by G. Benson
Once upon a time, her mother had been funny. And stubborn. Strong. She’d liked old black and white films. She’d cry in romantic movies and used to throw a couch cushion at Sofia and Hayden if they laughed at her. She’d liked cooking even if she wasn’t the best at it. Things were always undercooked. She used to sing, always off-key, when she cleaned.
Some of those habits, those little pieces of her, continued the year Hayden had looked after her. But slowly, one by one, they’d fallen away, peeled back and lost somewhere. And her mother had become someone Hayden didn’t recognize. She’d flash in anger, get confused over small things. Yell. And it was all the disease; Hayden knew that. But watching her mother fade away into someone else had been the most painful thing Hayden had ever experienced.
But her mother was fine.
She’d be fine.
Abuela, Sofia, and Hayden, however, were not.
And that was something they all needed to talk about.
In the cafeteria of the hospital, they sat with coffee that was as thick and stale as the one in the hospital in New York. Abuela put in three sugars and still made a twisted face when she took a sip.
“This tastes like ass,” she stated.
Hayden snorted, thankfully right before she took her own sip, whereas Sofia was not so lucky. She choked and started coughing.
Abuela clicked her tongue at her. “You should be more careful.”
“And you shouldn’t say ‘ass.’” Sofia took the napkin Hayden handed over and swiped at her chin.
“I am seventy-two. I say what I like.”
Who were they to argue with that?
“Say ‘ass’ all you want, Abuela.” Hayden smiled and hoped her exhaustion didn’t reach her eyes. “I for one think it’s hilarious.”
Abuela sniffed and looked from Sofia to Hayden and back with a stern eye. “It is time we talk.”
Hayden was hearing a version of those words a lot today, it would seem.
“Agreed,” Sofia said.
“Me too,” Hayden agreed.
“I think the time is coming that we need more help with your mother.” Those words cost Abuela a lot to say. Hayden could see it in the way her jaw was set, in the way the words rasped out her throat, as if she wanted anything more than to say them.
Hayden reached a hand over the table and laid it over hers. Only a second later, Sofia put hers over both of theirs. Abuela’s eyes were misty.
“Oh, my girls. Mis buenas nietas.” She drew in a shaky breath. The fluorescent lights made her squint, emphasizing the deeply etched lines around her lips and eyes. Hayden had no idea how she considered putting her own daughter into care. “I wanted… I wanted to look after her. For always. This is what we do with family. We do not—not, give family to someone else.”
Hayden’s throat tightened at the disgust that was thick in Abuela’s words at the thought of doing so. Both Hayden and Sofia opened their mouths, starting to speak, but Abuela held up one hand.
“But—we know. We know this disease. The prog—the prog?” She looked at Hayden.
“Prognosis.”
“Sí. The prognosis. The time is not long. Like with your abuelo.” Her voice was tight, her eyes wet, as she looked from one to the other. Sofia’s hand squeezed tightly, Hayden’s wedding ring digging into her fingers. She pressed her leg to Sofia’s under the table. “But I think I must accept that I cannot do it. That I am being egoísta—I am being selfish. We are. And it is better for your mother now, and for us, for Javi, if she go somewhere they can look after her more.”
Hayden looked at Sofia, whose eyes were as wet as Abuela’s, and the lump in her throat grew. She tried to swallow it down, but it did nothing.
“My girls. How does this sound?” She looked at them so earnestly.
Hayden nodded, as did Sofia.
“I called two places from the airport today.” Hayden sounded raw. She felt it too. This decision would sit heavy on all of them. “Two years ago, I researched the best care facilities in Miami. We can go and see them tomorrow. Together.”
Sofia’s hand was too tight, but Hayden wouldn’t complain.
“Of course you do that.” Abuela’s smile was watery. “You like to organize these things.”
It wasn’t often Abuela would say Hayden liked to organize. Hayden had never been known to be organized as a teenager. But it was an easier way to cope with this, to do something, to have something else to think of.
