26. Rory
Rory
Ipush open the door, not even caring that it bangs into the wall behind it with a resounding thud.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking around. “Is Mom— Is?—“
I can’t bring myself to say it.
“We’re in here.” Dad’s voice carries from the first-floor bedroom.
I practically run across the house, almost tripping on the carpet.
Mom is in bed. She’s breathing, and her eyes are open, but she’s pale, even more than she was when I left just a few hours ago.
“Rory,” she says, her chest heaving with the effort of speaking.
“I’m here, Mom.” I go to her side and hold her hand as tightly as I can without worrying that I’m going to hurt her.
Like everything else, her hand is skin and bones now.
Dylan sits on the other side of the bed, holding Mom’s other hand, and Dad is at the end of the bed.
“What happened?” I look between the two of them for some explanation.
Dad clears his throat. “She had a fall.”
“I’m fine,” Mom says.
Her voice is thin, reedy, and doesn’t sound at all like she’s fine.
Mentally, I kick myself. How could I have let myself get wrapped up in my date with Nate? How could I have slept with him while Mom needed me?
“How was…” Mom takes a deep breath and starts again. “How was your date?”
“Don’t worry about that, Mom.” I pat her hand. “We’re here for you.”
“She was getting up to get something and tripped. She just has a big bruise on her hip, but we’re pretty sure she didn’t break anything.” Dad flattens his lips into a line. “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital, though.”
“What?” I look at Mom in shock. “We should go get it checked out. At least make sure.”
She shakes her head. “No more hospitals.”
I have to lean close to hear the words, to make sure I understand her, but when I see the tears rising in Dylan’s eyes—Dylan, who’s never cried in front of me, even when he broke his arm in two places while we were skiing—I know I heard her correctly.
Mom is done fighting.
And I don’t get a say in this.
“I just want to be here, with you,” she says. “I want to know about you and Nate. I want to hear all the stories from school that Dylan has to tell. Please.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it for what feels like the millionth time today. If it’s one of my friends asking about my date, it can wait. And if it’s Nate, he has to wait, too.
He asked to come in with me when he dropped me off, but I told him that I needed this time.
Since I got the phone call from Dad, Nate’s reminded me over and over that he’s here for me. That he’ll do whatever I need. And he’s been true to his word.
When I told him I needed to be alone with my family, he left, but he promised to check in on me.
He even kept Spam with him so I don’t have to worry about feeding or walks or bathroom breaks for now. So all my focus can be on Mom.
“Tell me about what you did today,” Mom says.
She focuses her attention squarely on me.
I smile for the first time since Dad called me. “We took Spam to an obedience class.”
Mom falls asleep, smiling, after hearing me recount my afternoon with Nate. Most of it, that is.
I left out everything after we kissed and jumped to us talking about getting back together. I also didn’t tell her about Nate’s revelation. That’s his to tell.
I also left out the sex, for obvious reasons. I don’t want to give her a heart attack from hearing all of the salacious details of my sexual escapades, after all.
Dad and Dylan excused themselves from the room midway through the story, probably anticipating scandalous details.
I check again to make sure Mom’s breathing is smooth, that her eyelids are closed, before I tiptoe across the room and sneak out, hoping I don’t wake her.
I close the door softly behind me.
When I turn, I find Dad and Dylan sitting together in the living room.
I’d figured they were out here, but their presence still makes me jump.
“How’s she doing?” Dylan asks.
“She’s sleeping.” I join him on the worn couch, taking my usual space.
I snuggle into the corner and tuck the pillow into my chest before I look over at Dad, who’s settled into his recliner as usual. “How…how long do you think?”
He shrugs, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It seems like she’s getting close, but I don’t have any way to tell if she has hours or days or…”
I chew on my lower lip, thinking. Even without Dad saying the words, I know what he’s getting at.
Nate offered to pay for a nurse or hospice care. Maybe if Mom won’t go to the hospital anymore, having someone here would be a good idea.
Mandy has offered me as much time off as I need, and the school has been super generous with Dylan taking time off, too. And with Dad on a hiatus from his consulting job, any of us could be at her side all day, every day.
But it’s hard to be there nonstop—Allie said something about it being emotionally draining—and besides, we don’t exactly have much experience in this.
How would any of us know if she’s in pain or needs meds? How do we know if we should push to get her out of bed, or just let her sleep? Encourage her to eat or drink, or just let her be?
That’s where someone with more experience, like a nurse, would come in handy.
I read about something called a death doula once, too.
At the time, it seemed like a silly luxury: someone who’s comfortable sitting with the person facing death, who helps them organize the things that will need to be taken care of after they pass, like subscriptions and payments and bank accounts, but also listens, without the emotional investment of their own that close family members have.
Now, it doesn’t seem so silly.
I doubt they have something like that in High Lonesome, but I can’t help thinking that about how helpful that could be. It’s not a silly luxury at all.
“Do you…” My voice cracks, and I try again. “Do you think we should get someone to come here to help us? Like a nurse or something?”
Dad rubs his chin. “It would be helpful for sure. God knows I can barely handle giving Cathy her medicines when she swallows them. I don’t know how I’d handle ones that need a needle, like the doctor talked about offering when she’s closer to the end.
I’m not even sure I’d know when to switch to using those ones.
I don’t think our insurance will cover it, though, so I guess I’ll make do. ”
My heart clenches at the idea of Dad pushing his own comfort zone to be there for the woman he loves.
It’s not such a novel concept, really. Love means caring about someone more than you care about yourself. Letting yourself be uncomfortable, if it means they’ll be happy, because you’d rather take on the pain than let them experience even a tiny bit of it.
