Chapter 1
Arax
The dreams started a week after a huge blizzard was supposed to hit. I had had a late night at my music studio, taking over lessons for one of my instructors who had come down with the flu.
It was the middle of winter, and winters in Spruce Grove were no joke. My mom and I been living here for two years. So far it was everything I had hoped it would be, living in this quiet, sleepy town.
I ushered my last student out the door and locked up.
My place was only ten walking minutes away, but I wanted both of us to make it home before the snowstorm.
I was excited for tonight. It was Armenian Christmas, January sixth.
While it wasn’t my first Christmas in Spruce Grove, it was the first time in a long time my mom was enthusiastic about celebrating it.
We’d gotten a tree, even decorated it together.
Our relationship had been terrible for so long.
Though we lived together and only had each other, we were still working on moving on from the past.
The apartment was dark when I got to my door, and my phone rang before I could get my key in the lock.
“What’s up, Danny?” I answered. It was my vocal coach, Daniel, one of the lead instructors at my studio.
“You leave the laptop behind for me?” he asked, his voice mocking me because he knew I’d forgotten. I looked down at the computer bag draped across my torso and grinned.
“You couldn’t have called fifteen minutes ago?” I replied with a laugh.
“I’ll come by and grab it,” he told me, also cracking up.
“It’s fine, Danny. I’ll drop it off with you in the morning.”
He shot down the idea down right away. “It’s your day off, Rox. Spend it with your mom. I’ll be there in ten.”
“Only if you’re sure,” I said as I unlocked the door.
The apartment was quiet when I stepped inside.
My mom might have been napping. She’d been doing a lot of that lately.
I was eager to wake her and get started on the festivities.
We hadn’t exchanged presents in years, so I didn’t know what she liked these days.
I decided a girls’ trip to a luxury resort was just the thing.
Neither of us was high-maintenance, but it would be the perfect getaway and would give us some much-needed time to reconnect.
I hunted along the wall for a light switch, and the brightness hindered my eyesight for a moment.
“Oh my God!” I shouted when I could finally see. “Mom!”
“What happened?” Danny asked in my ear. I had forgotten I was on the phone with him. All I could focus on was my mother collapsed on the kitchen floor.
“Mom! Mom!” I screamed, bending over her. She wasn’t moving. I touched her lightly and was relieved to find she still had some warmth. “Danny, something happened to my mom!”
“Call nine one one. I’m on my way,” he said into the speaker.
I was hyperventilating a little, not really listening to a word he was saying. I held the phone out, but my fingers didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t dial, couldn’t move… couldn’t think.
“Rox, you there?”
I heard him, but I had no response.
“Rox, I don’t know if you can hear me, but just stay put, I’ll call nine one one for you, okay?”
“Okay.” My voice was small, barely a squeak. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I sat against the wall and tried to breathe. I was afraid—afraid to look at my mother’s body, scared of what I’d find… or not find.
It felt like ages before Daniel called me back to let me know he was close. The sound of sirens wailed in the background, getting louder. After forcing myself to get up and regulate my breathing, I met the EMTs at the door when they arrived.
They hurried in and got to work, throwing questions at me in the process. How old is the patient? How long has she been out? Did I move her? My mind was a tabula rasa; none of the answers were coming to me. A screech of tires sounded behind me, and Danny jumped out of the car a second later.
“Miss, we’re taking her to Spruce General. Are you riding with us?” one of the EMTs asked.
I went to nod, my voice still inoperable, when Daniel spoke.
“I’ll drive us.”
I wanted to ask them how she was before they drove away, but the words were lodged in my throat. As soon as the ambulance took off, Daniel’s hand was on my back, guiding me to the car.
The drive seemed to take hours, when in reality, Spruce General was only a few miles away.
I didn’t remember any of it. All I could think about was my mom.
A deep-rooted feeling of dread had taken hold.
I blamed myself. I shouldn’t have stayed at the studio so late.
I should have taken a few days off, like she’d asked.
The request had surprised me. My mother never asked about my work, never pried into my life.
We were more like roommates rather than mother and daughter.
Thinking about it now brought a heaviness I could not explain.
Spots dotted my vision where the road in front of me should have been. I momentarily blacked out, then came to with a start. What had possessed her to ask me to take time off? Was it at all possible that she had seen this coming? Had she known she was unwell, while I’d stayed blissfully ignorant?
My vision went blurry once more, and I fought hard not to black out again.
Instead, I kept my mind occupied, replaying my questions on a loop.
For the longest time, my mom had shown no interest in celebrating anything.
Special occasions such as birthdays and holidays came and went without so much as a mention, much less a card or presents.
Therefore, her wanting to suddenly acknowledge Christmas had been a pleasant change.
