All of Me

thirteen • moving on

• • •

I'm woken up by the sound of a smash that yanks me from a dream. It takes a minute for it to sink in, the seconds ticking by before I realize that it came from downstairs rather than my imagination. Silence follows and it takes my disoriented brain a moment to latch onto the unusual quiet.

When Mom breaks something, it's usually followed by the sound of her cursing then the clatter of a broom. But there's nothing, and a few minutes pass before I pull myself together enough to race downstairs. I expect the worst. I always do. Mom face down in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by smashed glass. A burglar with a gun, holding her hostage. Any number of horrendous situations

But when I get to the kitchen, I see her looking a little dazed with a dustpan in her hand, sweeping up ceramic shards. Her eyes are wet, her cheeks white. I don't need any more evidence than that.

"Mom." I grab the dustpan from her. "You fainted?"

"I'm fine, honey. I just dropped the mug," she says, but I know the signs. I've lived with them for as long as she has.

"You fainted," I say. "Sit down, Mom." I have to force her to sit down at the kitchen table and it's only then that I notice a bloody shard of white ceramic in the pan, a diagonal gash across Mom's arm. "Oh my God."

"I'm fine, Storie, I promise," she says, but that's an empty promise. My whole body is flushing hot and cold with panic, my brain whirring too fast.

"You passed out, Mom!"

"Only for a minute."

"You cut yourself." When I take her arm, she winces and clamps her hand over the wound. A trail of blood snakes down to her wrist until I hold her hand up above her head and wrap a dishcloth around the cut. "Just hold on a sec."

I know we have a first aid kit upstairs somewhere and a burst of adrenaline pushes me to run up the stairs and grab it from the bathroom. When I get back, her shoulders are shaking and one hand is covering her face, and she doesn't say anything as I clean up the cut and tape it, using a few bandaids to cover it.

"Listen to Kris. And me. You need to go to the Cleveland Clinic, Mom," I say, trying to stay calm as I patch her up. The roles are reversed and we both hate it. "This isn't right. You could've hurt yourself way worse. It's not ok."

"I know," she murmurs. "I made an appointment."

"You did?"

She nods. "I'm going on Friday."

"You are? How? I have class on Friday." A new flicker of panic rushes through me. I hate hospitals. I've taken her to so many and I can't stand the smell, the sounds, the sickness. I hate watching her have her blood taken, waiting outside as doctors run tests that they don't believe in. They always tell her it's no big deal, that she's just stressed, and they have no problem bleeding her insurance dry.

"Tad has the day off," she says. "He's going to take me." She blinks a few times and gives me a smile. "I'm going to be fine, honey. It's probably just a build-up of stress."

"About Dad?"

She nods. It's not often she gives such a straight answer when it comes to this, or to Dad. Maybe I've just not been asking the right questions. She always just says it's stress: the doctors have got in her head, telling her she just needs to take it easy. But we have been taking it easy and it's still happening, and she can't afford the thousands in copayments each time she has to go back to hospital.

"But I'm working on it," she says. "I'm ok. It's just a blip. We're in a good place right now. Right?"

"Right."