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“Oh, I like goss!” Sarah’s voice pierced the conversation and Mom and I turned to her as she appeared from the doorway.
“Hey, baby,” Mom said, giving her youngest daughter a hug.
“Hi, Mom.”
“When did you get in?” I asked.
“Uh, just now.”
“And you couldn’t make some noise?”
“It’s not my fault that you two were so carried away with gossip. That being said, who are we gossiping about?” Sarah asked as she took off her bag and dropped it on the chair.
“Mom saw a cheating husband get slayed,” I said, eyeing Mom and then the papers on the table.
She got the hint and casually covered the notice with an old magazine as she gathered the papers to keep Sarah from seeing them.
“For real?” Sarah gasped, hands clasped onto her cheeks. “Okay, come on, let’s hear about this lover boy.”
“Yep,” Mom said, stuffing the bills into a drawer. As I looked over, I saw my mom wince and her hand flew up to her belly, but she stopped herself, like she didn’t want us to see. She winced again as she closed the drawer and I turned fully toward her, ready to help. She stopped for a moment and took some measured breaths. I glanced at Sarah who was busy reading the decoy magazine, completely oblivious to the bill under it.
Mom steadied herself and took a few steps to get to a chair at the kitchen table. I reached out to offer my hand, but she waved it away. It looked like every step she took hurt. She often described the pain she felt to be like dozens of swords inside of her gut, unrelenting and sharp.
She slowly made it to the chair and eased herself onto it.
“Are you gonna make us wait?” Sarah asked, moving from the counter and taking the pot to fill with water.”
“Of course…not. It was…” Mom tried to talk, but I could see the pain etched on her face. A sheen of sweat spread across her forehead and brow from the sheer force of trying to battle through the pain. Her breaths were shallow and labored. She groaned and let out a whimper. I hurried over to her chair, Sarah just one step behind me.
“Mom?” Sarah called anxiously.
Mom grabbed her belly, breath coming even more shallow. Her eyes seemed glazed over, like she couldn’t focus on either of us.
“Mom!” Sarah yelled as we each took hold of our mother.
“It hurts,” Mom managed to let out before, dropping her head.
I caught her before she could hit the table.
“Look at me, Mom.”
Mom groaned again.
“Call 9-1-1, Sarah,” I said. “Hurry!”
Sarah did as she was told, pulled her phone from the pocket of her jeans and dialed the number, her trembling hands holding the phone to her face as she watched me try to keep our mother conscious, but her expression dropped even further as her eyes fell to our mom’s clench on her belly.
“Oh my God, Ali,” she cried.
“What?” I said, following my sister’s eyes down to our mother’s belly as mom held on, and below to the pattern of crimson that formed on the inside of her thighs and the chair she was sitting on.
“No!” I cried.
“She’s going to be okay, Sarah.”
“How do you know? She was bleeding, Ali. She was bleeding, that’s never a good sign, is it?”
I wished I could answer her. I wished I could help her stop worrying. But Sarah was smart and even I couldn’t bring myself to believe that our mother’s emergency was all smoke with no fire. I held my sister’s hand tightly and pulled her close. Sarah rested her head on my shoulder as we waited for someone to come and tell us what was happening with our mom.