Sofia swiped her free hand over her cheeks. “Okay. Good. We can take Javi. I think it would be good for him to see where she’ll go. So he knows it’s somewhere nice and won’t be scared when we visit. Now. How are we going to pay?”
“We sell the house.” Abuela pulled her hand away and straightened. “We can buy something much more smaller. That money will help.”
“And I have some.” They both looked at Hayden. “I have some money I’ve been saving for this, plus the money I’ve been sending.”
A tiny lie. She had been saving. But only recently. The money and its too many zeros, sitting in her back account and staring at her when she checked it, like lots of judgmental eyes. She had always known where that money was going to go. It would help them afford somewhere nicer than what they could have otherwise, with only the house money.
Months ago, she’d been sure she couldn’t make her family sell the house, that she’d married Sam and found a solution to that. Because years of care was going to be painfully expensive, and the plan saved them from that.
But now?
No way Hayden could take that money.
They spent the next day going between the hospital and the two facilities that Hayden had found.
It was exhausting and daunting, and it left them all on edge.
Javi, though, saw it like his grandma was going to live in a hotel.
“A pool.” He bounced on the sofa, the piece of pizza in his hand flopping everywhere. None of them had the energy to tell him to calm down. “But it smelled funny in there.”
Hayden checked her phone again. She had three messages, all from Luce: one a funny photo and the others seeing if Hayden was okay. Hayden sent a photo of Javi with pizza sauce all over his chin, then sent a message asking for a coffee date the day after next. Her flight was getting in late tomorrow night.
Nothing from Sam, and Hayden tried not to think about her; she had been trying not to the entire time. It was surprisingly easy when she was so distracted. But still, something in her gut twinged at the thought of her. She ignored that too.
“I like the second one,” Abuela said. She sat back in her armchair, frowning at the congealing cheese on her piece of pizza. “It has a pool, like Javi says. Paola likes the pool.”
It was true. She really did.
“But the first had bigger bedrooms.” Sofia wiped at her fingers and tried to hold Javi down to wipe his face. He slipped under her arm and grinned at her from the other side of the couch.
“But a pool, Mami.” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, and Sofia closed her eyes and took in a breath.
“You really think she’ll like the pool, buddy?” Hayden asked him.
His big, sincere brown eyes turned to her. He nodded, sauce smeared up his cheek where he’d missed. “I do. Big rooms are nice. But she can see friends in the pool.”
“Tiny child has a point.”
“I’m not tiny!” He stood on the sofa. “I’m a giant.”
“Sit down,” every adult in the room said in unison.
He dropped onto his bottom, bouncing and taking a huge bite of pizza, one that he shouldn’t have been able to talk through. Shouldn’t being the operative word. “I’m not tiny,” he insisted; at least, it sounded like that.
“Well. If Abuela and Javi like the second,” Sofia put her plate on the table, “I’m happy with it too.”
“Great. I’m in.” Hayden knew her mother probably wouldn’t use the pool for long, with how things were going. But even if it was just a month of something nice
for her, it would be worth it. She poked at her pizza slice, gave up, and put her plate down too.
When Hayden looked up, Abuela was blinking rapidly. “Yes. Good. It is decided.” She stood up abruptly. “We need tea.”
Tea was not something Hayden wanted right now, and she doubted Sofia did. But they weren’t going to tell her that.
“Should we go after her?” Hayden asked when she’d left.
“I think she needs a moment.”
They spent the evening on the sofa, and Hayden sat with Javi in her lap, watching kids’ movies and trying not to think. When he went to bed, later than usual, Hayden wandered out to the porch swing. Sofia joined her not long after.
“Want me to call?” she asked, as she slid under the blanket next to Hayden.
“No.” The backyard was dark, quiet. It was soothing. “I can call in the morning. This one is good, too. It has some free spaces.”
They didn’t talk about why there were free spaces. But the thought of it left an aching hole in Hayden’s chest. This disease was not a nice one. On average, people lived seven years after diagnosis, some for much longer. But they were in the seventh year of the disease, and their mother was declining.
