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A lump forms in my throat as I push her door open and find my mother lying in bed, staring blankly at the muted television across the room. Her hair’s pulled back into the rollers I put it in this morning, her pink robe stained with some kind of yellow substance, and she doesn’t move a muscle when I walk in.
“Mom?” I say softly, edging my way to her bedside. Her frail hands are folded over her lap, her green gaze devoid of any of the fire it once held.
I climb on the bed beside her, careful not to jostle her too much, and slide my hand over hers, prepared to spend the rest of my afternoon watching Family Ties reruns. One of her thumbs hooks over mine, acknowledging me, and I turn to look at her.
“Murphy,” she slurs, her lips barely moving with the word.
Freezing, my gaze darts to hers, searching for a joke hidden deep in her eyes. She blinks back, unperturbed, as my heart slams against my ribs so hard it moves the bed. Sadness flows through my veins, clogging my arteries, and making me shake.
We stare at each other for a few moments, the realization that she’s mid-delusion settling in and providing a certain degree of comfort—until it doesn’t anymore, because it’s been months since she hallucinated like this.
My stomach heaves, disappointment weaving a tapestry of darkness that blots out any room for sunshine in this very moment.
She thinks I’m Murphy.
Digging deep, I try to shrug off the delusion, reasoning that she isn’t in control of her thoughts right now. Knowing that denying my identity will only upset her, I swallow over the vomit threatening to spew and squeeze her fingers with a thin smile. “It’s me, Ma. How’re you feeling?”
“Oh, Murphy. I’ve missed you.” One half of her mouth curves, as if she’s trying to smile, too, but it doesn’t quite work. “It’s hard with you gone.”
Her speech is so slurred I can barely make it out; I strain closer, listening for the ends of syllables and piecing them together myself. “I know, Ma. I’m sorry.”
She pats my hand with her fingertips, shaking her head. “Don’t be. You’re here now.”
Gritting my teeth, I bend down, resting my head in the crook of her shoulder and inhaling the rosy perfume she has on—the same kind I’ve been wearing lately, as if trying to memorize her scent.
Embed it under my skin so she never really leaves me.
“Don’t leave,” she murmurs, eyelids drifting closed. Her grip tightens around my hand as she squeezes with more strength than I’d think her capable of. “Stay with me awhile. You’re never here anymore, and this house is a wasteland without you.”
Driving the knife farther into my heart, I just nod against her and wait for her slurred speech to drop off completely; a few moments later, her snores fill the large white room, and I disentangle myself from her grasp, tucking the silk comforter around her and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, discomfort a massive pit in my stomach as I sneak from the room and downstairs to my father’s office.
I know what she wants, and I know what she asked from me.
I just don’t think I can go through with it.
Some people in her condition live decades. They get extra time with their families, extra time to right their wrongs on this planet, extra time to miss the correct people. How can I help her when the possibility of more time is still technically an option?
Raising my fist to knock on the door so I can force my father into the foray and get his input, have him take charge where he should have been all along, I pause when I hear movement just inside. Stepping aside in case he’s about to come out, I suck in a deep breath and hold it, listening. Waiting.
A moan comes from behind the closed door, startling in its volume. My eyebrows scrunch together, confusion lacing through the muscles in my brain, trying to make sense of the sound. It’s too loud, too present, to be porn, and I know Kieran’s not here tonight.
“Oh, Craig.” A giggle and then another moan, this time throatier and deeper than the other, and I just know it’s him. My father, inside his home office.
With another woman.
