CALISTA
The minute I saw my mother’s lifeless body lying in that hospital bed, I wanted to leave. Not because I don’t love her, but because I love her so fucking much that it physically pains me to be in the same room as her while she’s suffering right before my eyes. I honestly shouldn’t have left her side, but I wouldn’t have survived alone with her—alone with my thoughts.
I’ve visited her on and off while she’s been in the hospital, bringing Teague with me on occasion, but this is the first time I’ve really come in to sit down and be with her. I’ve been too much of a coward to face her.
No matter what I do, nothing will magically cure her. I have to live the rest of my life as she struggles to keep her head above water, and I’d give anything in the world to be able to switch places with her.
After the talk with Gage regarding my mother’s expenses, I knew I needed to come see her before she was moved.
I clutch the potted geraniums—my mother’s favorite flower—to my chest, hypnotized by the clacking of my heeled boots against the tiles. I make my way to her room on autopilot, having already memorized the tearstained path from when she was admitted. As soon as I enter that cold, sterile chamber, anxiety strikes a chord within me while nausea tears through my restless stomach. It’s enough to bog me down, demanding more exertion from my noodle-like muscles just to simply put her get-well gift on her nightstand. The sky is completely dark outside, shunning the moon’s rays from coruscating over the spotless floor.
I slowly drag a chair over to my mother’s bedside, perching on its mint-green edge like I’m waiting to eject myself from it at any given moment. Even though it has enough cushion to support my back—maybe even invite me for a much-needed nap—I don’t let myself indulge in the comfort it offers. My mother sleeps soundlessly in her bed, arms folded over her midsection, her breath so quiet that I’m not even sure she’s really breathing.
I follow the slight movement of her chest, admiring how peaceful she looks with her hair moved away from her face. Even though I want to reach for her hand, I don’t want to wake her. The surprising steadiness of my breath belies the emotional turmoil rampaging through my body, starting with the deafening soundtrack of my hummingbird heart and ending with the abysmal thoughts trying to weasel into my brain tissue.
My jaw cracks to accommodate a swallow, one that barely soothes my sandpaper throat. “Hi, Mom,” I finally say after a three-minute silence, feeling the tears I promised myself I wouldn’t shed start to fester in my eyes.
“I know you’re sleeping and won’t be able to hear any of this, but I just wanted to…I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am that I couldn’t save you.”
Saying all these words into an empty space, for no one to hear, somehow makes them more painful, and that false steadiness I came into this one-sided conversation with has taken two point three seconds to slip from my fingers. I don’t know why I thought doing this would be a good idea. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to recite any words of substance without breaking down into tears.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, hoping to wring out the tears that flee down my cheeks, and I’m not fast enough to stifle the cries that desecrate the tranquility of the hospital room. They’re louder than the slight percussion of rain that’s plinking against the fogged window.
Everything hurts. I feel like I’m made of glass, on the cusp of shattering. I feel like a little girl again crying for my mother to make things better, running into her arms for safety and comfort.
“I miss you, Mom. I miss when you would hold me and tell me everything’s okay. I feel like I can’t do any of this without you. I don’t know how to be a good big sister. I don’t know how to give Teague the childhood he deserves. I’m so lost…” My words peter off, desperately searching for a home that’s been prematurely taken from them.
I rest my head against the powder-blue blanket draped over her body, no longer trying to oppress the tears that soak into the fabric, leaving behind physical marks of my heart breaking in half. Anguish laps at my heels like that of a starving, mangy wolf gradually closing in on me.
“I’m sorry that my best wasn’t good enough. That my best couldn’t save our family. I sh-should’ve been there by your side. I sh-should’ve done more to save you. And now it feels like I’m slowly losing you, no matter what I do,” I wail, no longer caring if I rouse her from her sleep as I cling to her arm, trying to pull her back to me, trying to bargain with fate to make her stay here on earth with me, where I need her.
She’s everything I have. Please don’t take her from me.
My chest racks violently as I whisper sorry’s like a mantra, foolish to think that enough groveling will fix this mess. Her arm is bony in my irresolute grip, chilled to the touch, yet it’s the only anchor I know. Like a newborn animal snuggling against the cold corpse of its mother, not fully understanding she’s gone but knowing something’s wrong.
“I’d give anything for you to be okay again. Anything. Take me. Please. Whoever’s listening, take me instead.”
I thought I was strong enough to come here by myself and face my demons, but I’m not. Not with Gage’s help, not with anyone’s help. I’m weak. I’ll always be weak, and my brother deserves more. Better.
Everything I want to say is impeded by hiccups, left to curdle on my tongue. I feel my throat weld itself shut, feel my lungs begin to shrivel, feel my heart give some pathetic stutters before it maybe stops completely. With watered-down vision and heat stewing in my head, I lose control of my body, just like I’ve lost control of my life. I’m a prisoner to the bawls that don’t seem to stop, that can probably be heard all the way down this hospital wing, that broadcast to other families that there’s always someone out there doing so much worse.
And just when the lightheadedness starts to settle into my bones, I feel my mother’s fingers rejoin with mine, and I immediately lift my head up. Even in the darkness, her smile shines through, and it’s the sign I’ve been waiting for—a sign no longer as frequent as it used to be, but one that I welcome all the same.
“Calista,” she says on a sigh, squeezing my hand as hard as she can. “My beautiful girl.”
I nearly break down into another crying fit. I don’t know what to say. There’s truly nothing I could say to encompass how much my mother’s changed my life. My love for her goes beyond simple sentiments and words of affirmation. It’s almost something I can’t conceive of.
