Prologue
FIVE YEARS AGO
Ihate this place. The smell of it. The sounds. The pit I get in my stomach every time I walk through the doors.
It’s awful. Almost as awful as the reason I come here every day.
The only bright spot in any of this is the kindness of the people who work here. The empathy. The understanding. The patience.
But even they don’t make me dread coming here any less.
The woman at the front desk—Marcy—greets me with a soft smile. The kind you give someone when you’re happy to see them, but sad over the circumstances.
It’s an expression that’s become very familiar over the past month. I’ve received enough of those kinds of smiles to last me a lifetime.
I’ve even dished out a few of my own.
But as much as I hate coming here, I'm going to hate not coming here even more. And I’m afraid that time is closing in. The point where everything will become before and after. That tomorrow I will wake up with no reason to visit this awful building.
I follow the path I’ve taken every morning for the past twenty-eight days, clutching my bag tight to my chest, like it can help hold me together while everything is falling apart.
While the person who’s always lifted me up is slowly leaving me alone.
When I reach the door to my mother’s room at Stillwater Hospice, her morning nurse is just coming out. She stops short when she sees me. Instead of giving me the same sort of smile Marcy did, her expression is pinched. Strained.
Confirming my fears.
I quickly step past her, entering the space where I’ve spent the majority of my time this past month, worried I wasn’t there for my mom when she needed me most.
My breath catches at the sight of my frail, but still radiantly beautiful mother, sitting upright in bed, a wide smile on her gaunt face. “There’s my darling girl.”
I haven’t heard her voice in nearly a week, and the sound of it takes my breath away.
She waves me forward, her bony hand gesturing over the tray of breakfast placed in front of her. “Come tell me how school’s going.”
I struggle to breathe as I move toward the woman I thought I’d already lost in spite of her heart’s continued beating. I’ve watched her deteriorate more and more each day, the moments of lucidity becoming fewer and farther between.
Until one day they stopped completely.
But now she’s here. Really here. There’s clarity in her bright eyes as she reaches for me. The haze of pain and pills is gone.
A tiny bit of hope blooms inside of me. I know it shouldn’t—there’s no way she will ever get better—but it still plants itself beneath my skin.
Slowly, I lower into the same chair I’ve occupied every day, setting the bag with my laptop and notes onto the floor at my feet before taking her hand. Her grip is so strong. So steady as she gives my fingers a squeeze, her browless forehead lifting.
“Well? How are classes?”
“Classes are good.” I swallow thickly before managing to continue. “My professors have been really great about being flexible.”
When I approached them about possibly needing to drop all my classes this semester, nearly all of them made it clear they were willing to work with me so I didn’t have to lose all the work I’d put in so far. I’ve been able to attend virtually and submit papers on an adjusted schedule.
It’s actually been kind of a lifesaver to have something to do. Something to focus on besides watching the best mother anyone has ever had wither away in front of me.
“That is wonderful to hear.” My mother drops my hand, picking up her fork and taking a bite of French toast. “Wonderful, but not surprising. You have always been so good at making things work.”
I watch her continue eating, that tiny bit of hope growing in spite of what I know is true. “That’s because of you. No matter what happened, you always said we would figure it out.” I manage a genuine smile for the first time in weeks. “And we always have.”
Well. Almost always. Some things can’t be figured out, no matter how hard you’re willing to work. How daring you’re willing to be. How determined you are to take action.
Like the thing that’s been slowly stealing my mother from me despite our best efforts to beat it.
“And you always will.” My mother sets down her fork, reaching to push the hair back from my face. “I know that no matter what, you’ll always figure it out, Ruthie.”
I wish I had as much faith in me as she does. Because I don’t know how I’ll be able to figure out how to live without her. It’s always been just me and her. Once she leaves, it will be just me.
On my own.
She gives me a sad smile. “I wish I was going to be around to see what a wonderful mother you’re going to be.”
I’ve cried so much since finding out my mom was sick, I thought maybe I’d run out of tears. There haven’t been many these past few weeks, and I assumed it was because I was all dried up.
I thought wrong, because my throat goes tight and my eyes start to burn. But there’s no way I’m going to ruin this moment by breaking down and forcing her to comfort me yet again. Not when I’m the one who should be comforting her.
I stand, carefully scooting onto the bed next to her so I can wrap an arm around her shoulders. It’s hard not to react to feeling nothing but skin and bone as I carefully give her a squeeze. “If I am a wonderful mother, it’s only because I learned from the best.”
I won’t pretend she’s going to be around. Any delusions I tried to have about her diagnosis crumbled months ago. Denying our reality only hurts us both.
“I wouldn’t say the best.” My mom rests her head on my shoulder. “But I won’t stop you from saying it.”
I start to laugh, the feel of it strange on my face and in my chest because it’s been so long. My mom laughs with me, her voice getting a little hoarse as she does.
Wiping the corner of one eye, she lets out a long sigh. “On that note, I think I’ll take an after breakfast nap.”
I help collect her breakfast dishes, stacking them on the table and sliding it away before lowering the incline of her bed. She pats the spot next to her once everything is situated. “Come lie with me.”
I do as she asks, savoring every second of her smile and her voice as I carefully position myself at her side, making sure I don’t jostle her failing body any more than absolutely necessary. As I curl up next to her, she plays with the strands of my hair while her blinks become slower and slower.
“I love you, Ruthie girl.”
It takes me a few seconds to find my voice, because I know what this is. I know what’s happening and where it leads. After a few hard swallows, I finally manage to rasp out, “I love you too.”
I lay there long after her hand stops smoothing over my hair. Long after she falls asleep. Long after she takes her final breath.
Because these are the last moments I’ll ever have with her. The last time I’ll see her face or smell her skin. The last time it will be just the two of us.
Leaving her behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The only way I manage to get through it is to think about the day I’ll have some semblance of a love like this again.
When it happens, I hope I can be half the mother mine was.