I was curled up next to Paislee in her bed when I heard the phone ring. It felt like we had just crawled under the blankets. It was still pitch black outside. I only had one eye open when I reached for my phone on the table next to the bed. I didn’t even look at the caller id.

“Hello,” I answered groggily, and felt Paislee stir next to me.

“Jude,” my uncle Lyndon’s voice came through the line, and I shot up quickly.

“What’s going on?” I glanced back at the clock that read twelve twenty-one. Something was wrong.

“It’s your momma, Jude. We’ve got her in the hospital. They think she’s had a stroke, but they’re not sure.”

I felt my heart sink. It felt like someone knocked the breath out of me. “Is she okay?”

He didn’t answer. “You need to get here as soon as possible,” he told me. His voice was laced with dread, and I knew it wasn’t good.

He didn’t fucking answer me. “Is she okay,” I spat out.

“She’s alive. That’s all I know.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I hung up the phone and moved as fast as I could out of the bed. I wasn’t supposed to be there for another twenty-four hours. This was like a nightmare.

“Jude, what’s wrong?” Paislee sat up in the bed with the covers wrapped around her.

“It’s my Momma. They think she had a stroke.” I said, and boy was it hard to say. My momma was the strongest person I knew. “I have to go down there. She’s in the hospital.”

“Oh no. I’ll go with you,” she proclaimed, as she scooted to the edge of the bed.

“You don’t have to do that.” I said the words, but I don’t think I meant them. Having her with me was exactly what I wanted.

I scrambled around trying to find my other shoe. I didn’t have a change of clothes with me so I was going to have to go to the hospital in my suit and tie.

“I don’t mind. I want to, really.” She nodded her head and searched for something to put on. She moved faster than I did, but it was only because I was barely thinking straight.

I had to get to her before… I just… I needed to hurry.

“Let’s go.” Paislee dangled her car keys in front of her as she stood next to the door. I don’t know how she did it, but she somehow managed to be ready before I did.

I asked her to let me drive and she willingly gave me the keys. It wasn’t because I knew exactly where we were going; I think I just wanted the distraction. I wanted to grip the steering wheel, before I lost all grip on reality.

“Did your uncle say what happened?”

I shook my head no. “He was vague. He said to get to the hospital now, and that he didn’t know what was going on.” My jaw clenched. “How could he not know? He’s right there with her.”

Her hand raked across my arm gripping it just above my wrist. “It’s okay.” Her voice was low and somber. “We will make it, and you will see your mom.”

“How do you know?” I felt the tears build up in my eyes. They were seconds away from falling down my face.

“I just do.”

I glanced over at her for the briefest moment and she had this look in her eyes. Maybe it was fear or sadness, but it was honest. Squeezing her hand in mine, I let her words wash over me. I let it all sink in, and held on to her promise that we’d make it. We would make it in time.

We spent the rest of the ride in dead silence.

Not a great choice of words, I know, but being alone with my thoughts was mind-numbing. I could barely keep it together. Every mile marker we passed seemed to be farther than the next, and I could’ve sworn that we passed the same exit three times.

The damn two-hour drive felt like an eternity.

When the hospital came into view I felt my heartbeat speed up, like it was racing against time.

“Are you okay?” Paislee asked me, and all I could do was nod and take her hand.

We made our way inside and I stopped at the information desk.

“I’m here to see LuAnn Marx please?” I pleaded with the elderly woman who sat behind the desk.

“Are you a family member?” She asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m her son.”

“Okay, dear,” her sweet voice replied. “She’s on the second floor in the ICU unit. You’ll need to stop at the nurse’s station when you get off the elevator.”

“Thank you,” I said hurriedly as I rushed over to the elevator. Paislee’s hand was still locked with mine.

Inside the elevator I could feel the rattling of my stomach as it was lurching towards my feet. I felt so sick. I’d seen my parents go through many things, but I was always there when it happened. I was never not there.

The elevator made a dinging noise just before the door opened to the second floor. The pungent smell of bleach wafted up in my face as we stepped off.

The nurse’s station was directly in front of us, and just as I stepped up to ask for my mom, I heard my name being called.

Paislee gripped my hand just as my Uncle Lyndon rushed over to us.

“How is she?” I asked. “Have you seen her?”

“Not yet. The doctor said that she was still not stable. Her heart rate keeps dropping, and her blood pressure is seriously low. They haven’t been able to get her vital signs back to normal,” he explained. My aunt came walking over to give me a quick hug.

“Do they know if it was a stroke?” I needed more information.

“Nothing has been confirmed yet. The doctor said that he’d be back out soon to talk with us, but they were waiting on some scan of her brain.”

I swallowed hard, fighting back all the emotions that were teetering on the edge. I felt like I could explode at any given second and unravel like a complete lunatic. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

“Where’s papa?” I asked.

“He’s in the waiting room, but he doesn’t understand what’s going on. He’s having a bad day,” my aunt explained.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I’m sorry that you guys are having to deal with all of this. It’s my responsibility to take care of them. I always have.” I had to grit my teeth to keep from shouting.