“This sucks,” Sofia breathed.
Hayden threw her arm over her shoulder, her cheek resting on Sofia’s head. “Yeah. It does.”
Hours later, crawling into bed, Haden plugged in her phone and lay watching the dark ceiling covered in shadows thrown by the window. She wasn’t tired. What she wanted was to be at home and curling around Frank in her bed, letting his purrs settle her heart rate. She wanted to be on the sofa with Sam.
As the feeling of missing Sam, missing Frank—and missing her mother something fierce—started to creep over her, overwhelm her, that was when Sofia knocked on her door and padded in. They talked for hours under the covers like they would when they were silly, giggly kids and had sleepovers. They voiced whispers out into darkness, saying things without light shining on the bare-boned truth of it all.
Until one of them started crying and got the other going. When finally one of them hiccupped so hard that they farted, they had to smother their peals of laughter with their hands. Abuela came in, tiny in her cotton nightgown, huffed at them, and crawled in between them both.
“Shush, and go to sleep, nietas.” After a pause, she said, “Why it smell in here?”
And that set Sofia and Hayden off laughing again.
They slept squashed together, all with puffy eyes, but Hayden’s chest felt lighter. Hayden woke up with Abuela throwing too much heat over her back. The room was dark, morning clearly a while away. But her phone was flashing.
Hayden tapped her screen to open a message from Sam, warmth flooding her chest as she read.
Frank misses you.
Swallowing heavily, yet warm to her toes, she replied.
I miss him too.
She put her phone down, dropping back onto the bed.
~ ~ ~
Rubbing her eyes, Hayden fell out of the taxi. Literally. She hit her knee on the curb and cursed her inability to be coordinated. She’d entertained the idea of taking a bus. But that would have meant waiting thirty minutes and changing twice, and her eyes felt like they were going to fall out of her head. She just wanted to be home. So she’d splurged.
She hefted her backpack onto her shoulder and closed the taxi door. It was too late for Nicolas to be working. The elevator ride up was quiet, the hum of the machine soothing. She avoided the mirror behind her. She knew she looked exhausted.
The apartment was quiet when Hayden put her bag down near the doorway. A single lamp in the corner lit up the living room and Sam on the sofa. She looked up from her book.
“Hi.” Her voice was low, quiet.
“Hey.” Hayden kept her own the same way.
Fur rubbed against her legs, and Hayden picked Frank up, already purring heavily. She pressed her face into his neck and walked over to the sofa, sitting down close to Sam.
It was strange, but a shyness was creeping up on her. Frank got up instantly and walked away back to Hayden’s room. “Nice to see you too, Frank,” she said.
Sam huffed a laugh, her head falling against her hand, her elbow on the back of the sofa. She wore dark-gray sweats and a soft-looking hoodie. She was so casual with her bangs falling over her eyes. The suspenders had been hot as hell, but Hayden liked her like this. Quiet and dressed down. Fewer edges.
“He’s been moping, but now that you’re back, I expect he wishes to punish you.”
“That’s what he always does.” Hayden tucked her legs under herself and it left their knees brushing. She’d been in constant contact with Sofia, Javi and Abuela the last few days, but Hayden found herself craving more—skin and heat and something to lose herself in.
Sam. Who was watching her. “How are you?” Sam asked.
“I’m okay.”
Sam just kept watching her. Slowly, as if unsure, she pushed some of Hayden’s hair behind her ears, her fingers resting on one of the arms of her glasses for a second before trailing down her neck. Hayden’s breath hitched. Sam didn’t move away as Hayden thought she might. Instead, her gentle fingers stayed there in the crook of her neck.
“You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Sam huffed, and Hayden was delighted when she still didn’t take her hand away. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Those fingers started to slip away, and Hayden wrapped her fingers around Sam’s hand, keeping it against her collarbone. “Don’t stop.”
