Family

Fighting alongside you, same battles day in and day out

Always by your side, stuck, even if they don’t want to be

Matching your grief as they follow the same dark route

Internal bonds, unlocked by no key

Loving you…even when they don’t like you

Your family, your stronghold, your secret keepers, your glue

Chapter Twelve

Strangely enough the next morning Susan is gone, along with some of our food, not strange. Strangely, by the afternoon Mom still hasn’t woken up. And even more strange by the evening Mom still lays asleep, face up and not moving, her breathing shallow. Every once in a while her breaths are pained and she lets out a whimper until she straightens out her torso so that she is not laying on her tumor. Her frame is small beneath the blankets, save for that bump, the tumor. Why couldn’t we have seen something so obvious before? Why did the doctor blow off her tired complaints for years as stress? I hope that doctor is dead, eaten by his own family. I hope God didn’t hear that wicked thought. Is it okay to feel such hate? Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Clause is my own answer. Surely, my advisor was right. My feelings don’t have to make sense or be real, so long as it helps me get through this. I am behaving normally, by being abnormal. No one who goes through this does it the same way twice.

Dad, Carl, and I take turns all day in the room. One of us staying with her at all times, another running to the kitchen to get water to trickle down her throat. Dad begins crushing up the remaining pain medication and mixing it with the water.

Lila, Tom, Emily, and Brian take care of everything for the day. Brian empties the traps and skins the few rabbits that were caught, someone does dishes, someone else cleans up, and Tom brings us each a plate of roasted rabbit that he said Emily made today.

When the sun is nearly gone Dad sends Carl and I upstairs to sleep, and he sets himself up on the only reclining chair in that room, and he pulls it close to the bed.

The next day is similar, only the whimpers Mom makes are more frequent, and Dad looks like he hasn’t slept all night. Which is probably the case. Dad begins giving Mom more and more pain medication; about every fifteen minutes he gives her more. Much of what we give her doesn’t make it down her throat and we have to wipe her mouth when the caked up powder dries up on her lips.

This is one of the worst parts. I take a wet cloth and go to clean her up. I get a smell of rot coming from her mouth, and that makes me look up. Through the crack in her mouth where her shallow breathing is I see a dried up tongue that is also covered in caked up white medication. Nothing I can do about that, except hope I don’t end up the same one day. By the time the sun is setting Dad looks beat. I convince him to go upstairs to sleep on an actual bed. I can take care of Mom for a night. I actually feel a burning desire to carry the burden for a night; guilt for not doing so sooner is eating away at my insides like acid eating away at bone.

Tonight, as I am alone with her I say, “Mom, I hope you can hear me,” I say for the umpteenth time in the past two days. It’s what I know we all do when we are alone with her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this had to happen. I know I should’ve been a better daughter. I just kept telling myself I had a lifetime to fix it. I wasn’t as understanding as I should have been because I always thought that those miracle stories you hear about cancer patients would be you. That you would be a testimonial I could say to other poor suffering people, and our family would be fine, just fine, just so damn fine.”

I pause to stop tears from coming to my eyes, “Mom, I promise I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be perfect so that you can be proud of me. I’ll take care of Dad and Carl, and when all of this is over I’ll get straight As in college. I promise, Mom. I promise. I promise, I promise,” the last word comes out with tears. I know nothing will be normal, but I tell myself it anyway. I silently repeat, “I promise,” over and over again in tears until I hear footsteps outside the door. I wipe my face with the bottom of my dirty gray tee shirt.

Brian comes in with a candle and sets it on a table next to me along with a bottle of water for Mom and a glass of water for me. He begins to back away quietly.

“Stay with me,” I ask. He sits down.

“I’d ask if you’re okay, but I know that’s a stupid question, babe,” he puts an arm around my shoulder and kisses me on the cheek.

I need to talk. I just need to talk. I have kept a lot of the emotions of the past three years bottled up in a fragile vile of hope, but the vile is cracking. But I just sit here, looking at Mom, not wanting to be alone with her shallow breathing corpse.

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After three minutes I finally break through the silence, “You know, it’s funny. I spent three years praying for a miracle and all I got was shit on by God. I know I shouldn’t say that, but every prayer I said went for Mom, every 11:11 wish was made for Mom, every shooting star, heads up penny, wishing well, birthday candle, they all went to Mom. For three. Damn. Years. I was always afraid that if I used even one silly superstitious wish on myself that I may ruin my mom’s chances of survival. Now look at her! My mother is dying, and even quicker than she was supposed to all because of Hell on Earth. How can God turn my prayers into an apocalypse? How?” I start sobbing, hiding my face in his shoulder.

