Dancing around my head on the worst day of my life.
Silence.
Those butterflies.
August 2nd, 2011: 9:30 a.m.
“She only has a couple minutes left, dear,” the nurse says, and she walks out of the room.
“What?” I shout. I dart from my slight slumber on the pull-out plastic hospital chair. I have been sleeping on that fucking chair every night since Mom came to the palliative care unit.
“Mom!” I shout as I stand over her unconscious body, and I watch her take a slow deep breath.
Mom was diagnosed with acute lymphocyte leukemia on June 6th and refused chemo. She had a 73% chance of beating this disease, but due to her other health problems, she didn’t want to follow through with treatment. I was furious when she told me, but I respected her decision since my opinion, tears, and rages didn’t change her mind.
Ring. Ring.
Beep. Beep.
Ring. Ring.
I rip the phone from the receiver that sits on the bed. “Hello? Any minute now. Any minute now. I have to go!” I shout. The faded sounds of the voice on the other line slow down, “What, Beth? What?” I drill the phone back down into the cradle.
I lay over Mom’s body and stare at her face and hold her hand tight in my grip.
She hasn’t spoke for about a day and a half. Her eyes have been closed and she has been sleeping, moaning, and groaning. I have been undergoing the worst denial that I don’t even know what is going on. I can barely fathom what the nurse just told me.
The short, pudgy nurse pops back into the room, leans over Mom with stethoscope in hand, and feels her pulse.
“I will let you spend some time with her, but it is very close. Her heart rate is slowing.”
I watch Mom’s upper lip. Her beauty mark stands strong. I watch the mark that I have always looked at. Through the trials and tribulations, through the laughs, through the smirks and through the rain, sunshine, and all the days of my life up to this point.
I never wanted to lose my mom. I never wanted this to happen. I only wanted her to get better and for it to be easier for us.
I watch Mom breathe slower, slower, and stop. The clock hits 9:35 a.m. A tingle overcomes my blood and the air grows still. An image of Mom in her blue muumuu dress, in the arms of my father, dancing in circles, stamps through my mind.
“Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM!” I shout. Mom stops breathing. The sun beams on my back. I look up at the shitty ceiling and that stupid chair and this fucking hospital room and shout, “What the fuck?!”
I look down at Mom’s still hand in my grip and slowly slide Grandma’s wedding ring off of her ring finger. I place the skinny silver band onto my index finger. I lie over Mom’s body and cry, and cry, and cry.
The next hour is full of phone calls. My two aunts come into the room, crying. A pastor comes in and discusses bereavement classes. My mom’s body lies in the hospital bed. I just want to leave. I feel like Mom left too.
11:45 a.m.
Paige and I walk across the Beer Store parking lot. My eyes swell from crying. I hold on to my sixty-ounce of vodka and Paige carries a twenty-four of Canadian.
The sun toasts my face as we shuffle to the car.
The drive home feels like five hours. My house is about half a kilometre from the Beer Store. Paige has been my best friend since I was fourteen and I usually never shut up, but today my heart weighs one million tonnes and my body cannot handle the weight. Each step feels like a crack in my spine and a kick in my lungs. I just want to go home. I want to wait for Mom to come home.
I arrive at my back door, it opens, and my aunt pulls me into a tight, sobbing hug. I stand motionless, hug back, move away from the door, and finally squeeze in through the doorway. I drag my feet to the kitchen, grab a glass, fill it with half vodka, half water, and walk back down the hall to the backyard.
I sit on a lawn chair, put a smoke to my lips, and light it.
Paige follows with the same actions.
“I just feel like she should be coming home,” I say to Paige.
“I know, Bethie. I feel like she should be here with us having a drink. You know, she is here now with us,” Paige replies as she has a drag of her cigarette.
“She will come home, Paigey. She will show me. I told her to give me a sign a couple of days ago. I told her always to be near me.”
Paige puts her hand over mine and grins. “She will always be with you, babe.”
I look over at the brick wall and take a big gulp of my strong drink. I take a deep, long pull of my smoke. I feel something tap my head.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say under my breath as six tiny pale yellow butterflies each tap against my forehead. They fly above my head, swoop back down, and fly into the distance.
I smile.
“There she is,” I say.
Acknowledgements
Somehow, I managed to scream at enough people, and that ended up producing a wonderful little ebook. I think those people deserve to be thanked.
A book is only as good as its editors. Jodelle DeJesus, Katherine Lucynski, and Luke Sawczak each contributed their editing expertise to this collection. Since they’re all various types of professional editor, the book ended up a lot more polished than if I’d have gone over it with a red pen and a shaky idea of how to use a semicolon. Ultimately, they did work so I didn’t have to, and that’s my version of heaven.
Our writers wrote well, wrote fast, and wrote for free. Because of that last bit, we were able to make this ebook free as well. I think they’re all fabulous people, and I look forward to exploiting them in the future.
Our readers—I can only assume—are astute, well-read individuals with a thing for stories and tasteful cover designs. I’d like to thank them for their attention, and for being amazing.
Finally, I’d like to thank our future contributors. Record Two: Night and Day will be coming out some time around the end of May, and I can’t express how exciting that is.
Record One: Peep Show Page 8
