Page 54 of Second Chance

Dolores shakes her head. Her brows pinch and she lifts our mother’s delicate hand to her lips. Her eyes close and I sense Dolores knows something she isn’t sharing. I won’t force her. I don’t need the details of our father’s abusive behavior. I lived it for eighteen years.

“You could have come to California,” I offer. Dolores’s head pivots and her eyes narrow at me.

“Don’t do this.”

“What?”

“Pretend like it would have been that easy, or you would have wanted me there.”

“All you had to do was ask,” I counter.

“All you had to do was ask as well.” Cold runs through my body at her statement. I invited her to California. I did. Didn’t I? I pause, thinking back as far as I can remember.

Shit.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Her mouth opens to respond, and I expect her to tell me to stuff it like she did when we were kids. Then her lips close and twist. She’s thinking, and I wait with anticipation for what she’ll say next. When she doesn’t speak, I let it go. We remain silent for the rest of the hour.

Eventually, Dolores leaves me alone with our mother. I lean back in the once overstuffed, now terribly uncomfortable, chair and kick my feet up on the edge of the bed. My head lolls backward. My eyes close and my throat vibrates. A soft, raspy rumble comes from my mother.

“Sing,” she murmurs, her voice straining. Was I singing? I don’t think I was. Humming, maybe. I hadn’t even noticed. I look over at her to find her staring at the ceiling. Her fingers twitch again on the light blanket covering her, and I lower my feet, reaching forward to hold her hand. “Like him.”

My father never sang.

Watching her swallow from the effort of speaking, I reach for ice chips in a cup on the nightstand. I hold one at her dry lips. She rolls her head side to side, letting the cool cube coat her cracked skin. When she turns away, I realize she’s had enough. I’m returning the cup to the stand when she speaks again. Her voice is only slightly stronger.

“Calvin,” she mutters. My brow furrows as I stand over her.

“Mama?” I question, uncertain what to ask. Her head slowly rolls again. Her hand begins fumbling with the cover, and I cup her fingers in mine. This time she squeezes as much as her pencil-thin fingers can tighten.

“Calvin.” Her voice comes clearer. She repeats this a second time, her grip tightening.

“Denton,” I correct, worrying once again she’s delirious, calling out to me, but mixing up my name with Kip’s.

Calvin? Who is Calvin?

“I knew you’d come back for me,” she mutters, her fingers gripping. My mouth falls open to correct her, but the nurse enters to check on Mother.

“Miss Caroline, you settle down, honey,” Vivian says, seeing Mama in an agitated state. The daytime hospice nurse is a godsend while Stephen is our angel during the night, as Magnolia calls him. Vivian pats my mother’s arm, but Mama’s eyes remain wild, her fingers squeezing mine.

“I don’t know what she’s saying.” My voice cracks as I stand next to her, still holding her hand in mine. I don’t understand. Who is Calvin?

“There, there, Miss Caroline.” The nurse presses something on the attached IV and slowly my mother’s lids lower. Her fingers go lax.

“Mama.” Her name lingers between us, but she’s out.

“Who’s Calvin?” I ask Vivian as if she’d have an answer. Vivian juts out her lower lip, thinking a second.

“Never heard of a Calvin before. Then again, I’m not from these parts.” Neither am I anymore, I think.

+ + +

“How’s your mother?” Magnolia asks me as I trudge down the staircase. She stands at the bottom as if she waits for me. She’s a prisoner in her own home as she can’t climb the steps to visit her own daughter.

“Restless.” I pause, staring down at the frail woman before me with her magnifying eyeglasses and her walking cane. “She called me Calvin.”

Magnolia gasps. “She told you,” she whispers, leaning toward me as if conspiring with me.

“Told me what?” I hush-whisper back to her, stretching forward to tower over her small stature.