Chapter Thirteen
Brian sat in the too-quiet room with nothing to do but think and listen to the occasional hiss of the air mattress as his mother slept. It covered the regular mattress and blew air in and out, inflating, deflating in such a way that it helped prevent bed sores. The noise used to bother him, but he’d grown accustomed to it and found it comforting now.
He couldn’t help but marvel over how things that at first seemed so shocking, gradually became everyday. Normal. Acceptable even.
But he couldn’t get used to the distance between himself and Hayden. It grew wider daily, but he didn’t know how to make things right.
He missed her.
He thought of the anniversary trip they’d been planning. And thought that when this was over, he’d take her somewhere special.
And that thought led to a wash of guilt. He felt as if he’d just wished his mother dead, and he didn’t.
His mom awoke with a start. She looked up and smiled. “Brian?”
“I’m here, Mom.”
She started to move her hand, and he instinctually reached for it, holding it. “I’m here,” he repeated.
She shut her eyes, and he didn’t think she was going to answer him, but finally, eyes still shut, she murmured, “It won’t be long now”
Her saying that, coming on the heels of his just thinking that, made him almost queasy. “Don’t talk like that.”
His mother, once so vibrant, had faded, much like her bright red hair had softened to a dull gray. She was muted. She was still her, still his mother, still Kathleen Conway, but not the same. Each day she grew more quiet, pulled back from them a little. Even now, she laughed, but it was a shallow, wheezy sound, not the rich, deep filled gusto laugh she used to have.
She opened her eyes, and their once vivid blue seemed almost gray, as well. “Bri, I’ve always told you the truth, and the truth is, I’m ready. We had a lovely fall. That trip to the lake, Thanksgiving. We took what time I had left and we enjoyed it. But now I’m tired of fighting this. I’m tired of hurting—”
“We can get you more medicine. I’ll call Hayden and she can give you something, then we’ll call Marti and she can get you something even stronger.”
“Shh, Bri. There’s no amount of medicine to fix this. I’m just so tired. I’m ready to go. And I’m lucky I can still say what needs to be said before I leave.”
“Mom.” His throat constricted, cutting off any further words.
“Brian, you’ve been my joy. I’m so proud of you, of the man you’ve become.”
She reached up, her face grimacing with the concentration it took to make just that one, slight move. But she did it, and caressed his face with a cold hand. So cold.
As her hand slid back to her chest, he pulled another cover up, hoping to warm her.
“Brian, you, Hayden and Olivia, you’ve meant the world to me. The only regret I have is leaving all of you. But I know you’ll be fine, as long as you have each other. That’s my comfort.”
“Mom …”
“You’ll be fine, Bri. I just wanted to tell you I love you. Look at the work you’ve done, all the children whose lives are better because of you. No mother could have asked for a better son.”
Brian, who kept everything inside—his pain, his regrets—and just got on with life, felt feelings he couldn’t sort out. The emotions threatened to break through his tightly held control. He waited a moment, until he’d push it all back, then said, “I love you, too, Mom. No one …”
He paused, feeling strangled and wondering how he could say the words he needed to say, knowing her time would end too soon.
“Mom, no son could have had a better mother.”
She blinked as if she might cry, but she’d become so dehydrated as she stopped eating and hadn’t drunk more than a sip of water at a time for days, there was no moisture to spare for tears.
“Aren’t we a pair?” She laughed again, this time even softer than before.
He couldn’t find anything to say to that, but he didn’t need to. His mother had closed her eyes.
He began to think she’d dozed off, but then she spoke, her voice a mere whisper. “Do you remember the time you were lost in the store, and I couldn’t find you? But then you called my name, Mama, over and over. Sure that I would come. Sure that I would find you.”
“That security guard was trying to take me back to his office. But you’d told me to never go with a stranger.”
“You’re right, I did. And that’s why it’s okay for me to go. You won’t be with strangers. You have Hayden and Livie. Family. You’ll be okay.” She opened her eyes then, and looked at him. “You’ll be fine.”
She shut her eyes again. This time her shallow breathing evened out as she fell back to sleep. This was the most she’d talked in days, and Brian knew she’d exhausted herself.
He took her cold hand in his and she smiled in her sleep.
He sat like that for a long time, just holding her hand and thinking. Wondering just what was going to happen between him and Hayden when his mother was gone.
Hayden, who’d always seemed to have the answers, didn’t seem to have any this time.
Would they be able to piece themselves back together?
Hayden stood in the doorway, looking into Kathleen’s room. Brian sat by the side of her bed, just holding her hand as she slept.
