Chapter 46 Miguel #3
“Rude,” I say. “Accurate, but rude.”
We eat in silence for a minute. The food tastes like something other than cardboard, which feels like a miracle.
“I’m thinking about taking some time off,” I say finally, staring at a smear of salsa on my plate.
“Or at least cutting hours. Being more available while he’s…
doing all this. Inpatient. Then IOP. I don’t know how much time he’s going to be at the hospital versus home, but I…
I want to be there. Without face-planting off a ladder because I haven’t slept. ”
Mom hums, the sound low and considering. “What were you thinking?” she asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “Drop to four days instead of five. Or ask to be kept off the high-voltage, high-risk jobs for a while. My head’s not… fully in it right now. Not the way it should be. That’s not safe.”
“That’s wise,” she says. “And?”
“And…” I roll my shoulders, the words feeling too big. “Ask you if you can be backup. For him. For me. On days I can’t be at the hospital, or when I need to go home and sleep but don’t want him alone.”
Her eyes flash. “Of course,” she says immediately. “You don’t even have to ask. I already told him—anytime, mijo. I’ll sit there and pray and boss the nurses around if I have to.”
Relief washes through me so fast I sag forward a little. “Gracias,” I say. “I just… I don’t want to assume. You have your own life. Work. Church. Dad—”
She snorts. “Ashton can feed himself for a few days,” she says. “He will survive with takeout or, God forbid, frozen meals. He is a grown man. You boys”—she gives me a look—“are where we put the priority right now.”
The lump in my throat comes back. I push rice around with my fork.
“Luis said something,” I say. “About… not martyring myself.”
“Smart man,” she says.
“I want to be there for Caleb,” I say. “I actually want that, not just ‘feel obligated.’ But I also…” I shake my head, searching for the right words. “I can feel my edges. If I pretend they’re not there, I’m going to crack. And then I’ll be no good to him. Or you. Or anyone.”
Nodding in slow approval. “And here I was thinking therapy was just fancy, expensive chisme,” she murmurs.
I laugh, weak but real.
She comes around the counter and sits next to me, hip bumping mine.
“Te voy a decir algo,” she says. “Your job is not to save him. Your job is to love him and to do the next right thing. Sometimes that’s staying.
Sometimes that’s calling nine-one-one. Sometimes”—she taps my plate with her finger—“it’s eating your dinner and going to sleep so you can show up again tomorrow. ”
“I know,” I say, staring at the beans. “Luis said the same. So did Dr. K. I still feel like if I’m not… on him 24/7, I’m failing.”
“That feeling?” she says. “Is lying to you. I know that voice. It’s the same one that told me if I wasn’t working and cooking and cleaning and praying and volunteering and smiling, I was a bad wife, a bad mamá, and bad everything.”
“What’d you do with it?” I ask.
She smiles, small and fierce. “I told it to shut up and helped myself to a nap,” she says. “Later, I told it to shut up and left your father. You remember how that turned out.”
“Glow-up,” I say. “For all of us.”
Smirking, she nudges my shoulder. “Exactly. Listen.” Her voice softens.
“You are no good to him if you die by inches quietly. ?Entiendes? If you burn yourself out, working too much, not sleeping, carrying all this guilt, you will get sick. In your body, in your mind. Then I will have two boys in the hospital. I do not want that.”
The image makes my stomach flip.
“I’m not trying to be dramatic,” she says, “but I want you to hear me. I love that you love him like this. I am proud of you for choosing to stay when it is hard. But you are my son, too. I will protect you from him if I have to.”
My head snaps up. “Mamá—”
“Not from his love,” she says quickly. “From his illness. From his shadows. If I see you drowning, I am going to throw you a floatie even if he is mad we are not both jumping in the water with him. You got me?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I got you.”
She squeezes the back of my neck, thumb warm against my skin. “Good,” she says. “Now eat. Then shower. Then sleep here tonight. I’ll wake you up early so you can go see him before work and talk to your boss. One thing at a time.”
One thing at a time.
It echoes what I told Caleb in the dark. What Luis said in his clinic voice. What Dr. K told him at his bedside.
I take another bite. It’s easier this time.
Later, when I’m in my old room, the one with the faded Sharks poster and the glow-in-the-dark stars we never took down, I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
My phone is on my chest. The text thread with Caleb is open. I know he doesn’t have his phone, but I can’t help but text him anyways.
Miguel
You still awake?
I love you, pretty boy.
Just breathe.
I imagine the psych nurses, the checks every fifteen minutes, the shitty food my mom is about to fix, and the group rooms he’s going to hate at first. I also imagine him sitting in one of those chairs, rolling his eyes, making some inappropriate joke about mindfulness, and then—eventually—letting something land.
Then I picture the legal pad in Luis’s office. Two columns. Lines between them.
We’re not doing this alone.
“Okay,” I murmur to the dark. “Partner route. Not the martyr route.”
It feels weird on my tongue.
It also feels right.
If loving him means watching him fight his own brain for the rest of our lives, then I’m going to need more than stubbornness and guilt.
I’m going to need the net.