The Secrets She Kept

The Secrets She Kept - Chapter 19

My entire body ached. Since Mum's admission into hospital, I had spent each waking hour in a state of heightened dread. Each time the phone rang, I had been imagining the worst. Would this be the call? Would this be the day?

And yet, with each unrelated call, my body wound itself tighter and tighter until my shoulders twinged with every movement I made. The nights in the hospital chair hadn't helped either. There were kinks in my back that I was sure would never come out.

Rolling my shoulders, I shook the can within my hand. Then, I sprayed another coating of wax polish on the table top, before vigorously wiping at the distressed wood. I scrubbed at a particularly tough mark but it wouldn't come out. The wood was distressed by use and not in the artful way so many people attempted to do these days.

The radio buzzed behind me with inane chatter. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't focus on what was actually playing.

With each I swipe of the cloth, I hoped to think of something else. Anything else.

And yet, like a dog with a bone, my mind wouldn't relent. Was it good? The lack of news? No news meant she was still here. It meant she was still sedated. It meant she was still battling for her life... she was still suffering.

And yet, a part of me hoped. I hoped that the next call would be the one to tell me she was improving. She was making a miraculous recovery. We would get more time.

Only I had never been that lucky.

I had been steeling myself for the worst for so long that when the phone rang, six days after my mum had been admitted to hospital, my stomach lurched. I stared at the device dancing across the scuffed table top and I just knew.

It was a feeling deep in my gut. I didn't even need to pick up the phone. I already knew what they would say.

My eyes burned as I stared at the dancing phone. If I waited – if I didn't answer – I could hide from the truth a little longer. She would still be here for a little longer. She wouldn't be -.

The call ticked over to voicemail. The screen has just started to dim when the device started up its merry dance once more. After the third call, I knew there was no more avoiding it.

My hand trembled as I picked up the phone. I stared at the screen for several long seconds, the buzzing tingling against my palm, as my sister's name illuminated the screen. My stomach twisted. And then finally, I swiped across the screen to answer the call.

"Hello?" I asked quietly, my voice faltering.

"Rosie," Diane breathed in relief. Then, after a short pause she continued, "I'm really sorry. It's Mum."

There were a few words and phrases I had come to dread. I hadn't realised that those were one of them. I'm sorry. It's Mum. That combination had never meant good things. They had always preceded bad news and I knew it would be the same name now.

My heart was in my throat.

"She's gone isn't she?" I asked, even though I didn't want the answer.  My eyes blinked rapidly to hold back my tears. It didn't help, they still poured from my eyes.

"I'm so sorry." Diane choked out. "The doctor said she wouldn't have felt a thing. It was quick."

She sniffled down the phone line.

At the sound of her grief, pure and unadulterated rage coursed through me. It was irrational. And yet, it was so intense I couldn't stop myself from retorting, "I don't know why you're acting upset. You turned your back on her. You didn't even want to see her."

There was a gasp down the phone line, as if I had struck a physical blow. "Rosie."

The regret was instantaneous. And yet, the rage was like poison. I just wanted someone else to hurt as much I was. My stomach knotted. And yet, I didn't have it in me to apologise. Not yet. Not now. The hurt - the anger - was too big to overcome.

"I have to go."

Before she could say anything else, I cut the call. I dropped the phone on to the table. Almost immediately it started to jump across the table top once more.

I turned my back on it.

It vibrated noisily behind me as call after call came through like an angry bee. The radio burst in a chirpy pop song from the eighties and fuck if that hurt. Didn't they know? Didn't they know that my entire world was falling apart?

In a fit of impulse, I wrenched the radio from the side and then, with a scream, hurled it across the room. It crashed against the wall. Bits of plastic exploded on impact, the music cutting off abruptly.

In its wake, only the sound of my own heavy breathing filled the space.

The scent of the furniture polish I had been using just a few short minutes ago tickled my nose. It imprinted itself on this memory and I knew that, every time I smelled the fresh lemon notes, I would always be reminded of this. I would be reminded of the worst day of my life.

My eye scrunched closed, tears spilling down my cheeks as a loud keening forced its way out of my throat. The pain in chest was so deep, so intense, my arms instinctively wrapped around my waist as if that would hold me together. But it was pointless because in a single phone call, my heart had been torn apart and I didn't think it would ever get put back together again. God, how do people survive this?

My knees gave out, pain reverberating through my knees as they smacked hard against the floor. It just gave me another reason to cry. Great heaving sobs shuddered through my body, my eyes becoming puffy and sore. I allowed myself to fall onto my side, the cool floor pressing against my warm cheek.

As I laid there, curled up on cheap linoleum, and my eyes tightly closed, I realised there was so much they didn't tell you. They didn't tell you how powerless it made you feel.  They didn't tell you how much grief makes a person hate themselves. After all, grief reminds you of all things you should have said or should have done better.

Regret was heavy. It pressed on my chest making it hard to draw a full breath. Losing her made me wish I had called more. It made me wish had spent more time with her. I should have asked her all of the questions I had always wanted to know but assumed I would had had the time for. I had wasted so much time. Too much.

And then I cried because beneath the grief there was also ...relief. Relief that her suffering had finally ended. Relief that she was no longer in pain. Selfish relief that I didn't have to spend every waking moment worried that she was suffering. That she was in pain.

She should have had more time. We should have had more time.

She should have been able to spend time with her grandchildren. She should have been able to watch me walk down the aisle – even if relationships and marriage seemed like a far off pipe dream that normal people got to enjoy. But then, if she hadn't received a diagnosis, would this have been my life?

I would have stayed at university. I would have finished my course. Maybe I would even have spoken to the boy in my seminar who had smiled at me across the table. There was no way to know what might have happened or what could have been. All I knew for certain was that my mum had been dealt a shit hand of cards and the consequences had impacted both of our lives. The disease was cruel like that.

And yet, knowing her time was up, all I could think about was the 'what ifs' and the 'what should have been'.

It burned that my last memory of her was shrouded in tubes and wires. It hurt that the thing I would remember most was the way she had looked yesterday, her fragile body so tiny against the scratchy hospital sheets.

A fresh stream of tears pooled at the corner of my eyes, rolled down my cheek, and dripped on to the floor before me. I shivered as the unforgiving floor leeched any warmth from body. My arms wrapped tighter around my body, despite the ache in my shoulder. I relished in the discomfort.

Over and over, as my eyes burned from all of the tears, one thought continued on loop. It wasn't meant to be like this.