I stand out on the balcony and down the last of my beer. After Cheryl left yesterday, I spent the day at the hospital. I held my mom’s hand for hours while talking to her, wondering if she could even hear me. I told her all the things I never could open up to her about while leaving out all of the bad shit. If she were listening, I couldn’t have her leave this world with any negativity weighing on her conscience.
I talked a lot about my time with Ady. I talked about Cheryl and work. I even told her that I got accepted into law school, because by the time I got the letter, she was already so sick and confused, she barely even knew who I was. I shared my ambitions of working as a prosecutor and wanting to make a difference in this world. There was even a shred of laughter that escaped me when I thought about the possibility of battling it out in the courtroom one day with Cheryl.
“She’s a hard-ass, Mom. As much as I would want to make you proud, I’m fairly confident she’d have me kissing my own ass goodbye as she threw me into the flames. That woman puts up a hard fight,” I said.
One of the nurses brought me in a plate from the cafeteria for dinner, but I couldn’t eat. My stomach was too knotted. It has been ever since I left to come home to sleep, and it still remains that way now as I look out onto a new day—the day.
I made my mind up yesterday when talking to her. I cried and told her how sorry I was. I went ahead and said my goodbyes then and there, knowing I wouldn’t be able to today. The call to the hospital has already been made. They know I’m on my way. As much as I want to do this alone, I know that without someone next to me, I’ll probably change my mind.
With that, I pull out my phone and do something I’ve wanted to do ever since the day she disappeared.
I call her.
“Hello?” she says when she answers.
“Hey, it’s Kason.”
“Kason, hi.” Her tone comes through as surprised.
My heart thumps nervously. “You said I could call you if I needed you.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I really need you today,” I tell her as agony bleeds through my words. “Do you think you could meet me at the hospital?”
Without a second of hesitance, she responds, “Of course. I’ll head that way right now.”
I arrive before she does, and I sit in a chair outside my mother’s room. Never has my chest been so tight that it hurts to breathe. So I sit, scared to walk in and see her, knowing it will be the last time. I hold on to my breaths to keep myself from crying, but my chest tremors regardless of how much I fight.
A warm hand touches my shoulder, and when I lift my head from my palms, Adaline is standing in front of me. Her head dips to the side, and even though no tears are present, I can tell she was just crying.
She doesn’t attempt to speak, and neither do I. She takes my hand, and when I stand, the nurse I spoke to when I arrived approaches.
“The doctor is on his way now. Would you like for me to call the chaplain?”
And that’s when it hits.
Like a barreling avalanche, the weight of the world comes tumbling down on me. I squeeze the shit out of Adaline’s hand, but nothing can stop this pain. Silently, I cry and shake my head no.
“Come here,” Adaline whispers as she pulls me into my mother’s room, closing the door for privacy. That’s when I fall into her arms. She holds me tight against her, and a few strands of her hair stick against my damp cheek. “It’s going to be okay,” she tries to reassure, and when I draw back, I walk straight over to my mom.
“At least she won’t have to suffer anymore,” she says, and I nod, but I selfishly want to keep my her alive.
There’s a light knock on the door before it opens.
“Mr. Stratton,” her doctor greets as he walks in along with two nurses. He shakes my hand, but I still can’t speak. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. He begins to talk, but the only sound I hear is the blood pumping through me. I don’t even look at him, keeping my eyes on the woman who worked herself to the bone to keep a roof over our heads. She may have been an absentee mother, but she had no other choice. It was either allow us to be homeless or leave me to constantly fend for myself. She had no way of knowing what the after effects of such abandonment would do to me, had no clue that she’d hired a monster to watch over me, shaping me into the abomination I am. At least she will die without ever knowing. When she looked at me, all she ever saw was a kid determined to succeed. I wanted to make her proud.
She was a good mom. She did the best she could with the cards she was dealt.
Peeling my eyes away, I look at Adaline, who is still holding my hand. The doctor continues to talk, his voice muted in a faraway tunnel. Adaline gives him a nod, and then the two of them, along with the nurses turn to me. His lips move with no sound.
Adaline wraps her other hand around my bicep.
“Mr. Stratton,” I finally hear him say. “Do you have any questions?”
I shake my head.
“Are you ready?”
My chin quivers like it used to when I was a little boy trying to be strong in the wake of fear.
“They can’t start until you give the okay,” Adaline tells me, and when the nurses walk around to where the two of us stand, we take a couple steps back as I give the doctor an approving nod, even though I don’t approve at all.
Everything happens so fast as I stand and watch. The doctor turns off the ventilator and then removes the tube from the machine while the nurses turn off the other machines and unhook the wires connected to the woman who gave me life. I hear her gasp a few times before she goes silent. They roll everything away from her and quickly exit the room, and with nothing left to fight for, I let go of a gut-wrenching sob. It rips out violently from deep within, and I cry.
Taking my mom’s hand back in mine, I hold it to me as tears carve their devastation down my face. My knees give way, and Adaline pulls a chair up for me to sit in. As I lay my head next to my mother’s arm, I feel so empty. Adaline stands behind me with her arms wrapped around my body as she hunches over me. She cries, too, her tears dripping down my neck.
I sense movement, and when I lift my head, the doctor is back in the room with one of the nurses. She checks my mom’s pulse and then flashes a light in her eyes. When she nods to the doctor, he pronounces her time of death, and then they leave again, closing the door behind them.
The sounds of my grief are guttural. They burn and ache and render me completely weak. Her sheets dampen beneath my face from my sadness, and when Adaline presses her wet cheek against mine, something in me ticks. As much as I want her, need her, and still love her, she brings nothing but more pain. She abandoned me and tossed me away as if I were nothing to her. And in just a few days, she’ll be gone again.
I want her. God, she’s all I’ve ever wanted, but knowing I’ll never have her again, only makes all of this worse. I can’t open myself up again. I can’t do it.
I sit up and shrug her off me. She steps to my side and reaches for me again, but I stop her. “Just go.”
With tears streaming down her face, her eyes widen at the hard tone in my voice.
“Leave,” I clip harshly. “You’re going to eventually, so just do it now.”
Stumbling back a few small steps, she whimpers, “Kason, please.”
“Get out!”
Confusion and shock lash across her face, and as much as I want to soothe them away, truth is, even though she comforts, she injures even more. Loving her destroyed me, and in her attempt to console, she’s doing nothing but grinding my broken pieces to dust. I can’t take the heartbreak all over again on top of my mom dying. I’ll never be back with Adaline, so why even pretend?
Her look turns to pity. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry.” She then turns abruptly and rushes out of the room.
Her crying fades away into the distance, and I drop back to my mom and endure the torture as my heart hollows. It’s in this moment I begin to question everything: love, life, hope. The three things every human should cling to, but why is it that those very things are what cause me the greatest pain?
How the fuck am I supposed to find happiness, or even just a sliver of peacefulness?