It was the happiest and most talkative I’d seen her in a long time.
She’d also been asking me how I was, and not in that indifferent, expecting-a-generic-answer type of way either.
She wanted specifics. Was I happy with my life?
Was I fulfilled? Did I have a boyfriend?
Was he a good guy? She went as far as shyly inquiring if I’d ever give her grandchildren.
I’d laughed at the last question at the time because the truth was I was just happy we were talking.
“We’re here.” Daniel’s announcement halted my brain. It took me a second to realize what he’d said, and when I was fully present, I noticed I’d been holding the door grip so tightly, my muscles had stiffened.
“Take your time, Rox,” he said patiently and came around to help me out of the car. It was a good thing he did because as I went to step out, I blacked out again, and I would have face-planted if it hadn’t been for his hand on my arm.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Danny,” I said anxiously.
I was losing my mind, barely able to hold it together.
“Just breathe,” he said soothingly.
We got checked in and sat to wait. They had wheeled my mother directly into the ER to get evaluated. The nurses assured me their medical team was doing everything they could but that it would possibly be hours before they would be able to inform me of anything definitive.
I repeatedly tried to get Danny to go home. I knew the snowstorm could begin any minute, and the last thing I wanted was for him to get stranded. He adamantly refused.
To pass the time, I got up and called my on-again, currently-off-again boyfriend, Spencer. Six attempts later and all my calls had gone to voicemail. When I came back into the waiting room, a doctor was standing with Daniel.
“Hello, Miss Arevin, I’m—”
“How is she?” I blurted, rudely cutting her off. I quickly collected myself. “I’m sorry.”
“Quite all right,” the doctor replied kindly.
“Please, you were saying?”
“I’m Dr. Alva. We have stabilized your mother for the time being. She had what we believe to be a massive stroke. She’s very weak. We had to intubate to help her breathe, and her brain activity is quite minimal, which is concerning…”
My throat dried as she spoke, and I was pretty sure my blood pressure had dropped several points. I went cold, not able to comprehend how any of this could be happening.
“So we are transferring her to Spruce Grove Springs Memorial.”
I must have tuned the doctor out.
“Where they have a state-of-art stroke unit and will be able to confirm what happened and what steps to take next.”
“You’re transferring her tonight?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, she’ll be prepped as soon as we receive your consent.”
“Yes, please,” I said a little too frantically. I didn’t care how I sounded any more. “Just please, please save my mom.” I pleaded, desperate not to cry. I didn’t want to do this again. It was too soon.
“She’ll be in great hands there.” Dr. Alva smiled tightly at me, looking like she had something more to say.
“A stroke of this magnitude, Miss Arevin, will have a tough recovery. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I’m a firm believer in honesty.
I have rarely seen a stroke victim as young as your mother in my many years as a doctor, but it’s imperative to know you will likely have a hard few years ahead of you. ”
Hearing this should have devastated me, but it didn’t.
What I had seen in the last few weeks was a woman coming out of years of hibernation.
I wanted my mom to live, in any state if it meant that someday we’d have the chance to pick up where we’d left off.
I had never wanted anything more in my life.
“I understand,” I replied quietly.
Dr. Alva nodded at me and told me a hospital staff member would bring the necessary paperwork. Then we’d be on our way to Spruce Grove Springs.
I made another effort to send Danny on his way, telling him I could take a cab or a rideshare, but he wouldn’t listen. Pushing me toward the car, he reminded me rather tersely that the more I argued, the more the likelihood of us getting stuck in the impending storm.
The second hospital drive was just as silent and depressing as the first. While I tried my hardest to remain hopeful for the outcome, it was almost impossible, given what I’d been told.
Dr. Alva had unknowingly mentioned something that gave me a horrible sense of foreboding.
Her comment about how young my mother was to have suffered such a severe stoke was unforgettably familiar; the doctors had said the same thing when my dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
It was rare enough on its own, but in someone as healthy and active as my dad had been, only thirty-eight at the time, it was almost unheard of.
The snow was falling by the time we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Against the darkened sky, the building looked ominous, a monument of white-washed walls, indifferent and unfeeling toward the grief it often housed inside. I sighed deeply, which caused Danny to turn sharply toward me.
“Rox, chin up. It’s going to be okay,” he said softly. I heard the waver in his voice and let myself be overtaken by my fear.
“Danny,” I whispered back. “I don’t think it will.”
We walked up silently and signed in, repeating the process for the second time that night.
My brain fog intensified while we waited.
I couldn’t settle on one lone thought, so I let them all in, spacing out here and there as the minutes passed.
At times, I didn’t feel like I was occupying my own body.
I didn’t know how much more sitting around I could take, but when the doors opened and a doctor strode toward us, I would have given anything to delay what I thought I was about to hear.