The Well

4

Mother was sitting on the porch when I returned. Her wheelchair lay empty; she'd transferred herself, in a moment of strength, to our rocking chair. She didn't seem to notice me, made no motion to greet me, even as I started climbing the porch steps. Her gaze was distant, unfocused, her body held still and unmoving, like she was trying to find something over the horizon.

The sun had almost finished setting. Slight tendrils of colour—orange, yellow, a smattering of pink—rose over the horizon. For a brief moment, I thought I might enter the house unnoticed, unexamined. But then she turned to me, an aging statue coming to life, and asked, "Why don't you sit with me for a bit?"

Her gaze found mine and anchored itself there. I nodded and took a seat on the steps, so that my back was to her. Her eyes felt like holes—like a part of me was sucked in, forever lost, each time our gazes met. It was easier to look away. 

"Where's Auz?" I asked.

"Lying down in his room." She sighed. "Might have a little bit of a sunburn." 

Soon there would be no colour left at all—only the deep blue-black of nighttime, the brilliance of stars. Mother kept her gaze trained on the fading light, and mine followed, only to avoid hers. 

"You came home early," Mother remarked. I felt her eyes on my face, but kept staring straight ahead. 

"They didn't want to see me."

"Really?"

"Austin spilled their drinking water pitcher the other day."

"I see."

The rocking chair was almost as creaky as her wheelchair. I heard her slowly rock herself back and forth.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, and I could have sworn that I felt her reaching toward me. The feeling was over quickly.

I grabbed my head and brought it to my knees.

"Don't waste water, now."

The sudden harshness of her voice startled my head back up. I blinked, absorbing the tears that had gathered without my knowledge. Pressure started to gather in my temples, asking for release. I curled my fists, allowing it to pool there instead. 

"I can't take him," I said. "He won't understand."

"You have to. Listen to me. Listen! Cam, you have to."

I shook my head.

"You have to," she said. "You have to," she repeated, and it was like a constant, intrusive knocking; it threatened to topple me over. 

I anchored myself in the tightening and loosening of my fist. I swallowed, but found no moisture. 

"Stop saying that." My throat grated with the words. 

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm making the right decisions. With you. And Auz," she murmured. I could barely hear her over the creak of her rocking chair—a constant, frantic creaking of movement that left no space for silence. The sound was driving me mad. I loosened then tightened my fists, loosened then tightened them, pulsing with the motion of her chair. "This can't be sustainable. Sometimes I wonder—" She coughed quietly, collapsing into herself. I looked at her but made no move to stand. When her coughing quieted, she straightened her back, lifted her shoulders. Looked down at me from her perch with the serenity of a granite sculpture. Whatever ending she had planned for her sentence had been discarded with her coughs. Her lips tightened, and her gaze slowly returned to its dream-like confusion across the horizon.

I simmered, seeing this.

My eyes stung in their dryness. "You're not making the right decisions," I snapped.

She could stay here. She could watch the horizon until the last licks of light faded away to the navy blue nothing of night. She could do that if she wanted.

"Goodnight," I said.

I stood up, refusing to meet her gaze as I opened the front door and hurried toward my room. Her words bounced within my thoughts.

You have to you have to you have to you have to you have to.

She could stay out there all fucking night if she wanted.