9. Sophia
9
Sophia
I have no idea how I got here safely. Three hours to get from the track to the hospital near Mum’s. I drove to the hospital in a trance, dodging people on the highway. Everyone was going so slow.
I go over the phone call in my head over and over again.
“Sophia Everett?” a voice asks.
“Your mother has been brought into the hospital.”
“She called an ambulance as she was having chest pains.”
Walking as fast as I can down the hallway to emergency, the staff at the reception desk asks me to take a seat and wait while she calls a doctor to see me. The wait is agonisingly slow. These waiting room chairs are hard plastic and dig into my lower back. The hum of the vending machine is loud and obnoxious in the far corner. People come and go in blurs. Meaningless shapes with no hard edges. I keep looking up when ever the side door to the reception area opens, but doesn’t call my name. The waiting room is hot and I’m sweating. Shouldn’t hospitals be colder?
A door to the side opens and a doctor finally calls my name after forty minutes, waving me to come into a small room.
“How is my mother?” I ask, not bothering saying hello. I need an update.
“…we tried all we could…”
Fuck.
“…she experienced a heart attack…”
No.
“…there was nothing we could do …”
It’s deafeningly quiet. I’m disconnect. Disengaging.
The doctor’s mouth continues to move, but I can’t hear anything coming out of it.
He puts a hand on my shoulder and has a detached look on his face.
A nurse comes into my view with some papers while the doctor nods and leaves. She sits with me, a hand on my back. When did I sit down? I am uneasy in the silence. I feel like I haven’t moved in forever. The nurse has gone and come back a few times, a blur of teal scrubs and black hair. She’s brought me a glass of water, tissues, a cookie packet.
She leans in front of me and pushes some flyers in front of me. Grieving is the only word that stands out amongst it all. How can this be happening?
I drive to Mum’s in a daze. I am glad it is late and hardly any cars are on the road.
Standing in the middle of her kitchen, I can see the cup of tea she was halfway through making and the phone sitting next to it. I touch them both. The last things she touched. The rug between the kitchen and living area is slightly lifted and askew. Maybe from the paramedics. Maybe from Mum falling. I tip the half-made tea in the sink and clean the cup. There are a few more items in the sink, so I continue to clean those. I go to her laundry and can see clothes still in the dryer. I take them out, fold them, and take them to her room. I put them away and take in her room before me. Her bed was always made as soon as she got up. Her morning habit, even when she was sick. I take my shoes off and climb into it. Her scent engulfs me. Citrus and berries float around me. I close my eyes, rolling to my side, and all I can see is her face lying next to me.
My phone buzzes and forces me to open my eyes.
One text from Dave and one from Rayna. I was at the last day of testing when I got the call. They both ask if I need anything in their own ways.
My mum back?
A chance to see her one more time before she died?
Is that too much to ask?
I think I message them that she is gone, and they reply to focus on myself and what I need to do, to take the time I need.
What do I have to do? Bury my mother. I knew I would be the one to do it as we don’t have any family left. Aunt Hazel passed away a few years ago, and any family we might have moved away before I was born. But I am not ready for how soon the task is now approaching.
I close my eyes again, succumbing to the smell of citrus and berries around me.
When I wake up to the early morning sun streaming into the room, I realise I didn’t close the blinds. I wasn’t planning on shutting down and sleeping. Making Mum’s bed, I try and collect my thoughts. The hospital provided me with paperwork I hadn’t gone through. I will have to arrange to bury her.
A soft knock at the door breaks my trance. I open it to find Mum’s neighbour, Harriet, who goes by Hattie, in her matching, hot pink activewear, swinging by Mum’s for their morning walk.
“Morning, Sophia! I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were here so early. I thought you were coming home tomorrow?” Hattie asks, visibly confused and questioning her menopausal memory.
“Hey, Hattie. Umm, yeah, I was meant to be here tomorrow, but…” I can’t get through the sentence. Tears spill again. “Mum had a heart attack. She’s…gone,” I choke out the last word. How is this my reality now?
Her eyes tear up and she pulls me into a hug. We don’t let go for ages, finding some comfort in our shared loss. Hattie has been our neighbour since Mum and Dad bought the house forty years ago. She was a little older than Mum, but they got along as soon as we moved in.
We break away, still holding hands. “Would you like to come in for a tea?” I ask.
“Of course,” she replies, walking into the house, still clinging to my side.
We settle at the dining table in the kitchen in a sombre silence.
“I don’t understand. She isn’t unhealthy. She’s only fifty-nine,” Hattie says, trying to make sense of it as well. Still referring to Mum in the present tense.
“You’re as clued in as me. I can’t make sense of it.” I shake my head.
We sit in a brief silence, processing. The hospital paperwork sits on the dining table. I pick it up and flip through it. Some handouts on handling grief, funeral homes in the area, things I don’t want to look through. I throw it all down on the table and watch them spill a little out of order.
“At least she was prepared. I remember she revised all her funeral arrangements a few years ago,” Hattie says.
I’m surprised; she never told me that. But I know why. I would have been superstitious if I knew. “I didn’t realise she did.”
“Oh yes. She did it after your dad passed away and would update it here and there. She knew I hated talking about that stuff, so it gave her a giggle every time she would tell me she updated it over the years.”
That’s Mum. Thinking about what other people would be going through if she died. When she died. Fuck . That was Mum. How will I ever get used to that?
“Of course she did. But where did she put it?” I glance around the room, lost as to where to start to look.
“That, she did not tell me.” Hattie joins in on my glances around the kitchen.
I sigh. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll find it. It’s probably in her room.”
Hattie sat with me with her tea, telling me she would be back at lunchtime with something to eat. I could see the sadness on her face as she glanced around the room before she left. Our best friend is gone.
Once she left, I went to look for the funeral paperwork. Mum was neat, but she had her own sorting and filing system that I was never able to crack. But surely something she knew I would have to look for would be in an obvious place. I knew it wasn’t in my childhood room, as I would have discovered it on the multiple times I slept here. Her bedroom was very neat. I checked her bedside, and bingo . In the top drawer. Thank goodness, Mum! I’m so grateful I didn’t have to look in the third room. Again, she was organised, but had her own sorting system. It appears she had all her things in there. Going through the storage boxes alone would have taken half a day. And there is the risk she would have put it into something random, like the Christmas decoration boxes.
I open the envelope that says, Everything you need in the event of my death. Funeral arrangements are outlined and paid for. Her banking and any important account information are detailed with a copy of her will. There is a Post-it note that I can’t help but laugh at when I read it. Don’t let the bitch from house #77 come to my funeral, Sophia! She’ll only come for the free food then complain. Either Mum thought it would be funny to leave this note, or she hadn’t updated anything in three years, since the grumpy ninety-two-year-old, Mrs. Finkler, passed away. No need to worry about that, Mum.