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It’s cruelly ironic that every time I see her wilt, I also see the woman she used to be.
B.C.
“Come on, Mom,” I say gently, rousing her as I clamber out of the armchair. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“No, darling. I’ll sleep when you leave.”
“You can’t kick me out that fast,” I tease her. “Why don’t you take a quick nap and I’ll wake you up when it’s time for dinner?”
Her eyes light up. “You’ll stay for dinner?”
“I’ll do you one better and I’ll cook it, too.”
“Okay, well, you know where we keep the takeout menus.”
I suppress a bubble of laughter. “I resent that. At least I don’t burn toast like Dad does.” I frown. “Where is Dad, by the way?”
“He decided to take a walk right after your sister left with her fiancé. Said he could use the fresh air.”
I raise my brows as I coax Mom out of the chair and into bed. She barely makes a dent in her mattress anymore. If I run my fingers over its surface, I can feel where twenty years of sleeping in the same spot wore a groove into it. Now, though, she isn’t anywhere close to filling it out.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” she says. “I think he’s just processing. In his own way, just like the rest of us are.”
“What does he think aboutIl-ar-i-on?” I ask, doing my best not to roll my eyes as I drag out the unfamiliar syllables of his name.
“Be nice, Tay.”
“I’m always nice.”
Mom shoots me an appraising look that might be insulting if it wasn’t so on the nose. “If you want to know what your father thinks of Ilarion, you can ask him yourself.”
I sigh. “Do I have to?”
“If you’re staying for dinner, you can’t avoid talking to him.” She grabs my hand just as I’m about to straighten up. “Honey… go easy on your father, okay? I know he’s not blameless in this. I know you have every right to be mad, but…but…”
“I know,” I say gently as her sleepy lips fail to shape the words the way she wants them to go. “I will. Don’t worry, okay? Just sleep.”
I drop a kiss on her forehead and run my hand over her bald scalp. It had taken a while to get used to seeing her without hair. She’s still beautiful. But there is no avoiding the fact that she is sick.
Celine and I had offered to buy her a wig. She flat-out refused and then barely said two words to us the rest of the day, she was so insulted. “I’ll wear my own hair or none at all,” she’d informed us sharply. “There’s no sense in lying to the world.”
I turn at the door to tell her I love her—for that, and for so many other reasons, too—but she’s already sleeping. I linger in the threshold and watch her for a moment.
“Mom,” I whisper into the soft rasp of her snores, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m…I’m pregnant.”
Saying it out loud is as surreal as it is terrifying.
I’m pregnant, and I have no idea what to do about it.
There was a time not too long ago when I would have sprinted straight to my mom and told her everything. I’d have put my head in her lap and cried until the reality of my situation stopped terrifying me so much.
But that was B.C.
And we don’t live in those days anymore.
12
TAYLOR