She turned and walked down the hall, leaving him to his goodbye.
Livie came out of her room and followed Hayden into the kitchen. “It won’t be long now, will it, Mom?”
Hayden turned and saw her daughter waiting for an answer. The fact that Livie trusted her to tell the truth was evident on her face. Hayden had always tried to be honest. Sex talks, Santa-confessions … she always answered as truthfully as she could. She’d never held anything back, and couldn’t do anything less this time.
So she nodded. “Not long at all. Later, when your dad is done, you can go in and say goodbye, if you want.” But worrying that this was too much, she hugged her daughter. “You don’t have to. You really don’t need to say the words. Your grandmother knows—”
Livie hugged her. “I know, Mom. Nana knows I love her, and if I never had a chance to say it again, she’d still know. But I do have a chance, and it might hurt to say the words, but I know someday I’ll be glad I did. I want her to know how much she’s meant to me, how much she’ll still continue to mean to me.”
Hayden stroked Livie’s hair, the wild red curls so like Kathleen’s once were. “She’s so proud of you, you know. So are your father and I. This has been so hard, and you’ve been so understanding. I know I haven’t been there for you as much as I should have. I’ll try and make it up to you when this …” Hayden hesitated, then forced herself to finish. “When this is all over.”
Livie wrapped herself around Hayden as she’d done as a child. “There’s nothing to make up. You’re doing fine. I’m doing fine.”
Marti knocked on the kitchen’s screen door once, then let herself in. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Livie unwound herself from Hayden, then hugged the hospice worker. Over the last few weeks, Marti’s no-nonsense ways had become a balm, soothing all of them.
“No problem, Marti. I’m going to the library for a while, but I’ll have my cell. Later, when Nana’s rested, I’ll go talk to her. But you call if …” Livie left the sentence hanging, but Hayden knew she meant if the time arrives.
She nodded her agreement and Livie kissed her cheek then left them.
“She’ll be fine,” Marti said, answering Hayden’s unasked question.
“I hope so.”
Marti gave her an assessing look. “To be honest, it’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’m fine.” The answer had become so standard, that she didn’t even think about it before she uttered the two words.
I’m fine.
She said it to Marti, to Livie, to Brian. She said it to Kathleen, to friends and coworkers who called.
She kept thinking that if she said it often enough, maybe she’d believe it.
Maybe she’d believe that the hole that was growing in her heart would someday heal over.
“You haven’t slept for days.” That was Marti, concentrating on the practical again. She knew she couldn’t fix a broken heart, but sleep she could advocate.
Hayden shook her head. “I catnap.”
“It’s not the same. Let me stay tonight, you and Brian could both use a night off.”
“We’ll have plenty of nights off—too many nights off, a lifetime of them—soon enough.”
“Hayden, I’m your friend.”
“Then be a friend, Marti, and let me handle this in my own way. Did I ever tell you about the time Bri and I both caught the mumps?”
Marti just shook her head no.
“It was before I lived here, but Kathleen had known there would be no comfort from my mom, so she called and got permission for me to stay here. She spent days running from one of us to the other. As we felt better, she played countless games of Monopoly and Yahtzee. She made all our favorite foods. Don’t you see, I wasn’t her daughter, wasn’t her responsibility, and she set her whole life aside to take care of me. Since that first day I came here, she’s taken care of me. How can I do any less?”
“Just one night off,” Marti protested. “She’d want you to.”
“I can’t. Like I said, there will be too many nights off soon enough.” Hayden smiled at Marti. “I could use all the friendly support I have, though.”
“You know you’ve got that.”
“Thanks.”
Hayden forced herself into business mode. Falling back on her nursing training had been her salvation. She knew the drill, the questions to ask, the answers to have ready. It was a balm.
“I’ve got all her stats from overnight.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved the notebook she’d been writing everything down on. “The new Fentanyl dosage seems to be working. I only gave her three doses of morphine for breakthrough pain in the last twenty-four hours. But her urine output has gone down even more. I could use some more sponges to moisten her mouth. It’s so dry it’s sore. And we’ll definitely need more pads. And …”
She fell into the rhythm of her report, strangely comforted. Medicine was cold hard facts. Coping with those facts was so much easier than acknowledging what they meant—it wouldn’t be long now.
Like she said to Marti, she’d sleep after. But for now, she was going to continue to do all she could to be sure that Kathleen’s passing was as easy as possible. And she was going to be sure that she kept her promise … Kathleen wouldn’t die alone. She’d die at home, surrounded by her family.
That was the last gift Hayden could give her.