Your Lips, My Lips

Chapter 4

"We need to make a decision soon." Jenny Clarke speaks out and into the room, not looking at anyone in particular as she does. Her voice isn't loud nor harsh, yet to Emilia she might as well be shouting in her face; face beat red and hand waving furiously.

Her words linger in the air and feel as though they are bouncing off the walls; taunting Emilia. Torturing her. And her mother makes a fair point, a factual one at that. They do need to make a decision, the doctors have told them that much. But that doesn't make it any easier.

"Emilia?" her mother pipes up again when she isn't met with a response. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you." she's been snapping at her mother more often than not in the past few months, perhaps even more so than in her teenage years. She doesn't deserve it. And it makes Emilia hate herself all the more. "Excuse me if I'm not keen on discussing killing my father."

"That's enough." Jenny snaps, tone meant to silence her daughter. "I am losing my husband, your brother a father, too. Nothing about this is easy."

Her tone is cold, but not really reaching cruel. It's unwavering, stable. Exactly what the situation calls for. Ever since the accident, her mother has done exactly what has been expected of her. But Emilia wishes that wasn't the case.

There use to be something in the eyes that stare at her now; a glim of life. Her mother is exhausted. That much is clear. Over the course of the past months, she has become the embodiment of rationalization, something Emilia and her brother need. Something they cannot be.

But the person on the verge of death is her father, her rock, her best friend. Rationalities are not an option for her, they never were.

She just needs more time. More time to pull the money together, more time to pull Stefani into her corner and have her exactly where she needs her. Then, and only then, will they truly have the option of treatment. When they end the life support it will be because it is the right thing to do, not because it is the only thing they can do.

She just needs more time.

"Emilia." her mother's tone is more gentle this time, and for a moment Emilia catches a glimpse of the mother she knew in her adolescence. Before this accident happened. "Your father has been my greatest love, along with you and your brother. And I could very well be losing him, just as you are.  But we might have to accept that fact that we already lost him. The test results—"

"—haven't come back yet." Emilia cuts her off, trying her hardest to not sound as if she is snapping at her. She fails, she knows. But her mother is talking as though his death is now written in stone without trying to hold on to the the last string of hope they have. "They haven't come back yet and you are ready to let him die. He is still under evaluation. What if the results come back and there is a chance?"

Her mother sighs slowly, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and index finger. "Sweetheart, we both know that the chances of that happening are slim. There is no way of denying it. His organs are shutting down, and whatever is causing it is quite possibly incurable."

Rational. Logical. Her mother seems to be the complete personification of those words, sparing Emilia any sugar coating or condolences. Your father is gone, deal with it.

Like hell she will. "The conclusion you just came to is merely an assumption. None of it is factual. Not yet." she blinks away the tears that have gathered in her eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat so that she can be done with this conversation. "You aren't facing reality, Mum. You're giving up on him."