Sam’s pupils blew wide as she drew a breath in sharply through her nose. Her fingers hooked into Hayden’s sweater. She tugged, and Hayden let herself be pulled forward and into the distraction of Sam. Hayden’s hand curled around the back of Sam’s neck, and her lips started slow. Unassuming.
A kiss to get lost in.
But when Hayden pushed Sam back to lie down on the sofa, Sam’s tongue glided over her own, and Hayden gasped into her mouth. Fingers were in her hair, and Sam’s legs wrapped around her waist. And it was everything Hayden had been wanting. Sam’s head fell back, and Hayden’s lips grazed over her neck, her teeth nipping and her tongue soothing the skin.
“Hayden.” Sam should always say her name like that—rough and raw and filled with need. “We were supposed to be talking.”
Hayden paused, Sam’s legs still locked around her waist and her mouth on the curve of Sam’s breast. She raised her head, pushing herself up, her hands digging into the sofa on either side of Sam. The pink flush of Sam’s cheeks and the way she bit her lip didn’t really make Hayden want to talk.
“Okay.” Hayden swallowed. “Hit me.”
But Hayden’s hand slipped from under her, off the edge of the couch, and she fell on a yelping Sam before she could stop herself. Hayden pushed herself back up, and before she could apologize, Sam laughed, the sound loud and real and grounding.
It was delightful.
“Okay, if we’re going to talk, one thing you should know is I’m a klutz.”
“Good to know. Also, you warned me of this right from the start.” Sam’s eyes were bright. Her lips were still curved up, and her fingers threaded through Hayden’s hair as she pulled her back down again.
Sam’s lips were addictive.
The curving line of her jaw was too. Hayden kissed her, her breath washing over Sam’s neck as she said, “I thought we were talking?”
“Tomorrow.”
And she pulled Hayden back to her mouth.
CHAPTER 26
“Why don’t you look…terrible?”
Hayden pushed the sugar over toward Luce. The café they were in had a pleasantly warm buzz. After a hectic day in the ER on very little sleep since coming back the night before, it was the perfect way to end the day. Well, almost perfect.
“You’re worried because I don’t look utterly destroyed?” Hayden asked.
“Well…when you put it that way…” Luce took a sip of their drink, th
en blew over the edge, eyes on her even over the rim. “You just look all, like, glowy? Warm. Don’t get me wrong; you look tired—” they grinned as Hayden narrowed her eyes “—but I thought you’d be a little broken.”
Hayden fiddled with a sugar packet, turning it over and over between her fingers. “Miami was hard. It sucked, essentially.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, wondering how to explain it. Especially after being so tight-lipped about it all for so long. “We’re, well, we decided to put Mom in a home. Which was a difficult decision. She’ll move in straight from the hospital in a couple of days. They think that will be a smoother transition than going home first.”
Saying it out loud made it all too real.
Luce put their cup down and reached over to rest their fingers on Hayden’s forearm. “That would have been really hard.”
“It was. And all I wanted was to be at home.” And now Hayden got to speak the truth. Her lips pulled up into a smile—she didn’t know if it was for what she was saying or for the fact that, for once, she got to gush at Luce, and it was going to be about something real.
“Oh.” Luce winked. “That’s why you’re glowy?”
Heat was creeping up Hayden’s neck. “Well, maybe.”
“Did you go home and have make-me-feel-better-about-life sex?”
“Maybe.”
“You so did.”
“Just three times.”
Luce barked a laugh. “Good to know sex doesn’t die after marriage like they say, though if it did with you two, I’d be pretty concerned, considering you’ve only been together for like, six months.”
“We seem fine.”
“You do seem happy.” Luce cocked their head at her.
“So do you.”
Luce grinned, Hayden grinned, and Luce tittered. “The two of us are pathetic.”
And they really were.
By the time the café kicked them out at nine, Luce had gushed about Clemmie and her photography for twenty minutes, Hayden had teased Luce for being smitten, and so Luce had again pointed out the way Hayden mooned at Sam at work when she thought no one was looking.
