I notice laying on the state-of-the-art bed.
“It has a memory foam mattress to help her sleep better.” Hayley had explained the moment we entered the sick suite—that’s what I’ve decided to call it anyway. While it doesn’t look overly sterile like a hospital room, it does still resemble a clinic. Well, a private, wealthy patient admission only, kind of clinic.
“It looks like this is our new home.” I start, keeping my voice low and soft. She looks at me, but she can’t focus on my face. That hurts but I forge on anyway. “I’ll be here with you all the way.”
“It’s a beautiful, cold house.” It takes her a while to say those five words, but I grin anyway. My heart feels full, like it’s about to burst.
“It is dreary, isn’t it?” I chuckle. “They could use a little more color. Maybe even some soft, classical music to liven the place up. Don’t even get me started on those godawful drapes they have in here.”
But I’m not sure if that will heal the many fractures hidden by the splendor and elegance of this mansion. The same can be said about our house too. No amount of color or music can heal what doesn’t want to be healed.
“A little more life, my sweet baby,” she says ever so sweetly. I suck in a deep breath. She hasn’t said sweet baby is so long, it causes my chest to crack.
Tears well up in my eyes as I hold her hand in my grasp.
“Don’t cry, Mia,” she whispers softly, trying to focus her gaze on me.
“I know, I look ugly when I cry.” I laugh, looking down, feeling the tear roll down my cheek. Mom used to say that when I was around eight or nine. I’d cry over silly things and, well, the best way to shut me up was to threaten my beauty in any way. “My eyes are just sweating to moisturize my skin.”
It’s a shitty excuse, I know, but the alternative is stupid and so out of the question. I’m not going to cry when she’s the one suffering. She should be dancing, but instead she’s deteriorating right before my eyes.
Right before summer, when there’s a gentle breeze that sways with your body, lightening your gait, is the best time to dance, she used to always say, and I know she misses it with an intensity that makes her fall into depression.
When she’s like that, she keeps everything from me, even her voice. I feel so depraved, so lonely and unloved, I act out. Always tense and angry, I’m tired of it.
But right now, I have her with me.
She tries to smile but it doesn’t quite get there. Then she tries reaching up to wipe my tear, but her muscle spasms start all over again, breaking my heart. All over again.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m alright.” I whisper, then get up, wanting desperately to change the topic. “You know, they told me they have a jacuzzi and an indoor pool. I know you miss swimming. Do you want to go?”
It’s not like we didn’t have a pool at our house. We did. A huge one.
But as the ALS progressed, worsening her health, it also worsened her spirit. One afternoon, she just stopped wanting to go outside for a little stroll in the garden, let alone swimming like she used to.
More often than not, I’d find her in the ballet studio, just sitting there, in the middle of it all, devastation written all over her beautiful face. It didn’t take me long to realize that the kind of devastation my mother was going through wasn’t the type sweet words or sympathetic understanding nods can ease or cure.
I didn’t need a doctor’s confirmation to realize that my mother was sad and depressed. You can’t really tell someone whose life light is dimming by the second to just snap out of it, because the weather’s good outside or the water feels good.
Dad tried that.
It backfired.
So, I’d just leave her alone in the room she loved the most, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, while I silently and privately broke down not far away, until it was time for her to eat and take her medicine.
Then when the divorce was finalized, she never set foot in the studio ever again. When we drove over here, she didn’t even look behind at the house she once loved, found love, and where loved failed her.
“Nicky,” she stutters.
“I’m right here, sis.” Aunt Nicky strolls in, shooting me a ‘you’re-in-trouble’