That’s it. I am mad at God. After all this time of trying so hard, God has failed me. However, even as I speak these words I wish in the back of my skull for a miracle. That God in my darkest hour will reach out and bless our family just to prove me wrong. For Mom to pop out of bed feeling fine. That maybe God himself would appear like he did to Abraham and stop the death only moments away. But as the tears flow all of that seems like childish hope, yet I still cling through my anger. Hope and anger and sadness and love all in my heart at once and they come out as mixed emotion tears.

“Zoe,” Brian takes my head into his shoulder and pets my hair as I cry. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry like this. You have been so tough. It’s okay to be mad and hurt.”

My tears slow, I stay nestled in his shoulder while the tears dry. He is warm, comforting.

I look up as Mom lets out a loud moan. “I need to go get more pain medicine ready for her. Watch her while I’m gone, please.”

“Of course, babe,” he gives me a small smile and kisses the top of my head.

I rush out of the room and down the hall. I hurry up in the kitchen. Mom’s moaning has been getting louder, yet weaker, less coherent and more animalistic as the day progresses. I begin to cry as I crush pills with the back of a spoon, but I choke them back. I can cry later. I can cry when Mom is dead. I stir a heaping spoonful of crushed pills into the water.

As I walk down the hall to my mom I hear the click of a gun being loaded. I run to the living room.

What I see has me drop the water bottle to the floor.

Brian is standing over my sleeping mother with his pistol pointed at her head. He sees me as I gasp.

“Babe, she needs this. You need this. Go wait in the hall. I will end this for you,” he says looking me dead in the eyes.

I snap, “Get the Hell out!” I scream at him. “Out!” My hands are clenched into fists so tight the nails dig into my palms.

“Babe, it’s for the best. She’s in pain.”

He cocks the gun back. Then he gestures for me to leave the room with his free hand like I am a child who doesn’t understand.

I don’t even think about it. I pull my thrower out of the sheath and aim right at Brian’s arm. I let her fly as his eyes widen. He jumps out of the way just as she flies past him. I hear the air slice. He looks at the blade as it sticks in the wall behind him perfectly straight.

I pull a small knife out of my back pocket while his head is turned. I whip it at him and it strikes his right inner elbow.

He shrieks and drops the gun. He pulls the knife out of his arm, lucky him it is only a three inch blade. I am disappointed to see there is not a ton of blood. He puts his hand over the wound and walks straight at me.

“What the Hell is wrong with you?” He screams at me. He is right in my face, and I look up right into his eyes. They are on the verge of fury, brown and smoldering, but something shows he is still calmer than he should be. He puts his good arm on my shoulder and pushes me against the doorframe. Even using his left arm, he is still much stronger than me. I try to push him off, but to no avail.

“I’ll forgive you because I know you are not okay in the head right now,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Forgive?” I shout. “You try to murder my mother and you will forgive me!”

“Zoe, go sit down, go to bed. You need to calm down. Things will be better in the morning,” I struggle against him, but he just presses harder.

I’m pissed.

I grab another knife out of my back pocket. I flip it out quickly and press it against his throat, “Get out now,” I say in as steady a voice as I can manage. I feel tears falling hot down my cheeks.

He looks shocked, clearly he wasn’t expecting to have a knife put to his throat for his heroic deed, “Zoe, I’m just trying to help. I’d put her out of her misery because I love you.”

“Screw you,” I say and I press the blade harder into his neck and angle the blade so the point is digging in. I see goose bumps appear on his throat.

He lowers his good arm and steps back from my knife, “Fine.” He walks back to pick up his gun and I raise my knife again.

“I’m not going to. So just calm down,” he says in a voice that makes me sound like I am the murderer here. It irritates me so much. He’s the insane one, not me.

He stands up and walks past me into the hall. He picks up the water bottle I dropped earlier and hands it back to me. I almost think he is sorry, “Here,” he says, “To keep your mom’s pain muted just enough so she’s not screaming in her sleep.” I feel like I’ve just been slapped.

He turns to walk upstairs, “Brian,” I call as he reaches the landing. He turns around. “I want you to leave, understand?” He gives me a blank expression I cannot read.

“I love you,” he says, and he hurries up the steps.