Not because it’s bad here. It’s actually nice—nicer than I expected. Clean. Quiet. The staff is kind and competent and they don’t make me feel like I’m failing by not being able to care for her anymore.
But it smells wrong.
Not bad, exactly. Just institutional. Like cleaning products and that particular staleness that comes from air conditioning and too many closed doors. Nothing like Mom’s house, which always smelled like her hand cream and whatever she was baking that week.
This place smells like the end.
I sign in at the front desk—the nurse recognizes me now, gives me a sympathetic smile I’m learning to hate—and walk down the hallway to room 104.
Mom’s room. The room where she’ll die because I couldn’t keep her comfortable at home.
I know that’s not fair. I know her doctor was right when he saidshe needs twenty-four hour medical care, pain management I can’t provide, equipment we don’t have. I know Teresa was exhausted, that the midnight calls were getting more frequent, that Mom was getting scared when the confusion got bad.
I know all of this logically.
But standing here looking at the door makes me feel like I’ve given up. Like I’ve admitted she’s dying and I’m just letting it happen.
I take a breath and push the door open.
Mom’s propped up in the adjustable bed, oxygen cannula in her nose, looking out the window at the garden. She’s wearing the blue cardigan I brought from home, the one Dad gave her twenty years ago that she refuses to throw out even though it’s got holes in the elbows.
Small victory—she’s still herself enough to care what she’s wearing.
The room is smaller than her bedroom at home. The bed takes up most of the space, surrounded by equipment—oxygen, monitors, a tray table with medications I can identify by sight now. There’s a chair by the window where I’ve been sitting for hours at a time. A shelf with photos I brought from the house. Her crossword puzzle books stacked neatly on the nightstand.
All the pieces of her life, condensed into one small room with a garden view.
“You’re early,” Mom says without turning from the window. Her voice is clearer today. A good day, then. Those are getting rarer.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I set my bag down on the chair. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m dying in a facility that smells like Lysol.” And for a moment she’s just Mom. Sharp-eyed and opinionated. “But the roses are nice. They need deadheading though. That gardener doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Maybe you should go tell him.”
“Maybe I should.” She adjusts the oxygen line—a gesture I’vewatched her do a thousand times in three days, always with that same irritated expression. “How’s work?”
The question catches me off guard. We’ve been in crisis mode for so long that normal questions feel strange.
“Fine. Just prep for road trips.”
“And Roman?”
Of course.
“He’s fine.”
“He was here yesterday,” she says, watching my face. “Brought me coffee.”
I didn’t know he came by. I’d been at the facility for a staff meeting, checking my phone the whole time, waiting for the call that something had changed.
“What did you talk about?” I ask.
“You, mostly.” She reaches for the water cup and I hand it to her before she has to strain. Even that small movement makes her wince. “About how you work too much. How you forget to eat. How you need someone to make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground.”
My cheeks flush. “Mom?—”
“I like him,” she continues like I haven’t spoken. “He’s serious. A little intense. But he actually listens when I talk. Doesn’t just nod and wait for me to finish so he can leave.”
