Page 55 of Love Overdose: St. Louis

She took a sip to hide her smile. I sat beside her with my plate. For a while, we ate without conversation. Frankie closed her eyes after her first bite of French toast, and the pleased sound in her throat gave me more satisfaction than it should have.

“This is good,” she said.

“Thank you.”

My attention moved to the phone beside her plate when the screen illuminated. A photograph of Malik filled it. He sat in his wheelchair wearing a superhero shirt, his hand lifted toward the camera.

Frankie picked up the phone.

“My mother wants to know what time he’s coming home.”

“Does she see him every day?”

“Almost.” Frankie typed a response. “They’re attached to each other. If she goes more than two days without seeing him, she acts like I’ve taken her grandchild out of the country.”

“She helps you often?”

“She’s the main reason I’m able to work the way I do. She keeps him during some of my classes and when I record. She goes to appointments when she can.” Frankie placed the phone down. “She wants videos from every therapy session too.”

“How often does he go?”

“He has physical therapy twice a week, once at school and once at the children’s hospital. Occupational and speech therapy happens at school too. Although speech looks different for him because he’s nonverbal.”

“What do they work on during physical therapy?”

“His trunk control, reaching, shifting his weight. Sitting up without as much support.” Her fork moved through a strawberry without lifting it. “Things other children learned without anyone thinking about them.”

I let the silence remain long enough for her to decide whether she wanted to continue.

“He tries,” she said. “Sometimes he doesn’t understand what they want him to do. The therapist demonstrates it, guides his body through the movement, and asks him again. If he still can’t do it, he gets fussy. Not angry. More sad than anything.”

“That has to be difficult to watch.”

“It is.” She released a breath. “I know therapy is good for him. I know they have to challenge him to help him progress, but some days I want to tell everyone to leave him alone. Let him watch his movies and be happy.”

“That doesn’t make you a bad mother.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Her fork stopped.

I had heard guilt in patients and their families enough to recognize it when it entered a room. It changed the weight of ordinary words. Frankie pushed her plate away slightly.

“He was born too early,” she said. “My body wouldn’t hold on to him.”

The pain in her voice settled heavily between us.

“He spent months in the hospital. Tubes everywhere. Machines breathing and beeping. Every time an alarm went off, I thought he was dying.” Her eyes shone, but no tears fell. “Then came the diagnoses. Hydrocephalus. Cerebral palsy. Developmental delays. Every doctor explained what prematurity could do, and all I heard was that my body had failed him.”

I turned on the stool to face her fully.

“Frankie.”

“I know what people say. It wasn’t my fault. These things happen. I should be grateful he survived, and I am. God knows I am.” Her fingers tightened around her napkin. “But when I watch him struggle to sit up or understand something other children learned years ago, there’s always a part of me thinking he wouldn’t have to work this hard if I had carried him longer.”

“You didn’t choose to deliver him early.”