Parker #2
Without another word, I changed as fast as I could, grabbing my stuff and heading to my truck. The drive to my mom’s place wasn’t long, but it was heavy.
She was the reason I’d stayed close to home, why I’d chosen Tennessee over any other school that had offered me a spot—which was literally almost all of them.
Cole was on a world tour with the Sound of Us, Walker was living his dream in Dallas.
That left me. I was the only one who wasn’t as haunted by the memories of our mom—the mom she used to be, when she’d actually wanted to live. I didn’t have those, because for as long as I could remember, she’d always been like this. I knew nothing else.
The drive home always felt longer than forty-five minutes.
I gripped the steering wheel, trying not to think about what waited for me at the end of the road.
Same house. Same silence. Everything I couldn’t outrun.
The tires crunched on the gravel as I pulled into the driveway, and for a second, I sat there, staring at the front door like I always did.
It looked the same as it had for years. The paint that was chipped, the porch that sagged, and the windows that hadn't been opened in God knows how long. Time hadn’t touched this place.
Not since Dad. And it wasn’t like the three of us hadn’t tried.
We all had money, especially Cole and Walker.
But every time we’d had workmen come over to the house, she’d had a fit.
Screaming and crying and scratching herself to the point that she could have been committed.
It hadn’t been worth dealing with it.
Thus, the house looked like this.
I sat in my truck for a minute, the drive not long enough for me to put up the walls I needed anytime I dealt with her.
And like usual…thoughts like that made me feel like a shit son.
It wasn’t her fault that she’d lost the love of her life unexpectedly.
Our family had always had a reputation for falling in love hard.
It hadn’t happened to me or Cole yet, but I was slightly a believer after seeing how crazy Walker was about his wife Olivia.
It’s just that I was pretty sure Walker wouldn’t abandon their child–my adorable niece–if something happened to her.
Unlike what my mom had done to the three of us.
Taking a deep breath, I finally got out of my truck and walked up the creaky steps to the front door. One more deep breath, and then I unlocked it and stepped inside.
The smell hit me first—stale air and dust, thick enough to taste.
The kind of silence that settled in your bones and made everything feel heavier.
The nurse was gone for the day, the silence told me that.
She was a saint for lasting as long as she did on the days she worked.
The fact that she wasn’t allowed to dust or move anything around couldn’t have been fun.
I got sick every time I thought about the day when she couldn’t handle Mom’s shit anymore and she left. Who would help me then?
The hardwood creaked under my feet as I walked through the front room. Dust clung to every surface—furniture, picture frames, the old clock on the mantle that hadn’t ticked in years. Like the whole house was frozen in the exact moment Dad died, and we’d never bothered to move on.
“Mom?” My voice echoed, too loud in the stillness. No answer, just more silence. My chest tightened.
I found her in her bedroom, sitting in the same chair she always did. It was the last thing Dad had built her before he died.
Her gaze was fixed on something out the window, like she was watching for someone. Like she hadn’t figured out he was never coming back.
“Parker, you’re here,” she said, her voice thin, fragile. She didn’t even look at me, though.
“Yeah, I just wanted to check in.”
Her hand twitched on the armrest, the only sign she’d even heard me.
The nurse had told me that besides not eating, she’d also been agitated today, angry that things were being moved.
That they weren’t exactly where they’d been before.
I looked around. But everything looked the same, where it had been for years.
The room was a shrine to a life we’d lost. Like everything was waiting for Dad to walk through the front door.
“You hungry? I can make something,” I offered, knowing she’d say no.
“I’m fine.” She shifted in her seat, a small movement, but enough to kick up a puff of dust from the cushion.
I glanced out the doorway to the kitchen, wondering if it had been stocked recently.
“Have you been taking your meds?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, casual, even though I already knew the answer.
Her silence was the only confirmation I needed.
“I’m gonna go check the kitchen,” I said, more to fill the silence than anything else. “See if there’s anything edible in there.”
She didn’t stop me.
