"When did you stop caring?" I demand. "When did you stop loving him enough totry?"
A breath. A slow, ragged inhale. "You don't understand, Elowen."
Dad shifts again, his breath catching, like the room hurts him as much as the stroke did.
"No," I seethe. "I don't."
Silence stretches between us. Dad’s monitor hums steadily, indifferent to what’s breaking inside my mother’s voice. Then, so quiet I almost miss it, “I stopped fighting a long time ago."
The words slam into me like a freight train. I want to reach through the phone and hold her hand, but anger has its claws in me still.
I grip the phone, my pulse roaring in my ears. "What does that even mean?"
Mom exhales shakily, and when she speaks again, the sound is... empty.
"I was already losing him, Elowen. Long before the stroke. It's been happening for years. He stopped seeing me. Stopped hearing me. You were gone, and Jasper, well, he had his art, his rocks, his little world where nothing ever changed. But me? I was just... there. A ghost in my own house."
My throat burns because I don't know what to do with this.
I don't know how to make sense of a mother who was hurting before we even noticed.
"You think I don't want to be there?" she continues. "That I don't hate myself every day for being this way? You think I wanted this? That I woke up one morning and decided to be afraid of the world?"
I squeeze my eyes shut, guilt slicing through me.
Mom isn't okay.
She hasn't been for a long time.
And I never noticed.
"I don't want to lose him," Mom cries softly. "But if I see him like that, I'll have to accept that I already have."
I suck in a shaky breath, and for the first time in years, I let my guard down. Just a little.
"Then let me help you," I whisper. "Let me help you try. I will drive you here. I will make sure you’re safe."
Mom is quiet for so long that I think she's hung up.
Then, finally, "I don't know."
I close my eyes. "Can we at least try?"
"I don’t know how."
"Let me show you, Mom."
I don't know if she'll actually go through with it. I don't know if she'll ever step foot in this hospital.
But for the first time since I came home, I think... maybe she wants to.
And that's something.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Where It Hurts
"Get ready with me as I prep for a date in my hometown with... my ex," I say into the camera, voice light, smile dialed in.
