Chapter fifty-eight

My mother didn't last long on her feet after they left. I remember rushing over to her, knocking over my half-empty drink in the process, but not caring one bit as I slid an arm under my mum's to lift her to her feet. Seeing her legs shake uncontrollably made my eyes fall out of focus, and I may have called out to my dad, desperate for him to do something.

He did come over, and he helped me bring my mum to the bed to lie down. She had her eyes half-open, but she was clearly unconscious; unresponsive. I asked my dad what was wrong, and he simply said: "Your mum's tired." Laying a cold, damp cloth over her burning forehead. "She's worked hard and she needs a good rest." He turned to me. "And you do too."

"Can I stay up and see what you're working on?" I was always curious as to what my dad did for work, but never really asked to see what he worked on all the time. "Please?"

Firm voice, barely listening to me. "Go to bed."

The next morning I left my bedroom in search of a drink of water for my parched throat, and when I passed the bathroom, my mum was there, brushing her hair as she usually did in the morning. Her expression was confused and tired, her eyes propped up on a pair of dark eyebags, and in one hand she held a comb while the other held a concerning tangle of hair. And when I approached her, my mouth open in alarm, she quickly gathered up all of it and carelessly tossed it into the bin. Then she came to me, placed a hand on my head, and said, "Breakfast, honey?"

"Mum…"

"Don't worry."

Not long after my mum had taken a total of three bites from a slice of toast, she was vomiting it back up and into the toilet bowl, hurling uncontrollably. I hurried in after her, trembling as she gripped tight the toilet seat, hurling. My father finally noticed something was wrong and came in, a stubborn and almost disgusted expression mixed on his face. I wanted to yell at him for being so insensitive, but then he was beside my mum patting her back, dabbing at her chin with a cloth.

When my mum managed a glance at me, her eyes were bloodshot, blank, unrecognisable as my mother's. Her mouth dribbled a yellow liquid that trickled down her chin, staining her shirt and painting the floor. My dad muttered something in frustration.

I could barely breathe in that moment. Because my mother, the strongest person I knew, the one who could deal with my father's absence in our family life, the person who held me up so I wouldn't fall helplessly into the void, was sick. And not just sick. Dying.

My father denied it every single time I blurted out that fact. The first time I said it aloud, I was ashamed, plucking at my own hairs because of my stupidity. But the fact seemed more and more likely as the hours passed.

That night, my mother's temperature soared high, and the cold pieces of cloth that we laid on her forehead were clammy with heat within minutes. She dove in and out of consciousness, and it became the most terrifying thing to peek through the door into my mum's room when all I could see were her eyes, dark, staring blankly at the ceiling.

I didn't sleep at all that night, but I prayed. And when I did sleep, I dreamt of my mum's good times. I saw her laughing, dancing in the kitchen, huddled with me on the couch, attempting yoga barefoot in the living room, embracing my father and I. I prayed for those moments to return, so that I could see my mum healthy and happy. But laying there in the dark, thinking of nothing but my mum, the constant glaring of her blank eyes had engraved themselves into my vision, and that was all I could see.

The next morning, when my dad emerged from his office after pulling an all-nighter, he found my mum sprawled on the freezing kitchen tiles, clutching a small bottle of medicine. And upon closer inspection, they were painkillers.

When I woke, I went straight to my mother's room to find an empty bed and a sprawl of sheets on the floor. I picked them up and laid them on the bed, patting down her pillow so that when my mum would return to rest later she would be comfortable. But she wasn't anywhere in the house, and I could still see her blank eyes, glaring. I might've been losing it, because there was a beeping in my head, constant, counting time.

Hours. Minutes. Seconds.

There was muffled speech from my father's office. The occasional groan of pain. I didn't know until later that we'd be going to the hospital's emergency room, and that my mother wouldn't return to her bed and her fluffed up pillow again.

When the sun set, the blinding glow of the hospital lights became unbearable to the point that I had my head buried tightly in my hands, hoping that perhaps if I squeezed hard enough, my brain would ooze out of my ears, and I wouldn't have to be there anymore.

My mum was deteriorating. But she was the walking stick that steadied me. The mittens that kept my hands warm. The comb that untangled my hair. The person I had been leaning on my whole life was passing, and I could've clawed my eyes out on the spot.

I held her frail hands in mine, I pressed my head to her heart, and when the slowing of her heart became hopelessly unbearable, I ripped myself away from her embrace. But the eyes that pierced into mine weren't blank and unreadable anymore. They were the most beautiful I had seen in two days.

The previous evening we left the house as a family of three, unbeknownst to the fact that we'd be returning home the next day as a family of two.