Page 28 of Denying Davis
It sounded like Samantha and her mother had been granted nothing but bad luck since her mother left my family’s employment. I marveled at the unfairness of that, how some people seemed to slip through life with little to no issues, while others were attacked by the twists and turns of humanity every time they breathed. Life hadn’t been kind to me in losing my mom and then my dad, but I’d never known that level of fear. That level of worry for someone I’d loved so fiercely. Or that level of worry about the dollars it took to care for them.
How would I cope under that sort of pressure? Maybe not as well as Samantha, that’s for sure.
When I reached my car, I slid into the driver’s seat and drove home with barely a thought of what I needed to do to get there. Once home, I made my way to my room and collapsed on top of the bed.
It was bad. Really bad.
For the last few years, we’d been managing the disease in the best ways we knew how. My mom and I had tried with every dollar we had. But we’d always been fighting a losing battle. And I’d always known that someday, her health problems would take a turn and the meager funds we had wouldn’t be enough.
And that night, we reached it.
Starting with the phone call, dread had grown in my body. Patty, our neighbor, called me at my mom’s request, and she hadn’t bothered to hide the concern she felt about my mom’s current state. I’d barely been able to think of anything since.
But whatever ideas about her health had swirled through my mind, none of it could have prepared me for what I saw when I walked into emergency room 5A. As soon as I pushed back the curtain that separated her bed from the rest of the chaos, the dull ache in my heart turned almost unbearable.
“Mom? Oh my God.”
Anyone who heard me at that moment would have known immediately how terrified the sight of her made me.
She lay on the hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask, an IV, and several other leads that connected to machines I didn’t recognize. The fluorescent lights sharpened her pale features, and her heaving breaths made a wheezing sound, one deeper and more ominous than I’d heard before. Her frail body almost disappeared into the bed.
She looked like she’d aged five years in one night.
Mom opened her eyes as I spoke her name. “Oh, honey,” she said, her voice muffled through the oxygen mask. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Patty called me.” I walked toward the left side of her bed, which had a small hardback chair placed next to it. I dumped my purse on the seat and found her hand with mine. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Mom.” Tears welled in my eyes, and I blinked them back. “I should have been there to help you. I should have—I should—”
“Shh.” She gave me a weak smile. “You were at work. You needed to do your job. I didn’t want you to miss that.”
“I know, but—”
“Those parties always run late.”
I gulped down my guilt. If I hadn’t gone to dinner with Davis afterward, I might have been home in time to take my mother to the hospital myself. She wouldn’t have been alone. Suffering.
“How long did you lie there by yourself?”
“I don’t know,” she croaked. “A while. A long time.”
I shuddered. The idea of made me want to throw up. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“Fine.” I sucked in a breath to steady myself. “Have they given you any idea of how long you might need to stay here?”
She shook her head.
I pushed my purse off the chair and sat on it. “I’m here now. I’m not leaving.” I squeezed her hand. “And we’ll get through this, no matter what happens next.”
Her eyes softened. “You always stop doing whatever you’re doing to take care of me. You’re not able to live, and it’s not fair to you.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t. It hasn’t been ‘fine’ for the last five years. We’ve both watched me waste away, not really living. It’s awful, and it’s made worse by seeing the best time in your life passing you by. You should stop spending all your time taking care of me. You need to take care of yourself and stop worrying about me all the time.”
“It’s not a burden.”
“It is, honey. You’re not having any fun.”
