“Mickey.”
“Does Mom know?”
Tex’s face changes, a small shift behind the eyes. “I called her. From the waiting room. She knows everything I know.”
“How is she?”
“She’s holding up. She’s tough, just like you.”
I close my eyes. My mom. June Weaver. Five foot two, a hundred and twenty pounds. Tough as nails and hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in two years because my father wanders.
My dad. Walter Weaver. Sixty-seven years old. Retired from the Bay County Road Department years ago when the forgetting got bad enough that they couldn’t pretend anymore.He was the foreman. Ran a crew of fifteen guys for decades. Now he can’t find the bathroom in the house he’s lived in for thirty-five years. Some days he knows my mom. Some days he doesn’t. My mom is fifteen minutes from this hospital and she can’t come. Not tonight.
“Give me the phone,” I say.
Tex hesitates. “Are you sure you’re up for that? She’ll understand if you can’t call until tomorrow. You’re still groggy from the surgery. I’ll call her for you.”
“Tex, dial her and give me the phone. You know she’s waiting to hear from me.”
He presses her number and hands me his phone. My hands are clumsy from the drugs and Tex steadies it for me.
She picks up on the first ring.
“Tex?”
Her voice. That’s what gets me. My mother’s voice at one in the morning.
“Hey, Mama. It’s me. I’m using Tex’s phone.”
“Oh, honey. Oh, Mickey. Tex told me. He told me what happened. Are you okay? Are you in pain? I’ve been sitting here by the phone just waiting. Your father went down about an hour ago but he was up again twenty minutes later and I had to get him settled and I wanted to call but I didn’t know who to call. Or if you’d be awake...”
“Mama.”
“I should be there. I’m so sorry, baby. I called Linda next door and she said she’d come over first thing in the morningso I can come see you but tonight I can’t... your daddy got up twice already and he was looking for the car keys and I hid them but he gets so upset when he can’t find them, he just stands in the kitchen opening drawers and...”
“Mama. Stop.”
She stops talking.
“I’m okay,” I say. I’ve spent my entire life making my voice hold for other people and it holds now, for her, full of a lie so large I can barely breathe. “I’m okay. I’m out of surgery. Tex is here. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, Mickey. You were shot. I should be there and I’m sitting in this house and your daddy doesn’t even know what’s happening. I told him and he looked at me and he said ‘who’s Mickey’ and I...”
She breaks down crying. My father forgot my name. The man who taught me to throw a football and stood in the front row at my academy graduation and cried when they pinned the badge on my chest, he doesn’t know who Mickey is anymore. And now I’m lying in a hospital bed and my mother is alone with a man who doesn’t remember his own son today. The two men she loves most in the world are both disappearing on her and she can’t stop either one.
Tex is watching me. He can hear her through the speaker phone. The room is quiet enough that he can hear every sound she’s making and it’s hurting him too.
“Mama, listen to me. Stay with Dad. That’s what I need you to do. Stay with him tonight. Linda will come in the morning and you can come see me then. Okay? I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. My mother has never sounded so small.
“I’m sure. Tex is right here. He’s not leaving. Are you, Tex?”
“I’m not leaving, Mama Weaver,” Tex says, strong and loud enough for the phone. His voice holds too. We’re both holding it together for her.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I love you, Mickey. I love you so much. I’ll be there first thing. First thing.”
“I love you too, Mama. Tell Dad I love him too.”
