The Illusion of Permanence

Chapter 1

Mom has gotten bad again.

I am not surprised. We all knew that it would happen soon. The doctor warned us, told us to prepare ourselves. But we haven't been "preparing" at all—instead, we've been coping.

Mentally, Mom is actually the most stable of the three of us. She always has been, never failing to put reason over intuition in order to solve the messes that my father & I would get ourselves into. I may have inherited her blonde hair and blue eyes, but I got my heightened emotions from my father.

He used to call it "spontaneity" and "a sense of adventure", but that was before Mom got sick and he replaced protein shakes with hard liquor, and the man who once climbed mountains started having a hard time climbing the stairs. Now I call those traits "impulsiveness" and "rage", both attributed to his constant drunkenness.

Well, not constant. He sobers up when we visit Mom in the hospital so that she won't know how bad he is. He doesn't want her opinion of him to change before she dies. He wants her to remember him as the lively, funny, healthy man he used to be. Occasionally, even I have flashbacks of that man: making oatmeal raisin pancakes for Mom and me on a Sunday morning, teaching me how to throw a softball on a sunny afternoon, coming back from a long bike ride with a sweaty forehead and soaked t-shirt. On some weekend mornings, before I'm fully awake, I still expect Dad to be downstairs making pancakes while Mom reads the next title on her Big List of Classic Books.

Her original plan was to read all of them before she dies. I'm doubtful that that's going to happen, but she still asks me to read to her whenever I visit. She can technically still read silently on her own, but she likes the intimacy that reading aloud gives us.

"Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily;" I read aloud, "Mistress Mary walked beside it and Colin leaned back and lifted his face to the sky. The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. The wind swept in soft big breaths down from the moor and was strange with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin kept lifting his thin chest to draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they which were listening—listening, instead of his ears."

At that moment, my father walks into the hospital room holding two small Styrofoam cups filled with coffee. He needs it to appear as if he's sober, I need it to stay awake so I can drive us home. He holds the cup out to me, and I balance The Secret Garden on my knee as I hold the cup in one hand, letting its warmth spread from my fingers to my heart. I try to focus on the moment I'm having with Mom right now, try to forget that my father is here. I look at Mom and smile, and she smiles back. I try to limit my peripheral vision and pretend like nothing else in the room exists except the two of us. My father isn't here, the wires and machines and excessive amount of plastic are all gone, and Mom and I are sitting in our living room reading to each other just like we always used to. I can almost smell the fire, and the warmth from the coffee mimics the hot cocoa I used to sip before I became addicted to caffeine to keep myself sane. It feels like that moment in a Broadway play when there is a spotlight on a character—in this case, my mom—while the rest of the set fades into darkness. I don't want to remember this set. I want to remember her, before she's gone for good.

"Are you ready to go home?" My father's voice cuts through my daydream, snapping me back to reality. I'm suddenly surprised by how bright and harsh the hospital lighting is, as if I've just woken up from an hour-long nap.

I look back at the book and flip through the next couple of pages. The chapter only has a few more pages left. "Just a couple more minutes," I tell him. "I'm almost done."

He lets out a small grunt and leaves the room again, taking a rather large gulp of his coffee as he walks out. My reading to Mom also gives him an excuse to not be around her, thus making his fake sobriety more believable. Or so he believes. I haven't actually asked Mom yet if she's noticed a negative change in him, but I think she has. After all, he was the man she married. They were in love; at least as I remember it from when I was a little girl. They would laugh together, sneak quick kisses, and generally enjoy each other's company. They were in love. Maybe they still are, but in these times it's hard to tell, especially since my father tries to spend as little time around Mom as possible so that he doesn't have to see how bad she is, and vice versa. I agree with him that memories are precious, but the difference between us is that he is trying to hold onto what was. I am trying to hold on to what still is.

I guzzle about half the cup of the bitter, lukewarm coffee before setting it down on the table next to me and picking up the book again. I start from where I left off and finish out the chapter. I look up at Mom as I read the last few words, only to see that she has fallen asleep to the sound of my voice. I set the book down on the nightstand table next to her bed and kiss her forehead gently. Once again, I feel like our roles are reversed: like I am the parent tucking my child into bed at night.

When I leave the room and see my father standing outside in the hallway, I am reminded of the other adult that I act as the parent of. You'd think that at sixteen years old, and with at least one parent who is not terminally ill, I would be able to live more like a sixteen-year-old than a forty-six-year-old. But instead, I'm the one who will drive us home, cook us a late dinner, clean up, and tuck us both into bed. With school, homework, and visiting Mom every day, it's like I've got two full-time jobs on top of taking care of everyone else.

"She's asleep. If you want to say goodbye," I tell my dad in a monotone voice. He nods his head solemnly, throws his empty cup in the nearest trash can, and goes back into Mom's room. I down the rest of my own coffee and throw it in the same bin.

While my father says his goodnight to Mom, I get a few spare minutes to check social media. Scrolling down my feed, I see the other kids from my school posting photos of club meetings, mini road trips, and late-night parties. They're living the kind of lives that sixteen-year-olds should have, and I'm missing out because I have to take care of adults that should be taking care of themselves. I want to experience those things that my classmates are, those adventures that seem like they only take place in movies—yet there are the people I see every day, making those same memories that I thought only fictional characters could make. Before I could linger on this for too long, my father returns.

He knows he isn't as sneaky at hiding his emotions, especially when we make awkward eye contact for a moment after he catches me watching him try to subtly wipe a tear from his eye as he closes the door to Mom's room behind him. "Let's go, Amelia," he says gruffly, trying to reaffirm his masculinity or something. I know he's a softy when it comes to Mom. He still loves her, and that's why he's spiraling out of control. He doesn't want any of this to be happening, so he pretends it isn't. But sometimes, like when she's asleep and he's reminded that she's down to her last thread and the tubes and wires connected to her body are the only support holding her weak puppet-body up, he loses it. He can't pretend anymore. And that's when he usually tells me that he needs a drink.

"Stop at the 7-Eleven on our way home, okay?" He says as we get into the car. I just nod, knowing exactly what he's planning on buying there. There's no use trying to persuade him not to drink. As much as I wish he would, there is no way he'd ever listen to me.

While he's in the store, I turn on the car's radio so that I'm not alone with my thoughts. The song that comes on is one I recognize: Say Something by A Great Big World. The ballad's desperate lyrics tug at my heartstrings as they hit too close to home.

Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you

Anywhere, I would have followed you

Say something, I'm giving up on you

This time, I'm the one trying to subtly wipe away tears when my father opens the car door. The difference is, he doesn't notice mine like I noticed his.

I turn the radio off and drive us home in silence.