Nine
Dave
The rental car had a nice feature where it told me the radio station that it had been tuned to at all times, rather than ever telling me the time. It was convenient, because it allowed me to go home without knowing what time it was, except that it was certainly not eight forty-five.
I got back to Mom’s house without too much trouble. It was only a few miles, and I could have easily walked it. I could have probably run it without breaking out in a proper sweat. But I drove because one of these days, it was going to be getting real cold, and I wasn’t going to get caught out at nine at night with no real coat on and no car.
The lights were still on inside when I got there, and I let out a long breath. Mom was either waiting up for me when I got home, which was a mistake, or she hadn’t bothered to turn off the lights, which was startlingly like her.
I took a deep breath and hoped I didn’t smell too much like sex. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to discuss it, particularly when I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to think, never mind what I was going to do in the long run.
“I guess that’s that,” I said softly. Then I pushed the door open, rose tiredly to my feet, and tried to prepare myself for the fact that I was going to be spending another night on the couch. That bed had been good for more than just fucking, I tell you.
I fished the borrowed ring of keys out of my pocket, and then check the door. It wasn’t locked. It rarely was when I lived here, and I guess it rarely was after I left.
The TV is still running. I pick up the remote to shut it off and step further into the house. With the television off, it’s silent. Stepping further in worries me. There’s something that feels wrong as I move through.
It wasn’t until I hit the kitchen that I find out what was giving me the bad feeling. It was because I should worry. My mind started racing and I stared doing three things all at once. As a result I ended up on my knees, my phone clutched in one hand uselessly, as I shook my mother’s shoulder.
“Mom?”
She doesn’t move. I start feeling for a pulse as I pull her up into my lap. There is one. It’s worryingly faint, but it is there, and sometimes that’s what you have to hope for, I guess. I pull the phone to my ear and dial the emergency number. It rings once before going through.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
I told her what I could about Mom’s condition, give her the address from memory and my name. They’re dispatching an ambulance, she said, and it’ll be ten minutes. Could I stay on the line? I told her that I could.
But the truth was that I wasn’t listening. Some part of my mind was processing the questions and answering automatically, but mostly I was thinking about whether or not she was breathing, whether or not she was going to be alright.
I could see her chest rising and falling gently. My next step was to look and make sure that she wasn’t hurt badly. Any visible injuries? No blood on the floor, which meant that there wasn’t likely to be any blood anywhere else.
There was a bruise, though, dark and ugly, on her face. I didn’t dare to touch it. A foot back was a doorknob and I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d become closer-acquainted with it than I would have liked.
I sucked in a breath and tried to stay calm. The ambulance would be here any second. When they did arrive it was anything but subtle. Anyone on the street would have known that something happened. They brought in a stretcher and lifted her up onto it. I watched the whole thing from a strangely detached perspective, like the whole thing was a movie playing out in front of me.
I played through the other parts in my mind, too. Walking in, thinking that I was in for an awkward conversation. That was stupid of me. Even selfish. I never really understood Mom or Dad. They were a mystery to me, except that I knew that I wasn’t a terribly good son and that wasn’t something I could change easily.
I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes and for the first time in almost twenty years, I prayed to God. And then, as I drove down the street, I saw a vision pass before my eyes of a car slamming into my side as I followed behind the ambulance a ways.
It didn’t hurt, but the rental car spun in the street and slammed the other side hard into a light pole, and my vision went dim as the only thought that I could feel clearly in my mind repeated softly:
I should have gotten the rental insurance.
Then the world went quiet, and I stopped having any awareness of what was happening at all.