it like that. You’re getting out of here,” I said.
“We’ll see.”
My mom spoke the words quietly, as if she was humoring me, and the chair felt all the heavier as I carried it over next to Sarina’s. The two of them were still clasping hands as I hugged my mom and sat down.
“Ryan and I thought it was really time for me to meet you, now that I’m pregnant,” said Sarina.
Sarina’s body was directly between my mother and me, but if my mom looked half as surprised as I imagined, then it was well worth the shock I felt before I realized Sarina was simply turning the tables on her. I heard spluttering from the opposite bed that were more than a little reminiscent of the way Sarina had sounded a few seconds ago, before I saw Sarina’s shoulders shaking as she put a giggly end to the charade.
“Oh! Oh you little… don’t do that to a poor sick old woman!”
Sarina moved a little so my mother could peer around her at me. “I like her. How did you two meet?”
“Just out on the town one night,” I said.
“I go to college at HU,” said Sarina.
“Let me guess, chemistry?” asked my mom.
“No, HR. Human Resources. Why chemistry?”
“Oh, I guess that’s just me living in the past. My Ryan was always so fascinated by chemistry, it confused me no end when he decided to study engineering.”
“I was just a kid, Mom, I grew out of it. I thought there were more jobs in engineering,” I said.
Sarina glanced at me with a slightly knitted brow, then back to my mom, who was reveling in this moment she’d supposedly been waiting for ever since I was born. It wouldn’t be long until she pulled the potty-training photo album out of nowhere.
“Just a kid, pfffft. You always got the best grades in chemistry all through high school. The last few times he visited me here, I knew he was daydreaming about something special. Or someone.” She squeezed Sarina’s hands. “I hadn’t seen him that preoccupied since the year he got a chemistry set for Christmas. I’m sure the neighbor’s Labrador is still a little purple to this very day.”
Sarina and my mom laughed, and neither of them looked likely to let go of the other’s hands. Clearly my mom was having a good day, perhaps made better by Sarina’s presence. I could only speak for myself, but my days were sure as fuck better when she was around.
The two of them got along like a house on fire. I felt my muscles, which had cramped up one by one on the drive over here, slowly unwinding while I listened to them banter as if they were best friends from school. I hadn’t felt this relaxed on a visit to see her since the day she told me she had cancer.
As much as I loved my mom, I could usually only last so long before the cramps worked their way up my neck and I ended up with a headache. Fighting the defeated resignation on her face, and the staff going through the motions of a hopeless cause, was more than I could take.
It was little wonder that I fed off the power that creating F had given me. It was because this, in here, was what powerlessness felt like, and it was horrific. To be so helpless in the face of this… monster attacking my mother was beyond my ability to really cope with it.
Having Sarina here was even better than I thought. I’d hoped it would feel safe like having two legs to stand on instead of one, but it was more like having two legs and a big fucking gun.
Wrapped up in a blanket of hope that my mom could see the same special things in Sarina that I did, I wasn’t even aware that my head rolled back and I fell asleep at some point. I had no idea how long their hushed voices washed over me, before I recovered from my power nap and sat there with my eyes closed for a few more minutes.
“No, I swear it, never,” said my mom, “but I saw a few. No offense intended to them, but… they looked like, well, skanks.”
Sarina laughed quietly.
“But you’re really…” my mom searched for the words for a moment. “Nice. That sounds like a weak word to describe it, I know, but… um… it’s not supposed to be. I mean, you seem like you really care for him.