Chapter 21 Marnie
MARNIE
It’s been three days since I moved Mom to the hospice facility, and I still can’t walk through the front doors without my stomach dropping.
Not because it’s bad here. It’s actually nice—nicer than I expected. Clean. Quiet. The staff is kind and competent and they don’t make me feel like I’m failing by not being able to care for her anymore.
But it smells wrong.
Not bad, exactly. Just institutional. Like cleaning products and that particular staleness that comes from air conditioning and too many closed doors. Nothing like Mom’s house, which always smelled like her hand cream and whatever she was baking that week.
This place smells like the end.
I sign in at the front desk—the nurse recognizes me now, gives me a sympathetic smile I’m learning to hate—and walk down the hallway to room 104.
Mom’s room. The room where she’ll die because I couldn’t keep her comfortable at home.
I know that’s not fair. I know her doctor was right when he said she needs twenty-four hour medical care, pain management I can’t provide, equipment we don’t have.
I know Teresa was exhausted, that the midnight calls were getting more frequent, that Mom was getting scared when the confusion got bad.
I know all of this logically.
But standing here looking at the door makes me feel like I’ve given up. Like I’ve admitted she’s dying and I’m just letting it happen.
I take a breath and push the door open.
Mom’s propped up in the adjustable bed, oxygen cannula in her nose, looking out the window at the garden. She’s wearing the blue cardigan I brought from home, the one Dad gave her twenty years ago that she refuses to throw out even though it’s got holes in the elbows.
Small victory—she’s still herself enough to care what she’s wearing.
The room is smaller than her bedroom at home.
The bed takes up most of the space, surrounded by equipment—oxygen, monitors, a tray table with medications I can identify by sight now.
There’s a chair by the window where I’ve been sitting for hours at a time.
A shelf with photos I brought from the house.
Her crossword puzzle books stacked neatly on the nightstand.
All the pieces of her life, condensed into one small room with a garden view.
“You’re early,” Mom says without turning from the window. Her voice is clearer today. A good day, then. Those are getting rarer.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I set my bag down on the chair. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m dying in a facility that smells like Lysol.” And for a moment she’s just Mom. Sharp-eyed and opinionated. “But the roses are nice. They need deadheading though. That gardener doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Maybe you should go tell him.”
“Maybe I should.” She adjusts the oxygen line—a gesture I’ve watched her do a thousand times in three days, always with that same irritated expression. “How’s work?”
The question catches me off guard. We’ve been in crisis mode for so long that normal questions feel strange.
“Fine. Just prep for road trips.”
“And Roman?”
Of course.
“He’s fine.”
“He was here yesterday,” she says, watching my face. “Brought me coffee.”
I didn’t know he came by. I’d been at the facility for a staff meeting, checking my phone the whole time, waiting for the call that something had changed.
“What did you talk about?” I ask.
“You, mostly.” She reaches for the water cup and I hand it to her before she has to strain. Even that small movement makes her wince. “About how you work too much. How you forget to eat. How you need someone to make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground.”
My cheeks flush. “Mom—”
“I like him,” she continues like I haven’t spoken. “He’s serious. A little intense. But he actually listens when I talk. Doesn’t just nod and wait for me to finish so he can leave.”
She means the way some of the nurses do. The way some of her friends did toward the end, before the visits stopped entirely because watching someone die is uncomfortable.
“He looks at you different than the others did,” Mom says, taking a small sip of water. Even that seems to tire her. “Like you’re the only person in the room.”
“That’s not—”
“It is. And you look at him the same way, so don’t bother denying it.” She sets the cup down carefully. “I’m glad you have him. When I’m gone, you’ll need someone.”
The words hurt even though we both know they’re true.
“You’re not gone yet.”
“Soon though.” She says, the way she used to tell me it was going to rain or that we were out of milk. Just a fact. Nothing to be done about it. “Don’t be scared, Marnie. Life’s too short for that.”
My throat tightens. “I’m not scared.”
“Liar.” But she’s smiling, that knowing smile that’s haunted me since childhood. The one that says she sees right through me. “You’ve been scared since your father died. Scared of getting close to people because it hurts more when they leave.”
I want to argue. Want to tell her that’s not true, that I’m fine, that I’ve been fine.
But we’re sitting in a hospice room surrounded by equipment meant to make her comfortable while she dies, and lying seems pointless.