“Oh, honey.” My aunt rubbed my arm. “You can only do so much. We didn’t mind helping so that you could get your house built back. There would’ve been no way that you could’ve done it all. Honestly, we were happy to help,” she explained in a sympathetic, and loving voice.

In the midst of everything, I’d forgotten to introduce them to Paislee. They said a quick hello, and my Aunt Jane asked if she’d like to go grab some coffee. She agreed, which gave me a few minutes to sit with my dad. It had been a while since I’d saw him in person. We’d talked on the phone once, but he didn’t like that he couldn’t see my face, and I didn’t like upsetting him.

Walking through the door of the waiting room, I saw him sitting there by himself. I could tell by the way he was sitting that it hadn’t been a good day for him. He was probably wondering what in the hell was going on. Chaos wasn’t easy for him, and he liked the comforts of home. He was probably missing momma’s voice too. She was the only person that he could tolerate being around for long periods of time, even if he didn’t know who she was.

I walked slowly over to where he was sitting. His eyes stared down at his boots. He always wore his boots. Normally, so did I. Today though, I was in a suit with dress shoes. It wouldn’t matter what I was wearing. On the bad days, he never recognized me anyway.

I sat down in the blue cushioned chair next to him. Seeing him so lost never got easier for me. It was like having my dad’s body, but not his mind.

This night was just getting harder and harder.

“Papa,” I whispered, making sure not to touch him. He didn’t like to be touched unless he was in his right frame of mind. I never studied Alzheimer’s disease, only knew what the doctors told me. Every case was different, and what worked for some didn’t always work for others.

He looked over at me, but I could tell his eyes never connected. He didn’t know who I was. There were tears in his eyes that caused me to choke up in the moment. I had one parent lying in a hospital bed fighting within an inch of her life, and the other stared at me like I was a ghost.

“Do you know where you are?” I asked, though the words barely came out.

He didn’t answer. He just shook his head no. I wondered when the moment would come that he would never come back to us. When would be the last day that I had with my Dad, before he never remembered me again?

It couldn’t be today.

I couldn’t bear it.

“You get to go home soon,” I told him, but I meant back to my aunt and uncle’s. His real home was gone, and he probably didn’t even remember.

“Okay,” he responded. “Are you getting married?”

I looked down at my shiny black shoes and my freshly ironed pants with a smile. It probably looked like I was. “Yeah. I guess I am.” I answered him with a little grin. At least I planned to one day.

“I’m going to a wedding.” His voice perked up a little.

Paislee stood next to my aunt in the doorway. When I glanced up at her she had the sweetest look on her face. Guess we were going to meet each other’s parents on the same night. I waved her over and she took a seat next to me.

“This is my future bride, Paislee,” I told my Dad. Paislee’s eyes grew as big as saucers, but she owed me one. Little did she know, I wasn’t kidding.

“You gonna get married in that?” He asked her, and I chuckled. She was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. Not the usual wedding attire.

“My dress was uncomfortable,” she answered with a smile.

I took her hand and held it close to me. “I think she looks beautiful, Pop. Don’t you?”

He looked over at her, and tilted his head to the side. I could see the redness in Paislee’s cheeks. “Yes. She’s a looker.”

That was my Papa. He always had way a with words even when he didn’t have his right mind.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Paislee told him, and I felt my heart come hurdling out of my chest like it needed to be with her. Like it longed to be inside her chest instead of mine. It belonged next to hers. She found her way to my heart with a much quicker route and she didn’t even realize it. I would’ve married that girl right there in front my Papa if she would’ve let me. She had no idea.

You should’ve seen the way he smiled at her.

The doctor came in the room and asked for the family.

“Go,” she told me. “I’ll sit with your dad.”

I kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

The doctor stood in the hallway and delivered the most excruciating news.

My Momma was dying.

She had a tumor on the base of her brain that had been growing rapidly without rhyme or reason. It’s what led to her stroke and the reason that she was barely alive. Every breath she took could very well be her last. They couldn’t operate. They could only medicate. Her stroke had caused brain activity issues and he thought that she’d likely slip into a coma and not wake up. He said that she’d been in and out of consciousness but that they didn’t know how long she’d be able to hold out. We had to say our goodbyes.

I couldn’t grasp it.

I couldn’t understand how she was fine, and then she wasn’t.

Our lives had been so difficult over the past three years. The only logical explanation that I had was that she’d grown tired. She needed to be at rest.

I let my Aunt and Uncle go in first, so that I could have all the time I needed. When I went in the waiting room to tell Paislee, she tried so hard not to cry. She was being brave for me, and for my Papa.

It was killing me.

“Give me a little bit,” I told her. “I want to talk to her.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Then I’d like for you to walk my Dad back. I know he probably won’t understand but I want him to see her, even for a second.”

Paislee agreed. “Okay. I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”