‘Darling,’ Laura says. ‘I’m not coming home tonight. I won’t be there for an Indian. I’m not joking when I say I’m going on strike. I’ll drop you home when we’re done here, and then I’m staying away until I feel ready to come back. I love you with myentire heart and I am here for you if you need me. Just pick up your phone and call me. But also, pick up your clothes and your dishes and whatever else you leave lying around and be respectful of the people you share a house with. Woman to woman, we owe it to each other show some mutual respect. If you were at my lectures today, you’d have had your eyes opened to just how easy you have it.’
Robyn rolls her eyes again and Laura tenses at the sight.
‘Dad said university would give you notions.’
Just when Laura thought her muscles were as tense as they could possibly be, she feels them tense to a whole new level. She feels as if her entire body might implode.
She has to remind herself that her daughter is only repeating what she has heard at home and is too young to fully understand the passive-aggression in her dad’s words. Then again, Abby is only a year older and she gets it. She gets the pressure women are under throughout the entire world. She’s already fighting to change it. She is treating Laura with more respect than her own daughter does.
And as for her husband. Notions. University is not giving her notions – it’s giving her an education. Expanding on all she has taught herself over the last year as she delved deeper and deeper into different cultures and how they regard women. Maybe Robyn needs that education too.
At that, an idea forms in her mind. It might not be the ideal time for this, but she can make it happen. She owes it to herself, and Robyn, to make it happen.
36
ALRIGHT, OUR KID!
Becca
‘Mum,’ I say, holding her hand. We are alone. Ruairi is in the corridor fielding phone calls. Conal and Adam have gone to get some rest. Or at least, Adam has gone to get some rest. Conal has gone to retrieve Daniel and take him on a long walk with Lazlo. The doggy bromance continues.
So for now, it’s Mum and me in this quiet side room as the light falls out and the room is illuminated only by a dim over-bed lamp. It would be quite relaxing, I think, if it wasn’t the stroke ward.
My mother is awake. She is, amazingly, able to talk a little but there is a marked slur to her words and her face is still drooping on one side. It’s distressing for her, obviously, but I think the droop isn’t quite as severe as it was even this morning.
She has weakness in her left side. She hasn’t yet been strong enough to try to walk, although they aim to get her out of bed tomorrow just for some short sessions.
They’ll do some more tests tomorrow too, get a physio andan occupational therapist to come and see her. They will assess whether she might need a speech therapist. There is a lot still to find out. We were told not to think about it too much. Not to jump to any conclusions. No two cases are the same. Each human brain is its own computer, etc, etc, etc.
It’s comforting, and it is terrifying. And that’s only how I feel, never mind how my poor mother must be feeling.
With Ruairi’s earlier conversation still running around my head, I know that I’m going to have to raise this subject with her at some stage, and yet I would rather do anything but. I’d even rather sleep with my ex-husband, Simon, again over having this particular emotionally charged conversation. Then again, as my mind conjures an image of him sweating and pulling a face as he reached the peak of his pleasure – an expression that made him look as if he was severely constipated – I think maybe the conversation with my mother wouldn’t be so bad.
She’s looking at me now, small and pale, but thankfully a little less pale than she was last night. Last night she had the pallor of a dead person, and the image continues to haunt me.
‘Can I get you anything? A drink of water?’ I ask.
She shakes her head, or at least tries to shake her head. ‘No, love,’ she says slowly. ‘Tired.’
‘I know, Mum. You’ve been through an awful ordeal.’ I hear myself speak to her and I hate myself for churning out such bland, clichéd nonsense. It’s worse than small talk.
I have always been able to talk to my mother about anything. Well, almost anything. I have never, for example, shared that particular little memory of Simon and his constipated sex face with her. Or really any in-depth conversation about sex. There is and never has been any need for that.
But we have never had a problem with conversation. My dadused to say neither of us had an off switch and he could never get a word in edgeways.
Yet here we are, me afraid to ask anything that will require her to tire herself out to answer. Or anything that is going to make me have to think more about things like her mortality, her ongoing care needs, and how she ‘absolutely does not want to be a burden’.
I am the only daughter. I have always assumed that when the time came, I would step in and take over caring for my elderly parents. My father, the selfish sod, did me out of that chance with him by dying much too young in my opinion. My mother is now, I’m told, rejecting my care and attention.
But I’ve been mentally preparing for this all my adult life. And not because I would feel too guilty not to care for her, but because, well, don’t I owe her that much? This is the woman who not only gave me life and raised me into the neurotically hilarious person that I am, but who also stepped in wholeheartedly to mother me again when my marriage collapsed and I, at the grand old age of thirty-six, crashed and burned as a result.
Nothing will humble you as much as your mother rocking you to sleep as you sob as a fully grown adult woman.
Maybe we should’ve sat down and discussed the logistics long before now. Then she wouldn’t have gone and had a stupid conversation with stupid Ruairi about what she wants.
As soon as he said the words ‘residential home’, I had lifted my bowl of soup and tossed it into the sink with such an almighty clatter that it smashed and Daniel peed right there on the floor.
‘Our mother is not going into a nursing home!’ I’d shouted. ‘I don’t know how you could even suggest that!’
