Page 62 of Sweet Oblivion

“Heart…chest pains…” She began to cough, hacking grunts that shook her frame.

My whole body shook—maybe from the shock, I wasn’t sure. I’d been sitting here, in this spot, mere hours before, and my mother was fine. She’d laughed with me.

Moments later, the housekeeper, Mrs. Ombly, pushed open the solid pine door, admitting paramedics. I was shunted to the side as they spoke in their medical shorthand.

Mrs. Ombly drove me to the hospital. I sat at my mother’s bedside in the ICU. My mother’s nurse had disappeared some time ago, her face haggard, after saying she couldn’t do anything more.

Mrs. Ombly suggested I call my father, and that’s when I realized I didn’t have my phone. She promised to collect it and a change of clothes for me. I must have fallen asleep after she left, because the next time I woke, the machines were screaming and people rushed into the room, moving me out.

I waited in the hall outside my mother’s room as more medical personnel sprinted inside. But I didn’t need them to tell me what I’d seen in my mother’s eyes.

24

Nash

Aya still hadn’t responded to my messages, which was unlike her. And she hadn’t been home when I’d run here. Dark, clamorous instruments clashed in my head—a heavy, angry hiss of noise that flared with fear and worry.

The house was open, though, so I’d come in to wait for her. That’s when I found her phone in her room. I’d laid down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, inhaling her scent. It had calmed me, and I’d sighed just before the sob caught me by surprise. Then I turned my head into her pillow and cried. My dad—Brad… He hated me.

All the while my phone had kept buzzing in my pocket. I ignored it as long as I could, but finally, I yanked it out in irritation. Pop Syad had called me fifty-three times.

He called me a fifty-fourth while I was checking, so I pressed the green button.

“What?” I snapped.

“I’m worried about you, my boy.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, Nash, you’re not. And it’s because of that…that…”

I rose from Aya’s bed and moved toward her dresser. My eyes traveled over her phone and the note I’d written her next to it, and then found her malas. My fingers wrapped around the beads, and I ran my thumb over the tassel, enjoying the tickling sensation across my skin. She’d taken them off to shower earlier, I remembered. She didn’t like the tassel to get wet.

Where is she? I should go check on her mother, make sure everything’s okay.

I shoved my hand into my pocket and moved back across Aya’s room.

“Your mother is a beautiful woman,” Pop Syad added after a moment. “So vivacious and full of life. But she needed a firm hand. Rules. Brad broke all the rules. He broke her.”

I headed toward Mrs. Didri-Aldringham’s room.

“Steve is in front of the Didri estate. Please join him, Nash. There is much I need to tell you.”

I huffed out a breath. “I don’t want to see him. Or you. I don’t want to talk to either of you.”

“Brad Porter is in debt,” Pop Syad said quickly, pressing into the silence before I managed to turn off my phone. I put it back to my ear. “Large amounts of debt. That’s why he took money from me to stay with you while your mother spent time during the last years in and out of various rehabilitation facilities.” He sighed. “I feel as though I’ve tried every one in Europe.”

I stopped walking, my mouth dropping open. “But her partying, I saw her…”

“I wanted to tell you, but she was ashamed. It’s been a downward spiral. She’d finish treatment, and Brad would pull something terrible. I’ve been trying to get her to divorce him for years. Her health is his fault. Finally, she’s seen reason. The only way to get well is to cut out the tumor.”

“The women,” I said, my tone flat.

“She’s trying to get clean for you. She told me she made you a promise before her last trip. She promised to get clean and spend time with you.”

“She failed.”

“Alcoholism is a disease, Nash. One that needs to be monitored.”

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