“Right. Yeah. Thank you. I hate to ask you for anything more, but that’d be helpful.”
We stand there in the flickering hallway light, and I can feel the other conversation hovering between us. The one we’ve been dancing around for months. Callie’s too kind to force it, and I’m too much of a coward to address it.
But she’s leaving. And apparently that changes things.
“Saylor.” She pushes off the wall, moving closer. Close enough that I can smell her perfume—something warm and slightly spicy, like cinnamon. “I’m going to miss you guys. I feel so guilty.”
“Oh, hey, Cal.” I gently squeeze the top of her shoulder. “You’ve done more for us than I could’ve prayed for. It’s time. I can’t even pay you properly. I don’t know why you’ve put up with me this long.”
“You really don’t know?” Her voice softens, eyebrows ever so slightly arched. “Why I’ve stuck around so long? Why I keep finding ways to help, even when you won’t accept it properly?”
In spite of her tone, the question hits like a sledgehammer. I open my mouth to deflect, to make a joke, to do the thing I always do when conversations get too real. But the words won’t come. Callie reaches out and takes my hand. Her fingers are small and warm against mine, and she looks up at me with those kind eyes, and I hate myself a little for what I’m about to not say.
I know. Of course I know. I’ve known since the third month, when she started packing us home-cooked meals “because she made too much.” Since the sixth month, when she started bringing Mum home from physical therapy appointments to spare me the drive into the city, always finding an excuse to linger and chat. Since the first time she touched my arm and I felt her fingers tremble, slightly, before she pulled away.
But knowing and acknowledging are different things. And acknowledging would mean having a conversation I’m not equipped for.
“Cal—”
“It’s okay.” She squeezes my hand once, then lets go. When she reaches up to touch my cheek, her smile is sad but not bitter. “I tried my best. But some walls don’t come down, do they?”
“It’s not—” I start, then stop. What am I going to say? It’s not you, it’s me? The most clichéd brush-off in history, except it’s actually true?
“You don’t have to explain.” She pats my cheek gently, the way you’d comfort a child. “You’ve got a lot on your plate. More than most people could handle. I just thought maybe…” Her small shoulders lift in a shrug. “Anyway. I get it. No hard feelings.”
“I’m sorry,” I manage. “You’ve been so good to us, and I wish I could?—”
“Don’t. Seriously, Saylor. Don’t apologize for not having feelings you don’t have.”
But that’s the thing. It’s not that I don’t have feelings. It’s that I can’t afford them. Not when Mum needs me. Not when I’m working three jobs and barely keeping us afloat. Not when the idea of adding another person to my life feels less like companionship and more like another weight I’m not strong enough to hold.
I don’t say any of this. I just nod, and Callie seems to understand.
“Okay.” She takes a breath, squares her shoulders. “One more thing, and then I’ll let you go get some sleep because you look like absolute hell, by the way.”
“Cheers for that.”
“Your mom’s mobility?—”
“Is improving,” I answer, sounding accusing for some reason. “Sorry, I mean, she’s getting around a little better lately. She barely touches the wheelchair. That’s a good thing, right?”
Callie’s face falls. “Saylor…your mom…”
“What?” I coax gently. “What about Mum?”
“I think it’s important to Ada that youthinkshe’s improving, but the truth is her range of motion is getting worse, not better. The pain? Almost unbearable and she hates how the medication makes her feel.”
The guilt sweeps me up like it always does. My mum lives in a prison of pain with only brief moments of relief when she’s drugged out of consciousness. It’s no way to live, but she has to because of me. She’s like this…because of me.
“What about hydrotherapy?” I ask weakly.
Callie shakes her head. “I doubt it’d do much. The damage to her spine is so severe and none of the treatments we’re trying are helping.”
“Cal, I understand the prognosis. But seeing my mum walk one day without cringing from pain is sort of the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. You’ll have to pardon me if I choose to hold onto hope.”
Wearing a half-smile, she digs into her satchel and pulls out a sticky note—bright yellow, with handwriting so neat it looks typed.
“What’s that?”