So I freeze, trying to memorize her face even in the lack of light, trying to memorize the crow’s feet that show themselves at the corners of her eyes whenever she smiles. She seems…different. Almost more renewed with life, if that’s possible.
Instead of easing into the conversation, I dive headfirst, panickily slapping together a nonsensical apology that would be hard for anyone to follow. “I’m so sorry that you’re here. It’s all my fault. I should’ve tried harder. Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Mom. I’ll never d—”
“Cali,” she interrupts, and I can almost envision the way she used to shake her head at me. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
My voice is the quietest it’s ever been, yet it ricochets around the room like a gunshot. “I’m afraid of losing you.”
I can hear her breath falter, a telltale sign that the pain is starting to worsen, and she takes a full minute before answering. “I’m still here.”
The tears revolt as moisture reenters my vision, and I spear my teeth into my bottom lip to keep another obnoxiously loud cry from upsetting the calmness of the late evening. I’m still here. Three words that have never held so much weight until now. She’s fighting every day to be here with me and Teague—to watch Teague grow up.
There are so many things I want to say to her, but I know that holding this conversation is incredibly hard for her, so all I plan to say is how much I love her.
But that’s not what comes out.
“I’m scared, Mom,” I confess in a shaky tone, feeling the strength that my mother’s passed down to me start to trickle out of my body, searching for another host that would be more deserving of her mountain-moving vigor and resilience. “Everything’s about to change.”
I’m careful not to put too much pressure on her chest, but I hug her for the first time in what feels like years, and instantly, all the panic and the voices and the self-doubt are quiet. She quiets them all, just like Gage does. It’s a silence I’ve been chasing after for so long, believing I’d never achieve it. But it’s real. It’s possible. And it’s so fucking peaceful.
My mother still smells of the rose scent I’d feared she lost, and I fit into the cradle of her arms just like I always have, even if they’re not as strong as they used to be. It temporarily transports me back to the past, when my worries were nowhere near as prominent. It transports me back to a time when my mother was the real hero, sacrificing her soul and body to keep the lights on, sacrificing her social life and love life so we could eat, sacrificing everything to give her children the best life possible.
“I know,” she whispers against my hair, holding me, rocking me, absorbing the pain of my shameful admittance. “You’re going to be okay.”
Everything I didn’t fully cry out of my system with Gage, I cry out now, and as much as I love the feel of her arms wrapped around me, there’s a part of me that imagines Gage’s arms instead.
“You’re my strong girl, and I’m so proud of you,” my mother says. “You’ve kept this family together. You’ve looked out for your brother, just like I always knew you would. You’ve looked out for me, even though I never asked you to. You’ve sacrificed so much for this family. If I had to leave today, Calista, I would go happily, knowing that the best part of me is still here on Earth—that the best part of me is you.”
Surprisingly—and maybe it’s because I’ve wasted all my energy on tears—I don’t resist her compliment. I don’t provide a counterargument. Her words exorcise the fearmongering demon right out of my own body—the one who’s been haunting me this whole time; the one who looks like me.
Is that really how she sees me? She doesn’t blame me? She doesn’t think I’m a failure? She doesn’t think I’m broken? After all this time, I thought she was disappointed in me. I thought I’d let her down. But the only person who was disappointed in me was myself. The only person I let down was…myself.
I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that until now. And just like that, after years of self-deprecation and self-punishment, it only takes a minute for my heart to feel so much lighter. The last time I remember my heart feeling this light was when I was a kid. But the feeling is back, it’s real, and it’s somehow even more therapeutic than before.
Slowly, I un-koala from my mother, brushing the invisible dust motes off her blanket and the not-so-invisible tears. I’m not in a hurry to leave her, but I do want to change the subject and give her voice a rest. So, I start by telling her how Teague’s been doing lately, and how good he’s getting at hockey. I tell her about my dance classes and how wonderful my students are. I tell her about the new friends I’ve made. And then I tell her about the one person who I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
My talk with Gage lingers in the back of my mind—how I’m his morning, afternoon, and night. His beginning, middle, and end. How I’m his number one priority, and how it’ll always be me. How he’s promised not to go anywhere.
I didn’t want to accept his money at first because I felt like he was making a mistake, but he’s proven to me just how wrong I am. Being strong isn’t just about doing everything yourself, it’s about knowing when you need to ask for help.
I feel the echo of a smile pull over my lips, and my heart’s no longer getting by on barely there thumps. It’s beating steadily, healthily. No part of my body is stuck in permanent panic mode. Everything’s, well, peaceful. And when Gage isn’t driving me crazy, he does seem to have that peaceful effect on me.
“I met a boy,” I tell her like some giddy schoolgirl with a crush. “I met a boy, and he’s perfect, Mom. He’s kind and caring, and he’s great with Teague. He’s there when I need him, but he doesn’t always just fix things for me. He helps me fix things. He supports me; he believes in me. He just…he means a lot to me.”
I’m not expecting my mother to weigh in at all, but she does, and it’s like a bellows blowing on the burning coals of my admiration, feeding the fire that Gage has reignited within me. She caresses my cheek, and now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can clearly see the wide, toothy smile that uplifts her cheeks.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
Maybe it’s because I’m an emotional wreck, but I swear I feel the tears regroup and scheme to plan another attack. “I like him. So much.”
Gage is the only person I see in my future. There’s nobody else. I don’t know what will happen with us, but he’s one of those rare people that comes along and just changes everything. He’s the kind of person who makes you fall back in love with life—the kind of person who alters your brain chemistry forever.
“Remember this feeling,” my mother replies softly. “Hold on to this happiness, Calista.”
And I do. I hold on to it more tightly than I’ve ever held on to anything in my entire life.
