"Too long." Tears. Running into the pillow. "Too long, baby. I thought you weren't coming."
"I'm here."
Her eyes slide past me. Find Paige in the doorway.
"Who's this?"
Paige steps forward. Crouches by the bed so she's eye level. Takes my mother's other hand in both of hers, gentle.
"I'm Paige, ma'am. I'm with your son."
My mother looks at Paige. Looks at me. Something passes over her face. Relief, maybe. Gratitude. She squeezes Paige's hand with what little grip she's got.
"You're beautiful," my mother says. "Aiden, she's beautiful."
"I know, Mama."
"Are you taking care of my boy?"
"Best I can," Paige says, smiling. "He makes it difficult."
My mother laughs. Weak. Breathy. But real.
"He always did," she says. "Stubborn since the day he was born."
For a few minutes, it's almost good. My mother asks Paige questions. Where she's from, what she does, how we met. Paige gives her the version we rehearsed on the plane, close enough to true that it flows easy. Ranch hand. Contractor. Coffee every morning.
"She brought you coffee?" My mother's face softens. "Aiden never lets anybody do anything for him."
"I didn't let her," I say. "She just showed up."
"Good," Mama says. "Good girl."
Paige's eyes are shining. She blinks hard. Holds my mother's hand.
Then Mama looks at me, and her face changes. The softness is still there, but something else comes underneath it. That look. The one I know. The one that sat across from me at the kitchen table twelve years ago.
"I knew you'd come," she says. "I told Wyatt. Give him time. He always comes around. That's my Aiden."
The room contracts.
Comes around.
Like I've been pouting. Like I took a long drive to cool off and it just went on a bit too long. Like twelve years of rebuilding my life from sawdust in a state where nobody knows my name was a tantrum she was waiting out.
I don't move. My face doesn't change. But something inside my chest closes up tight and fast, a trap door I forgot was there, and Paige must feel it because her eyes cut to me.
"Mama needs rest," Wyatt says from the corner. "Maybe we could grab some food downstairs?"
I stand. Lean down. Kiss my mother's forehead. She smells like hospital soap. Nothing like the kitchen.
"I'll come back tomorrow, Mama."
"Bring Paige."
"Yes, ma'am."
The cafeteria's half empty.Bad coffee. Worse fluorescent light. Wyatt sits across from me with a sandwich he's not eating, and Paige is at the counter getting water.
