Page 2 of None Of Your Business

“Mom, let go of me!” Madison struggles to steady her.

“We have to call the hospital,” I say.

Mom recoils from me. “No!” she screams. “Not back there. I won’t go back. Arthur, tell them! Don’t let them take me!”

Dad finally moves, stepping forward to cradle her face in his hands. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

“Did you give her the meds, Dad?” Madison demands. Exhaustion bleeds through every word. “You said you gave them to her. Piper, Rowan, you two were here. You told me she was fine.”

We were here. We promised Madison we’d look out for Mom, but we failed.

Mom said she didn’t need to be watched like a child.

“She said she took them,” Piper cries. “She told us she was fine. We didn’t know. We haven’t seen her like this in years.”

“Because I shielded you!” Madison’s voice cracks across the room. “I stayed here while you went to school. I handled the doctors. You didn’t see it because I didn’t let you.”

I stare at the fury on her face and the grief beneath it.

Every missing piece of our childhood rearranges itself into something uglier than before.

All those weekends Madison couldn’t visit me at university. Every night she sounded tired on the phone.

She wasn’t able to live while the rest of us escaped.

She was surviving this.

Madison drags a hand over her face. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “That wasn’t fair.”

Mom has started pacing the hallway, muttering to herself. “The light,” she whispers. “The arrival.”

Madison follows her upstairs, and for one horrible second I consider following, but my feet remain rooted to the kitchen tiles.

Coward.

Piper’s grip on my arm tightens as muffled voices echo overhead.

Then Madison’s voice again. “Mom, please. Just tell me. Have you been taking the pills?”

Mom’s voice drifts faintly down the stairs. “I’m happy, Madison. Don’t you want me to be happy? The pills make the world gray. They make my head heavy. I’ve had so many good days lately. I’m finally awake.”

I close my eyes because part of me understands.

A few seconds later, we hear drawers opening upstairs.

“Madison, don’t! Stay out of there!”

The silence that follows sends my pulse racing.

“Mom,” Madison chokes out.

“I felt good. I thought I was cured. I wanted to feel the sun, Madi. Just for a little while.”

I think about the scent of her coconut conditioner, the pull of the comb through my hair at six in the morning before school, and the way she used to hum off-key to a song only she could hear.

How terrifying it is to lose control of your own brain. That your own mind can betray you while you’re still trapped inside it.

When Madison enters the kitchen, she’s holding orange pill bottles, and they’re all full.