The fridge door squealed as I pulled it open, and I sighed in relief that Martha had some premade meals in there. Her soup would be a little bit easier to try and cajole down Mom’s throat than a PB&J.
Grabbing the container, I shut the door, sneezing as a puff of dust went right into my face.
A tomb.
That's what this place reminded me of.
Leaning against the counter, I rubbed the back of my neck. Sometimes it felt like Dad would be disappointed in me. He’d always treated Mom like a queen. If this had happened while he’d been alive, he would have taken care of her every day without complaint.
Creak . The soft sound of the chair drifted out from the bedroom, and I looked up hopefully. But of course, she didn’t appear.
Making a vow to do better, I warmed up the soup in the microwave and slowly walked back to the bedroom, doing my best not to spill.
“Mom, look what I have…Martha’s zuppa toscana soup. You love this stuff,” I told her in a fake, cheery voice as I set the bowl down on the table next to the chair. “And how about I open this window? Get some fresh air in here.”
Her head snapped toward me, eyes sharp all of a sudden. “No.”
“Mom—”
“I said no!” Her voice cracked, thin as it was, and her arms thrashed around. “I don’t want anything.” I watched as her elbow hit the soup and it went flying, landing on the pair of Dad’s shoes that she’d kept right where he’d left them.
Mom let out an inhuman shriek at the sight of the soiled shoes and launched herself at them. I barely caught her before she hit the ground. “Noooo,” she wailed, struggling to get away from me and to the shoes.
My throat felt tight as I held on to her, desperate that she didn’t get hurt. “I’ll wash them off, Mom. It’s okay. Just please stop!”
She didn’t stop, though. She didn’t stop until she’d worn herself out completely trying to get to the shoes. She didn’t stop until I’d let her go, and she’d banged her knees on the wooden floor and cried over the worn leather.
“I’m sorry, Parker,” she cried as she fumbled frantically with her dirty pajamas, wiping off the soup with the hem of her shirt. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Mom,” I murmured as I knelt down and helped her.
She didn’t stop for hours. Until she passed out right there by the ruined shoes.
When I picked her up to carry her over to the bed, she weighed nothing. She was literally wasting away.
“It’s alright, Mom. You rest now,” I whispered, that choked, tight feeling still in my chest and throat. I tucked her in, pulling the sheets up to her chin. I could barely remember her doing that for me. And now here I was, long before she was old and gray, doing it for her now.
It fucking sucked.
All of a sudden the room felt smaller, tighter, like the walls were closing in. I glanced at the door, the house feeling like it was pressing down on me. The dust, the memories, the way everything had stopped the moment Dad left. It was suffocating.
I forced myself to leave the shoes, knowing it would just set her off again in the morning if she saw they were gone, and then I strode out of the room, setting the empty bowl in the sink before I hurried toward the door.
After all of that, she still hadn’t eaten.
My gaze got caught on the dust-covered frames on the mantle. Photos from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. The three of us—Walker, Cole, and a tiny me—grinning like idiots next to Dad, all of us clueless about how fast things could change. How everything could stop.
Walker and Cole were lucky.
I got it, I really did. They were older, so the contrast from how Mom was then to how she was now was sharper. Their demons were closer to the surface.
But man, some days, this fucking sucked.
That I had to be the one who walked into the tomb of a house and faced what was left of her.
They didn’t have to see the way her eyes glazed over, or how she couldn’t remember if she’d eaten that day.
Didn’t have to deal with the anger or the tears or worse… the blankness.
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shove down the frustration bubbling up inside me. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I was supposed to understand, to handle it. But sometimes, it was too much.
I stood there for a second longer, waiting for something. Maybe a sign that things could change. But all I heard was my mom whimpering in her sleep.
And that was all I could take for the day.
I turned and walked out, the screen door creaking shut behind me. The weight in my chest stayed, though, clinging to me like the dust that covered everything in this place.
One thing I knew as I drove my truck away from the house like I was being chased…ghosts were real.
My mom was one.