Therewassomething seriously wrong with me because I felt nothing at his words. All I felt was numb. Cold.
Thanks,I responded.
He left me on read.
I felt nothing about that either.
CHAPTER 3
“Mom!” I called, opening the door. “I’m home.” I’d heard the television while my keys were in the lock, so I knew she was awake. It was nine o’clock in the morning, so that wasn’t always the case. This had been the longest I’d stayed at my childhood home since I left for college ten years ago. I still called Mom every Wednesday evening and visited for a long weekend once a quarter, but I’d been here for two weeks now. It felt like twenty.
“No need to shout,” Mom said from where she lay on the couch, her feet propped up with pillows, her rented wheelchair close by. “I have a headache.”
Maybe it is from the sheer volume of the television, I thought, but didn’t say out loud. I picked up the remote from the coffee table and clicked it down several notches.
“Well, now I can’t hear it,” she said.
“Didn’t the doctor say to limit your screen time?”
“What would you have me do then, Sutton, stare at a wall? I can’t work, I can’t read, I can’t scroll on my phone.” Mom was one of the administrators of the local school district. Sheobviously wasn’t going back to work anytime soon. She’d been working there for over twenty years. She’d built up some time off.
“You’re right. I get it,” I said. “How was your night?”
“Terrible,” she said.
“I’m sorry. When’s the last time you took some pain medicine?”
“Ask that woman you brought in.”
“Right,” I said. Where was she? Wherever she was, she was probably done with my mom.
I headed for the kitchen, which was empty, and then to the back of the house, past the room I was staying in, my childhood room, and then on to my mom’s room. Lucy was folding a clean basket of towels.
“Hi,” I said. “You don’t need to do laundry.”
“I had time. You’re early,” she responded. “I thought checkout wasn’t until eleven.”
“I was up,” I said. “How did it go?”
“Great,” she said. “Your mom is a sweetheart.”
I laughed, but when she didn’t join me, I stopped and nodded slowly. I was glad, but that hadn’t been my experience over the last two weeks. Either she was lying or Mom saved her special attitude for me. It could’ve gone either way. “Did you fill out the medication schedule I left?”
“I did. It’s in the kitchen. We were right on time for all doses. Her next one is in two hours.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Perfect.”
“You have me for three more hours. What else can I do?”
“That’s okay. You can leave. I bet you’re exhausted. I don’t know if I could do an overnight shift.” I’d worked many late nights at the restaurant but never any all-nighters.
She lifted the stack of towels, and I directed her to the linen closet in the hall. “Call me anytime,” she said.
“Thanks again.” I walked her to the door, where she collected her bag of medical supplies and personal belongings and left.
“I can take care of myself,” Mom said as soon as the door was shut.
“I know,” I said, because it was pointless fighting her. But really, she couldn’t. Aside from her concussion, which brought on bouts of dizziness and nausea, she’d had a big surgery that left most of her right leg in a cast. She also had a laceration across her abdomen, caused by the seat belt, that was closed with upward of thirty stitches and one across her forehead from the steering wheel. Her left arm was splinted. She’d spent a week in the hospital, in and out of consciousness, and now she was acting like she was perfectly fine. I didn’t understand how she could say she could take care of herself when I’d been lowering her onto a toilet since she’d come home.
