Epilogue
Sometimes,it physically hurt to walk into a hospital. I hated them so much. When people were too sick to go to work or school, they stayed home. When you were too sick to stay home, you went to a hospital. Marv walked with me as we headed for my mom'sroom.
"You gonna be okay going in there alone?" heasked.
I nodded. "They probably have her medication figured out, and they have nurses to make sure she doesn't forget to take it," I said. "There probably won't be any bad episodes as long as someone is taking care of her." Better than I ever could, but I didn't saythat.
"Okay, I'll be out here if you need anything," he offered, gesturing to the waiting room across thehall.
I smiled and nodded as he turned and walked away. For several moments, I stood in front of my mom's door and then, with a sigh, I knocked quietly and entered. Light spilled into the darkened interior of the room, casting beams across the end of her bed and over the floor. I stepped inside and quickly closed the door, needing to be close to her, but not wanting to wakeher.
The railings on either side of my mom’s hospital bed were pulled up and somehow, as I moved across the room to sit down on her far side, I felt like they made her even smaller. The large double-glass window at my back reflected the dim light of the evening. I grabbed the edge of one curtain and pulled it open to glance outside as I sat in my seat. I never understood why they gave patients windows, but no one ever opened thecurtains.
“Hey, Baby.” I jerked around at the sound of my mom’s croaky and tired voice. Her weary eyes were open, though they appeared slightly sunkenin.
“Mom.” I quickly reached for her hand and took it in mine. I enjoyed these moments with my mom; the lucid moments when she loved me, and she really was my mom and not some woman who would change on me with nowarning.
“What’s wrong, Baby? You don’t look so happy.” Her wrinkled fingertips touched my cheek as I brought her hand to myface.
“How can I be happy when you’rehere?”
“No, Baby. I know that look. You’ve known I’ve been on my way here for a long time. It’s something else.” Pulling away from me, my mom scooted as far to the side as she could and then patted the bed next to her. There was barely room for an extra pillow, but I wanted my mom to hold me and I couldn’t refuse heroffer.
I crawled onto the bed next to her, lying on my side and squishing myself as far up against the bed railing as I could to give her room. She patted my face and smiled, waiting. I couldn’t talk yet, so I just traced my hand over her arm. It wasn’t until she laid her other hand over mine, stopping my motions, that I finally looked ather.
“Tell me,” sheurged.
The strange burning in my nose that made me feel like I was going to both sneeze and sob at once returned. I lowered my gaze, staring off somewhere else. For all I knew, I could have been staring at the darkened TV across the room, but I didn’tknow.
“Oh, Baby,” mom said. “It’s a boy isn’t it?” I released a shuddering breath. “Two boys?” she asked. I laughed. “Three?”
She was just teasing. She had no idea just how close to the truth she was. “How many boys have you been hanging out with?” she whispered when I didn’t reply right away. Isnickered.
“It’s been a wild couple of weeks, Mom,” I finally admitted. She stroked my hair back from myface.
“What’s got you all bothered?” I relished in the feel of her motherly attention, sinking further into the hard hospitalmattress.
“I told you how I got that job,” I started, hesitant, wondering if she would even remember. I could tell by the way she flinched that she wasn’t sure what I was talkingabout.
“That’s great, Baby,” she repliedanyway.
“It’s um...well, I wouldn’t be able to go to college right away, but they would help me pay for your medical bills and they said they would even help me get into and pay for college if I wanted to golater.”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed, continuing to run her long fingers through my hair, sifting the strands over my shoulder. “And is it something you want todo?”
“I-I think so,” I said. “I’m not sure. They help people, but they would want me to work with a team and possibly move in with that team and I’m…scared.”
Mom was quiet for a long time after my admission, her hands curling through my hair, massaging my scalp. It felt so good that I almost fell asleep, but I couldn’t. I needed to know what she wouldsay.
“Do you remember,” she began, “when you were a little girl and you watched the Olympics on that old, box television set wehad?”
“Yea?” I leaned back to see her face,confused.
“You loved the girls on the beam.” She smiled, reliving the memory in her head. “You thought they were superheroes. When you found out that almost anyone can practice gymnastics, you begged for classes. We started you out small, the free community classes, and you loved it. Do you remember your firstcompetition?”
I hadn’t thought about gymnastics in a long time, but I remembered the one she was talking about. My heart had been racing, my palms damp and sweaty. “I remember,” Isaid.
“I was worried you were going to throw up on the matt,” she whispered to me as if admitting a dark secret. Ichuckled.