1 Chapter 1: Before It All Went Downhill

Chloe

"I need you to listen to me, Chloe girl, and don’t interrupt."

I fluff my mom’s pillow behind her head. At least the beds at the Hospice house are nicer than they were at the hospital. She’s more comfortable here, despite what the underlying meaning behind it is. "Mom, you need your rest. Whatever you have to say, you can tell me later."

"You and I both know there might not be a later," Mom says, taking a deep breath through the pain. Cancer is a bitch and it’s stealing away the only family I’ve ever known.

I never knew my father, they met while he was in Mexico on spring break, had a brief fling, and went back home to Ireland. She went through a bit of a wild phase and getting pregnant with me was her wake up call. At least, that’s what she’s always told me. My grandparents, though, thought a little differently of her awakening. They all but disowned her after I was born. Apparently, it wasn’t okay for me to have an Irish father.

"Mom," I sniffle, not even trying to hold back the tears. It’s no use. My eyes haven’t stopped leaking for days now. "Don’t say that."

"Honey," she says in her soothing tone that normally makes me feel so much better. "I wish this wasn’t the case. You know how badly I do. Now, there’s something you need to know and it can’t wait any longer."

"You’re scaring me."

"It’s not scary, Chloe girl, but you might be upset with me. I need you to see it as the blessing that it could be, though."

"I’ll try," I assure her.

"You have a brother," she blurts out.

I sit next to her bed, her hand in mine and stare at her face. Her skin is darker than mine but my eyes are hers. Deep brown and thick black lashes. They’re my favorite feature, because when I look in the mirror, I see her. Mom’s hair has always been black, whereas mine was lighter. Right now, though, it’s a beautiful deep auburn. Being a hair dresser, I’m always experimenting with coloring my own hair.

I finally blink, my eyes dry from staring at her, wondering when she’s going to start laughing and let me in on the joke.

"Okay, mom, sure. Whatever. Now that you’ve got my attention, why don’t you tell me what you really needed to."

"I know it’s a surprise, honey. I’ve told you how getting pregnant with you changed my world. Well, it’s the truth. But you aren’t my first and only child. About two years before you were born, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. His dad lived here in the US but we met on Spring Break."

"No, this is my story, Mom." The doctors told us there would come a time where she’d have moments of delusion and we’ve been noticing she’s been mumbling this same thing in her sleep for a few days. But she’s never said it while she was completely lucid and wide awake.

I reach up, touch the back of my hand to her forehead but she twists away from me. She’s shaking her head in frustration and releases my hand, pressing hers into the mattress to help herself sit up. I help her, fluffing the pillow behind her back before she leans back.

"You’re not listening. It is your story. It was also your brother’s. I clearly have a type," she laughs but I don’t.

"I don’t understand."

"When I was a young lady living in Mexico, tourist season was my favorite," she says, a hint of smile on her beautiful face. I do my best not to shudder. "I met a man and we hit it off. A few months later, I realized I was the one who received a souvenir from his spring break vacation. Fortunately, we’d exchanged numbers and a few months before he was due, I moved here to give birth. I was small and was able to hide it with my clothes so my parents never knew. But after he was born, panic set in. I had just turned nineteen, and I was terrified. I grew up in such a strict household and I didn’t know how they would react if I brought a baby home with me. They thought I was WHAT WAS SHE DOING FOR ALMOST THREE MONTHS IN THE STATES?

"Paul, the boy’s father, I just knew he’d be okay without me. He was, well, he was great. I moved back home but my lies didn’t hold up and they kicked me out of the house."

"Wait. I thought that happened when you got pregnant with me?"

"Oh it did. I’d gotten back on their good side, then "didn’t learn my lesson", in their words, obviously, when I got pregnant again. And the fact that it was once again by a "white guy" put them over the edge. They’d forgiven me once, but wouldn’t do it a second time. So I once again came to the states, pregnant but this time completely alone."

She pauses, a coughing fit causing her to need to sit up farther. A nurse comes in, checks her monitors and refills her water.

"Doing okay, Valeria? Can I get you anything?"

"I’m fine," Mom says, waving away the nurse’s concern. She nods and leaves, quietly shutting the door behind her.

"Do you know how many questions I have for you?"

"Yes. And I’ll answer anything you ask me."

"With honesty?" I ask and know it’s a bitchy thing to say considering these are the last moments I’ll have with her.

"Of course. I shouldn’t have waited this long to tell you, Chloe, and I know that. You deserved to know a long time ago. You deserved to have more of a family than just me."

"Mom, you are all I need. Always have been."

"You say that, but you don’t know what I stole from you."

"Explain it to me, then," I beg her. She hasn’t spoken this many words, or been this awake, in weeks and I’m soaking up every syllable that comes from her lips. "Tell me why. When you moved back here to have me, why didn’t you go find your son? Damn, Mom. How could you just abandon him that way?"

"I looked up Paul and your brother when I got back to the U.S., found out they were still living in the same place and I could go to them easily. But, I had nothing to offer them."

I pound on my chest as tears well up in my eyes. "Me. You had me to offer them, Mom!"

She looks down at her lap and nods. "I know that now, Chloe. But at the time, I only saw me as the girl who abandoned my baby with a guy I barely knew. And here I was, in the exact same situation I had been in years before. I was a mess and needed to get my life together."

"But you did get your life together," I argue, because she did. She’s the reason I’m a hair stylist in the first place. She worked her butt off, got her cosmetology license and eventually was able to open her own salon. My love for the business was ingrained in me from a young age.

"And once I did, I realized how good things were with just us. When I moved back to Mexico, I had resolved to knowing that I gave up any rights to that little boy. You were my second chance, Chloe. I’m not strong like you, or brave. I don’t have much to give and I made the choice, right or wrong, to focus all my energy on raising you."

"So why tell me all this now?"

"Because you know how this ends, sweetie. And I can’t leave you without telling you that you have more family than just me."

"How is he my family? I don’t know him."

"But you could," she reminds me, quietly.

"Why would I?"

"I thought?" she stops talking, lays her head back against her pillow and gazes to the ceiling. Swallowing hard, she squeezes her eyes tight, a tear escapes the corner and she doesn’t wipe it away. "I thought if I told you that you have a brother, you’d be able to have a family after I’m gone."

"I don’t want anyone else, Mom. And stop talking about being gone. You don’t know what’s going to happen."

"Chloe," she says on a long exhale. "Yes, we do."

"You don’t," I snap, instantly regretting my tone. "I’m sorry, Mom. But I can’t think that way. I can’t. A world without you doesn’t exist in my world."

I throw myself onto her bed, wrapping my arms around her legs as we both break down weeping. I don’t know how long I lay there, holding onto what I know are the last few moments I’ll share with my mother, but it’s dark outside when I wake up. My eyes burn from crying, my throat is scratchy and I reach for her cup and sip on some water to try to ease the irritation.

She’s gazing at me, holding an envelope with the name Paul on it. There’s a sticky note attached with a phone number.

"Please, sweetie. I need this. Need you to call him."

I grip the envelope tightly with both hands, my body trembling. From fear or sadness, I don’t know. Probably both.

"Okay, Mom." I promise, knowing that’s all I can give her at this time.