Rock 'N' Roll Singer

𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗥

     I hated hospitals. Always have and always will. They never fail to give me the chills, and I ironically feel sick being in one. The air is always stuffy, the corridors endlessly twist and turn, and you know that behind every door someone could be sick, injured, or undergoing some horrible operation.

A while after my conversation with Bon, I had gotten a phone call beckoning me to St. Paul's Hospital. I feared for the worst but was calmed down by the nurse speaking nonchalantly on the other end. There was no need to hurry over, Mum's words, but she wouldn't turn me away if I stopped by. Ok, so she wasn't dead—good—but a hospital trip wasn't something to celebrate over either. After I got over the initial shock, I wrote a quick note for Mick in case he stopped by and dashed out the door without so much as a goodbye to any of my fellow employees. That half an hour spent driving felt more like an anxiety-inducing hour.

When I reached the hospital car park, I could feel a sinking feeling settle within me, but I tried to keep a stiff upper lip once I was inside. I told myself that Mum was fine, or as fine as a 51-year-old woman with pneumonia could be. Maybe she just needed some antibiotics from Dr. Finch, and then I could drive her home and head back to work with no problem.

I imagined all of this playing out in my head as I stepped out of the lift and onto the second floor. It was bad enough when I had to take my mother with me, but going in alone was certainly an experience I'd love to never experience again. I began to sweat a bit and feel my hands shake.

     An older nurse spotted me and asked if I needed any help. When I managed to swallow my discomfort and tell her about where I was headed, she brought me straight to Room 222. She kept a strong grip on my arm the whole way as if she was checking my blood pressure.

     "You alright, dear?" She asked in a nasally voice. I instinctively reached for my ear to make sure it wasn't bleeding. I nodded just to keep her from talking into my ear.

     When we reached the room, I wriggled my arm from her grasp and saw my mother sitting upright on a bed, fiddling with the radio on the bedside table.

     "Nothing good on," she mumbled until something folksy came on.

     "Mum! Are you okay? What happened?" I rushed to her side and took her hands in mine.

     "I'm fine, darling." She smiled; I never wrapped my head around how calm she could be towards her health.

     Maybe she had already accepted things as they were, but it just seemed unnerving to me. I mean, she's my mother, and she's got a second daughter, my little sister Jane, who would be alone in the world when the horrible day I couldn't stand to think about came. That's why I really wanted to make it big or, by some miracle, save up enough from a record store salary (which just might take me until I die). I just wanted to know that Jane won't have to be shipped off to some dusty, old relative back in dreary England.

"Just had a bit of a bad cough. At least I was on a tea break, so none of those upper-class high society people saw me get rushed out in a maid's car." She added a little laugh to punctuate the sentence.

      Dr. Finch came in soon after and gave my mother some more medication, as if she didn't have enough already. He gave her a knowing look as if he was about to reveal some deep secret.

     "Have you been resting, Ms. Albright?"

     She looked down at his wingtip shoes.

     "I've got too much to do. I'd like to see you be a working single mother for a day." When Mum wasn't running around a country club (without the time to enjoy it in between cleaning and bringing food to snobs), she was earning what she could from sewing up old clothes for people all over Burwood.