Page 93 of The Facade

“So it’s really the end?” I asked, even though I didn’t want the answer.

But my dad nodded solemnly. “She’s declining faster than we expected.” He pinched his eyes shut and sighed. “I tried everything I could to buy us more time, but…” He let out a long, tired breath. “We might only have a week before she loses consciousness.”

One week.

One week to be with the person I loved most in the world.

“Do you think Mom knows how close it is?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said. “I think she feels it.”

“So she wasn’t planning to be at this Thanksgiving dinner with us, was she?” I asked, my mouth suddenly super dry.

My dad shook his head. “I think this was her way of making sure we have somewhere to go after she’s gone.”

After my conversationwith my dad, I ate my dinner without really tasting it, read through a chapter for my AP English class without really taking in anything I was reading, and then sat in my mom’s room for another hour without really talking.

I wanted to talk—knew that there was only a short amount of time left to have a lifetime of conversations with my mom—but I couldn’t seem to find any of the right words to say.

What was I supposed to say when the only thing I wanted to do was scream and curse the universe for doing this to my mom? For doing this to me and my dad?

She didn’t seem up to much talking tonight though, anyway, since the muscles in her throat were becoming more and more paralyzed. So instead of having a conversation with words, I pulled up the music app on my phone and played different songs for us to listen to together.

She’d always loved music—always kept up with the current songs playing on the radio unlike some of my other friends’ parents who were stuck in the decade they’d gone to college in, so music had always been a way for my mom and me to connect.

Only, instead of smiling and telling me with her words which songs she liked best, she now used her good hand to squeeze mine harder to signal which songs were her favorites. When she squeezed my hand for a particular song, I added it to a playlist I’d been compiling over the past several weeks titled “Mom’s Favorites” for me to come back to later.

Justin Bieber was singing the last verse of his songBelieve, which I’d dedicated to my mom last Mother’s Day, when my dad came in and said it was time for the nurse to do her nightly routine and get my mom ready for bed.

So after the song ended, I kissed my mom on the forehead and whispered, “Goodnight, Mom. I love you.”

She squeezed my hand three times with a faint smile on her lips, and then after looking at her once more to commit everything about her to my memory, I left the room.

My dad usually helped the nurse with the nightly routine, so I went to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of tea. My mom had always made her own loose-leaf teas when she was healthier—telling me all about the various healing properties the herbs had as she made them.

Then she’d brew a pot before bed and we’d sip it on the enclosed porch and look at the stars, with just candles for light. It had been one of my favorite parts of the day when I was little. A time to just relax and end the day on a peaceful note.

We didn’t have any more of her loose-leaf tea in the pantry since she hadn’t felt well enough to make some for a while, but we did have some backup chamomile tea bags in the pantry. So I used the kettle to fill my mug with hot water, lit a few candles on the porch, and then sat on the couch as my tea brewed.

I stirred my tea bag around with its attached string, debating on whether to follow through with something I realized I needed to do tonight, or if I should wait until tomorrow at school.

Time was slipping by a lot faster than I wanted, and with my mom only having another week where she was conscious, I needed to make the most of that time.

Which meant I’d need to cut down as many distractions as I could.

My dad said he’d already arranged with the school for me to stay home for the next couple of weeks if I wanted. I could complete my schoolwork remotely. And Coach James had already said that with it being the pre-season and us not having games until after Thanksgiving, I could skip out on practices here and there and not be penalized.

So all of that was taken care of.

There was just one other person I needed to contact. One person who had proven a very good distraction over the past few weeks.

Someone who made time seem to disappear when we were together.

I knew she wouldn’t be expecting it. And that it might ruin everything we’d built recently. But when time was running out way too fast and all I wanted was for time to slow down, I knew I needed to take a step away from the person who made time fly.

So after removing my tea bag from my mug and adding a splash of the creamer Mom had introduced me to, I pulled out my phone and texted Cambrielle.

Me:Are you still awake?

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