I rang the bell. I put my ear to the door, just to the right of a faded wreath. The silence I heard gave me permission to use the key. Sure, she might be out of the house, but if Annika was right about her refusing the help of friends, that chance was slim. And if she was home and not answering, not even yelling from wherever she lay, it could be that she’d fallen again or worse. I had to go in.
Slipping my fingers behind the wreath, I circled until I found the key. It turned easily in the lock. I opened the door.
“Mom?”
Typical of many small Colonials build in the 1980s, there was no front hall, just a small space framed by openings that led elsewhere—left to the living room, right to the dining room, forward to a narrow hallway leading back, with a flight of stairs straight ahead and up.
“Mom?” I called again. Behind me, quietly, Edward shut the door.
From the living room came a groggy, “Hello?”
Frightened by the sound, I hurried there.
Like the outside of the house, the only thing about the living room that had changed was its age. At its heart, two upholstered sofas faced off over an oblong table centered on the hearth; twin armchairs anchored the room front and back, two chairs each of the faux–Queen Anne sort. The chairs were empty, and Mom wasn’t on the sofa that faced us, but a vague wave rose from its mate.
Swallowing hard, I rounded the sofa—and it was all I could do not to cry out. For all the times I’d imagined seeing my mother again, it was the vibrant, active, officious woman I pictured. This woman was none of those things. This one lay inert on the cushions, her lower half haphazardly covered by an afghan, her upper half by a wrinkled cotton shirt and skewed sweater that bulked over the cast on her left wrist, all of it crying disheveled as Margaret McGowan Reid never, ever allowed herself to be. But her face was what shocked me most. It was too drawn, too pale, seeming bled of life, like the florals around her.
My mother had always been a striking woman, with long legs, a straight back, vivid auburn hair, and eyes the color of spring grass. In my mind, she would always be energetic and young. Today, though, she looked every one of her sixty-five years.
Her eyes were disoriented as they met mine. They flew to Edward when he appeared at my shoulder, and there was a flash of alarm before they returned to me, all without a blink.
Was she drugged? Half-asleep? Was she wanting to believe but afraid to—wanting to disbelieve but unable to? Was she confused? Frightened? Angry?
I couldn’t begin to figure out which. I only knew that this was my mother, who, sternness and all, had raised me, clothed me, read to me, cooked with me, glowed for me on the day I’d become a mother myself. This was my mother, whom I had missed nearly as much as I missed my child. This was my mother, those whatever eyes in that hurting body.
My own eyes blurred, tears gathering as they hadn’t done in many, many months. They didn’t go far, too rusty to do more than gather on my lower lids, but it wasn’t my chest that squeezed me breathless this time. It was definitely my heart.
In a beat, I was squatting beside her. “Mommy?” I cried, barely a sound. “It’s me.”
“I know that,” she whispered, not unkindly. Her eyes cleared as reality registered. But clouds remained. “Why?”
“I heard you’d fallen. How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said but didn’t move.
“Are you in pain?”
“I thought you were my physical therapist.”
“What time does she come?”
“Two. What time is it now?”
I pushed at the sleeve of my parka to free my watch. “Ten.”
Appearing surprised by that, she made to get up. When she fell back, I slipped an arm under her shoulders to help her sit. My mother had always been admirably slim, but now, through the sweater, I felt skin and bones.
One didn’t turn to skin and bones in a single week, which was how long it had been since her fall. Nuh-uh. This had been a while coming. Like five years? For a split second, I blamed myself. If it hadn’t been for the accident, those years would have been happy.
Or not, I could hear Edward saying. Or not, I could hear Kevin saying. Or not, even Cornelia