That’s the part no one tells you about love, I guess. The part they leave out of the Disney movies: every great love only has a happily-ever-after for a while.
Eventually, it hurts.
Dylan shakes his head slowly as he considers hiring a home nurse.
“It would be great to have someone. I agree. But I’m not sure any of us is in a position to pay someone out of pocket.
I know my insurance has coverage for some things for parents, but it’s more like nursing home care. Not really for home care.”
I bite my lip. It’s not telling Nate’s secrets to let them know about his offer, right?
Maybe I should ask him first.
Once I have a chance to process.
The days go by in a blur. Some are better than others, when Mom is awake and able to walk with help into the living room to sit, and even once, to sit on the back porch and look out at the mountains for a few minutes, even though it’s January and the temperature rarely gets above ten degrees.
Christmas didn’t even feel like Christmas. We realized on December twenty-third that the holiday season had crept up on us.
Dylan got one of the last trees available, a sad four-foot-tall pine that looks even smaller in our living room than it did on the tree lot. We decorated it with a few ornaments and a strand of lights. It was one of the strangest feelings to look at it all lit up at night.
Normally Christmas evokes a warm feeling, the comfort and coziness of being with family and of joy, but the idea that this was Mom’s last one with us left a bittersweet taste in all our mouths.
How do you pretend to be happy for one day?
I’m not sure what Nate did for Christmas. I haven’t had the strength to do much more than check in periodically with him, along with Allie and Stacey and Mandy. Because what do I say? What can they say?
This has to be hard on all of them, too.
Today has been extra hard. It’s Mom’s birthday.
She’s sixty-two.
Sixty-two.
When I was a teenager, I thought thirty was old, and your sixties were well into middle age. But as I inch closer to thirty myself, I’m realizing how wrong I was.
Thirty isn’t old at all.
And being in your sixties is too young to be thinking about death.
Mom should have so much time left. She should be traveling, gardening, joining book clubs or pickleball clubs. It seems unfair that she doesn’t even get to experience the stereotypical retirement hobbies.
At least she was able to go on that cruise with Dad. It seems like a lifetime ago when I was driving up to HiLo on a whim, my life seeming to go up in flames around me.
Back then, when my thoughts centered firmly on how things affected me, it seemed like the cherry on top of a crap sundae when I found out that they were on a cruise. I’d planned to stay with them, and when I learned they were out of town, I got angry. All I wanted was a chance to stay with them.
Careful what you wish for, I suppose.
“Rory?” Mom’s thin voice calls from the living room.
She’s in Dad’s recliner.
Once we realized that it was the most comfortable place for her to sit, he offered it to her like a throne, yet another testament to how much he loves her. I haven’t seen him sit in it since.
I wonder if he’ll go back to his once-favorite seat. After…
Well. Just after.
“Coming, Mom.” I push back the chair from the kitchen table.
From this spot, I have a perfect view through the window to the backyard and the mountains beyond. It’s been the perfect spot to sit and just think. About life, and the world, and how small we all really are.
How fast life goes, and what’s really important.
In the living room, I swap seats with Dylan, who’s been sitting with Mom for the last hour or so. We have a rotation, with each of us taking turns so she’s not alone.
“How are you doing, Mom?”
She winces, making me more certain about the idea of getting a home nurse.
It’s been weeks since her fall, and while she recovered from that with just a bruise, the cancer is winning.
It always does.
“I’m doing okay. I hate to be a burden on you kids, you know.”
“You’re not a burden,” I say automatically.
It’s not hard helping to take care of her, although I keep wondering if we’re doing everything right. If there’s anything more we could be doing. The hard part is knowing that there’s nothing we can do to stop what’s coming.
We’ve moved the recliner closer to the window so Mom can see out while she sits, and it has the added benefit of being close enough to the couch that I’m about to reach out and hold her hand from where I’m seated.
“Tell me something.” This has become almost a ritual.
I ask her to tell me something, and she’ll tell me a story about her past—about my childhood or hers, things she remembers from her wedding day or honeymoon, or the time they accidentally ended up in the middle of a police chase when they were visiting Denver.
(For the record: the guy had been pulled over for speeding and thought he could outrun the cops by speeding more, for some reason.
Dad pulled onto the freeway and had the misfortune of merging in behind the felon and in front of the police car.
He hyperventilated, thinking the cops were after him, and pulled over, only to watch the lights and sirens go speeding right by.)
Mom and I sit together, holding hands, while she tells me a story about the night Dylan was born, stopping to catch her breath when she gets tired.
Just as she gets to the part where he came quickly, the nurse telling her to “hold him in” and yelling for the doctor, Dylan walks into the living room.
“But babies come when they come, and there was no stopping this guy,” Mom finishes.
“Ah. Birth story?” Dylan asks, a wry smile on his face.
“Yep. Always a classic.”
He nods, probably hoping to discourage further discussion of his exit from our mother’s vagina. “You need a break?”
I don’t, not really, but I’m happy to have Dylan join us, especially if Mom is up for telling more stories.
Mom closes her eyes, dozing for a minute. She needs these short naps for her strength.
I do my best to shift quietly so I don’t wake her, but then Dylan’s ringtone blasts through the air.
He stabs at the buttons to silence it, even though Mom’s eyes open, and peers at the screen before swiping to answer. “Nate? What’s up?”
My stomach flips at the sound of Nate’s name, and something heavy settles in my chest.
I’ve been so consumed with Mom that I haven’t called him back.
But if he’s going straight to Dylan, something must be wrong.