I smiled, but again there was no reaction. Her right eye closed, opened slowly. Not looking at me. After a few moments, I nodded to the nurses and they wheeled her away. I knew then why I’d avoided coming to see her and it had nothing to do with my job.
An hour later I was led to a room with two beds either side of a window that overlooked a courtyard. Mum was in one bed, ‘Mrs Isabella McCauley’ already written on the slot above. The other was empty. I pulled a curtain across for privacy and stood next to her. She wasn’t asleep, but the painkillers had left her drowsy.
‘Brought you some flowers,’ I said, arranging them on the bedside table. In my haste, I’d left the other flowers and the vanilla slice back in the Falcon and had to buy another bunch. ‘Got the results too. No breaks. Just like I said, bones of steel.’
Looking down at the mound beneath the sheets, I wondered how extensive the bruising was. The nurses said she’d been lucky, that she’d fallen the right way. What was the wrong way?
‘Dad’s on his way back up from Melbourne. Gonna stay the night here with you. Nurses even found a room with a spare bed in it. How good’s that?’ I said, sitting down and taking her hand. It was cold, so I rubbed it, trying to warm her skin. It was her left side and I wondered if she could actually feel me. The stroke had knocked out the entire right hemisphere of her brain. Left hemiplegia, the neurologists called it. Ischemic clot. For Mum it meant a near total loss of motor skills on the left-hand side of her body and acute aphasia. Speech paralysis.
‘Do you want something? Drink of water maybe?’
She pointed her right arm towards the bedside table, hand curled into a ball.
‘The roses; you want to see the roses?’ I said, following the line of her arm.
She mumbled what seemed like a yes. I carried the flowers to the bed and held them close to her face. She breathed, closed her eyes and for a second the frown disappeared.
‘Nice, huh? They’re Alexanders. Your favourite. Could’ve got you anything though. Everything’s in season these days. Even tulips. Guess they just grow everything indoors. Doesn’t matter about the weather. That’s plain cheating, if you ask me.’
Watching her with the flowers reminded me of the many times she’d led me through her garden, pointing out her new roses. In spring the previous year, I’d watched her churn the soil and add mulch to a dry garden bed. Her hands were muddy and she’d looked clumsy with the shovel, knee pads strapped around her overalls. But it was a beautiful garden, lush with colour and fragrance. Somehow she always managed to plant species that survived the drought. There were Alexanders and Icebergs and Blue Moons, even a Penny Lane that climbed an archway.
‘Grown this one from a cutting,’ she’d said proudly, handing me a pot with a stem protruding. ‘It’s a Silver Jubilee. It’ll look good on your balcony, but don’t let the pot get too hot. And don’t water at night, only in the morning.’
‘Or what? Will it turn into a Gremlin?’ I’d said, smiling.
She’d laughed. ‘It’ll get black spot, silly. Lovely to see you, Ruby. Bring Ella up next time?’
‘Sure thing, Mum.’ I hugged her. ‘Next time.’
That was two days before the stroke.
I put the flowers back, sat down and held her hand again. This time she faced me.
‘My shoulder’s getting better,’ I said. ‘Anthony’s working miracles. Says I’ll be lifting weights again soon. Soon as he’s finished with me, we’ll get him to go to work on you. You’ll be out in the rose garden again in no time.’
I squeezed her hand but she looked away. She was beyond bullshit, and I no longer knew what to say. I didn’t want to talk about the birthday party and she probably didn’t want to hear about it either.
‘Want to hear a joke, Mum?’
She groaned a yes.
‘The Prime Minister is on the election trail and he needs to increase the senior vote, so he goes to a nursing home to make friends with the residents.’ She gave a weak smile, even though I was certain I’d told her the joke before. ‘Anyway, the PM walks up to a little old lady and says to her, “Good morning, ma’am, do you know who I am?” To which the little old lady