into a smile, but it seems more lucid now. I watch awareness grow in her shadowed eyes as she takes in millimeter by millimeter of the room.
Her cast. The monitors. Me.
“What happened?” she whispers.
“You were in a car accident. Got t-boned on Stafford Avenue.” I grip her hand as firmly as I dare, as if I can distract her from whatever horrified scenes are flashing behind her stare.
“I remember.” She winces, shifting her left leg as if living the memory. A whimper of pain escapes her, and I fly to my feet.
“Don’t move,” I say, hovering and helpless.
“There was a bright light, but then everything went dark.”
“The first responders said your body passed out to protect itself,” I murmur, brushing her hair away from her forehead.
“Sally.” Mom says this name as her eyes grow wide. “I was leaving Sally’s house.”
I scrunch my brows. “Sally?”
Mom levels me with a look far too irritated for someone lying in a hospital bed.
“Yes.Sally. My AA sponsor. I must have told you about her fifteen times.”
My hammering heart skips a beat. “You were at your sponsor’s house?”
“Yeah. I’ve been sleeping there. I’ve needed more…support. Only her guest bed sucks.” She lays deeper against her pillows, eyes fluttering closed. “It’s just, I couldn’t sleep on that mattress for another night. I decided to drive home, but then…”
She falls silent, and I’m not sure if the cocktail of pharmaceuticals is stealing her away again. Soon, her chest rises and falls in an evenrhythm, and I confine myself back to my chair. I stare at her deeply creased laugh lines like they are the only evidence of the life this woman has lived.
Of the life she’ll continue to live.
Relief shakes my body in tremors, tears coursing over my stubbled cheeks. She’s alive. She’s sober. And she’s fighting like crazy for both. Admiration heats my thumping chest, and every emotion I could ever feel plays a game of musical chairs.
“I should have told you.” Another cracked whisper emerges from her pillowcase.
“Told me what, Mom?” I wipe my face with the back of my hand, leaning closer.
“It’s my biggest regret,” she mumbles as if she didn’t hear me. “When those lights flashed…my only regret is not telling you who your father was.”
My eyes grow even as hers flutter closed.
“Mom, shhh… We don’t need to?—”
“He wasn’t a good man. I was scared…” Her whimper makes my blood boil. “Wanted to keep you safe. So when he left, I let him. Wanted to erase everything. Everything but you.”
I glance up, surprised to see a small smile.
“You were the angel I needed, Brandon. I know I haven’t been perfect, but you…” She squeezes my hand, but I barely feel it. “You’re so forgiving. So loving. So very unlike him.”
I cast my eyes to the floor, but her squeeze becomes firmer. Insistent that I look at her.
“You deserve to know where you came from.”
“Mom, don’t.” I raise a finger toward her open mouth. “Don’t tell me.”
I’m not sure why I say it. Why I’m so opposed to hearing about the man that I’ve wondered about since I could remember. The one that I knew, justknew, would come back the second I was more like Tuck. More athletic. Moreworthy.