“Roman’s not going anywhere,” she says into the silence. “I can tell. That boy’s as stubborn as you are. Probably more stubborn. Which is saying something.”
I manage a laugh that sounds more like a sob. “That’s not a compliment.”
“It is when you need someone who won’t give up on you.
” She shifts in the bed, trying to get comfortable, and I resist the urge to help.
She hates when I hover. “When I’m gone—and I will be gone, Marnie, we both know it—don’t waste time trying to protect yourself from pain.
The pain comes whether you protect yourself or not. Might as well have the good stuff too.”
“The good stuff,” I repeat.
“Love. Happiness. Someone who brings you coffee and knows how you take it.” She looks at me. “Promise me. No waiting. No being scared. Just live.”
“Mom—”
“Promise me.”
The words stick in my throat, but I force them out. “I promise.”
She settles back against the pillows, satisfied. “Good. Now stop hovering and sit down. You’re making me nervous standing there like you’re waiting for me to code.”
I sit in the chair by the window, the same chair I’ve been sitting in for three days, and watch her look out at the roses.
This is what we’ve been reduced to. Sitting in a room that smells like cleaning products, talking about death like it’s a grocery list, making promises about living that feel impossible to keep.
But she’s still here. Still herself underneath the illness. Still my mom, just smaller. Frailer. Running out of time.
I pull out my phone to check the time—barely 9 AM—and see missed texts from Roman.
Roman
How is she this morning? How are you?
Two questions. One about Mom, one about me. Because he’s figured out I won’t answer honestly about myself unless specifically asked.
She’s having a good day. Lucid. Mad about the gardener.
I’m okay.
The second one is a lie and he probably knows it. But I send it anyway.
Roman
Coming by after practice. Need anything?
He’s coming by. Again. Like this is just part of his routine now—practice, then hospice, checking on Mom, checking on me.
When did this become normal?
We’re good. You don’t have to come.
Roman
I want to.
Three words that shouldn’t make my eyes sting but do.
I set the phone down and go back to watching Mom watch the roses.
She’s right about the deadheading. The gardener really doesn’t know what he’s doing.
But at least she’s still here enough to care.
There’s a knock about an hour later.
Roman appears with a coffee carrier and a bakery bag.
“Hey,” he says. “Bad time?”
“No, come in.” Mom gestures at him. “You brought coffee.”
“Yeah.” He sets the carrier on the table, pulls out a cup. “Vanilla latte, extra shot, light foam. Right?”
Mom takes it, sips, nods. “You remembered.”
“You said it yesterday.”
I’m still processing the fact that he came here yesterday without mentioning it to me, despite the uncertain status of whatever we are to each other.
“How was practice?” Mom asks.
Roman sits in the other chair. “Long. Luca’s already acting like it’s playoffs.”
“That boy.” Mom shakes her head. “Someone needs to tell him to relax.”
“Pretty sure that would just make him worse.”
They talk about the team, about the season, about nothing important. Mom asks about his shoulder. He asks about the garden.
Then Mom says, “He would be proud. How you take care of people.”
Roman goes completely still. “Who would be proud?”
“Your brother.” Mom’s voice is gentle. “Marnie told me you lost him young. That’s a special kind of grief.”
My head snaps up. I never told her that. Did I?
Roman nods slowly. “Matthew. Yeah. Five years ago.”
“Too young,” Mom says. “Both of you too young for that kind of loss.”
“He was twenty-one. I was twenty-four.” Roman’s hands grip his coffee cup. “Old enough that I should have—” He stops. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear about that.”
“Oh honey, I’m dying. Listening to your grief is the least I can do.”
She says it so matter-of-factly that Roman actually laughs, surprised.
“Your daughter gets that from you. The brutal honesty.”
“Someone has to keep you hockey boys humble.”
It’s easy. Natural. Like they’ve done this before. Which apparently they have.
I sit there watching them, trying to figure out when this became normal. When Roman started just showing up here. When my mom started expecting him.
“Marnie’s hovering,” Mom says without looking at me.
“I’m not hovering.”
“You’re doing that thing where you watch the monitors instead of participating in the conversation.”
She’s right. I am.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, deflecting.
“Like I’m dying.” She says it casually, then looks at Roman. “She doesn’t like it when I’m honest about it.”
“Would you prefer she lie?” Roman asks.
“I’d prefer she stop acting like I’m going to code if she looks away for five seconds.”
“I don’t—”