Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

1 5 ~ A a r o n

                

Flashback ~ October 3, 2010

She loves poetry. She says she likes it because her grandmother read it to her when she was my age, because of the way it flows back and forth in front of her eyes like water. She says it is music without the instruments, without the lyrical voices. That the words themselves hold the music and breathe it out when they are heard.

I read it to her while she holds my hand.

Mom doesn't cry as much about everything like I do. It's not like she's okay with it. She doesn't want to leave me behind, or dad. She doesn't want to stop fighting. But I think somehow she's found peace, some kind of trust that we'll be okay.

"You're going to be okay, honey."

"But you're not," I smile sadly, setting down the book and she reaches up to wipe a tear from my cheek. I'm not embarrassed about crying in front of her anymore. She's dying. I have an excuse to cry.

She smiles back, reaching up to touch my face. "I'll be watching over you. You don't need to take care of me anymore. Soon you'll find a girl and fall in love. You'll read poetry to your kids. I may not part of that anymore, but this is how it's meant to be."

I shake my head. "What about the theater?"

Mom closes her eyes and settles back into the pillow. Sitting at her bedside, I'm seeing even more of how weak she's grown. Of how much paler she looks and how much weight she's lost. She looks so different without her hair, too. My whole childhood, she was an artist who pinned her hair up with a paintbrush. But now she wears a bandanna, instead. "You and your dad can sell it. Or leave it. Have some kind of grand closing for me."

I force myself to take a deep breath. "You love the theater. We're not going to sell it."

"Grand closing, then." She opens her eyes slightly, looking up at me. She's smiling. She always smiles. It's contagious. It's why I've learned how to wear a smile without even realizing it.

"You don't want us to keep it open?"

A minute passes before mom speaks again. "No, sweetie. It was my dream, not yours or your father's. I want it to leave with me."

"But..." I pause and clear my throat. I keep choking up like this around her. "But you put so much into it. You painted it and opened it... I can't just let it go with you."

Her smile fades a little, too. I see the tears coming to her eyes as well. "Sweetie, it's time. The theater has lived a full life like I have. There's no loss in burying it beside me."

I don't say anything else, just watch as she traces the lines of my palm with her fingertips. "Keep reading. We're almost done with this one."

I look down at the book of poetry and laugh shakily. I take another deep breath, opening up to the last page we were on. "Okay," I say.

Then I start to read.