Chapter 5: What She Looked Like Now
I walked down the hall before Dad could stop me.
Her door was half open.
The lamp on the nightstand was on, casting the room in a low amber glow.
She was sitting up in bed, her white hair loose around her shoulders, squinting toward the doorway.
I stopped in the frame.
For a moment she just looked at me.
Then her hand went to her mouth.
"Ryan."
My name.
Just my name.
But the way she said it — like she'd been holding it carefully for a very long time and was finally setting it down.
"Hi, Mom."
She started crying before I reached the bed.
I sat on the edge of the mattress and she grabbed my hand with both of hers, and her grip was stronger than I expected for someone who looked that small.
"You came," she said.
"You actually came."
"I'm here."
"How long have you been—" She stopped.
Looked at the door.
"Did your father—"
"He came to get me.
Yes."
She closed her eyes.
Something moved across her face that I couldn't fully read.
Relief, but also something else.
Something that looked almost like guilt.
"I told him not to," she said softly.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want you to come back because of this." She gestured vaguely at the room, at herself, at the IV stand in the corner I hadn't let myself look at yet.
"I didn't want to be the reason."
"Mom—"
"I wrote you letters." She said it quietly, like a confession.
"Every year.
I never sent them.
I didn't know if you'd want to hear from me after the way things ended."
Something tightened behind my eyes.
"I would have.
I always would have."
She squeezed my hand.
We sat like that for a while, not saying anything, the lamp humming softly between us.
Then she asked, "Have you seen Jake?"
"Briefly."
Her expression shifted.
Careful now.
Measured.
"He's been so good," she said.
"Through all of this.
I don't know what I would have done without him."
I kept my voice even.
"He's been managing a lot."
"He has." She paused.
"He worries about me.
Sometimes I think he worries too much."
"What do you mean?"
She looked at the window.
"He doesn't like me talking about the finances.
He says it stresses me out.
And maybe he's right, I don't know.
I've never been good with numbers." She smiled faintly.
"Your father is worse."
"Mom, do you know what's in your emergency account right now?"
The smile faded.
"Jake handles that."
"I know he does.
But do you know the balance?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"He said the treatments were expensive.
That we needed to use some of it."
"Some of it."
"Yes." She looked at me.
Something uncertain moved behind her eyes.
"Why?
Is something wrong?"
I looked at her hands holding mine.
The IV line taped to the inside of her left arm.
The way the blanket was folded neatly across her lap, the way someone else had folded it.
"Nothing you need to worry about tonight," I said.
She studied my face the way mothers do — looking for the thing underneath the thing you said.
"Ryan." Her voice was quiet.
"What did Jake tell you?"
"We didn't talk much."
"What did he tell you not to do?"
I looked at her.
She already knew something.
Not everything.
But something.
And she had been lying in this room for months, too tired to fight it, too afraid of what she might find if she pushed.
"Get some sleep," I said.
"I'll be here in the morning."
She held my hand tighter for just a second before she let go.
As I stepped back into the hallway, I nearly walked into Jake.
May you like
He was standing three feet from her door.
He had been listening to everything.
