Chapter Eight
Jesse
Before
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Those were five words I’d expected to hear from my mother at some point, I was just surprised it had taken her this long to say them. She wasn’t a superhero. There was no right way to handle what we were faced with. We were doing the best we could. But there was grief all over our faces. Tiredness. Fear. We were battling to stay positive when all we felt was hopelessness.
She wasn’t giving up. She was speaking from a place of honesty.
My father was going to die and there wasn’t a thing any of us could do about it. Neither could any doctor in the state of Vermont. Or the world. I could say that, I’d scanned every medical database that existed and reached out to the doctors who had any experience with my father’s disease. In my correspondence, I begged them to enroll my father in their focus studies, try unapproved medications, Eastern treatments, I even offered to pay cash. All of the responses I received said the same thing—we’d exhausted every avenue, there was nothing left to try.
The current battle was an infection the doctors had been treating for the last two weeks and there still wasn’t a discharge date in sight. The problem was, every time Dad came to the hospital, he ended up staying longer, making the transition back home even harder. Then we would become sleepier, more agitated. Pain would start from a new spot.
The back and forth was so difficult on him.
It was equally as taxing on my mom. She stayed late every night and returned first thing in the morning. She barely slept and hardly ate. The aids I employed around the clock were to provide the same level of care to my mom as they did for my dad. Sometimes she accepted the help, most of the time she didn’t.
Day after day, we asked why.
And we asked when.
And we hurt. Oh, God, did we hurt.
“I know, Mom,” I finally said in the softest voice. Dad was sleeping, but I would hate to wake him, especially with what I had said.
“I can’t …”
Her lips were trembling while she stared at my father.
It was too stuffy in here. She needed air. I grabbed her jacket and told her to follow me, bringing her outside the hospital to one of the benches by the front of the building. When we sat, two feet of space separated us. I moved closer, putting my arm around her shoulders, resting my head against hers.
“I’m drowning, Jesse.”
We both were. I didn’t come here as long as she did every day, but I came after work and stayed at least an hour. I made the decisions she couldn’t. I oversaw his care even though it looked like she was the one doing it.
“He doesn’t want this,” she added. “He doesn’t want to live this way.”
I knew that, too.
But I wanted to keep him alive as long as I could. Losing my father was going to break me. It wouldn’t be something I’d ever recover from. And even though this was the most selfish thing I could ever want, I didn’t care.
I needed my father.
“We just have to stay strong,” I told her. “For Dad.”
“How?” She no longer had to whisper, but still did. Her skin was as white as the snow on the ground. Her bottom lip hadn’t stopped quivering. I knew it had nothing to do with the temperature outside. The emotions ravaging her body were preventing her from feeling anything. “I just want him to look me in the face and tell me it’s going to be all right.” She gazed at me now, the pain in her face causing my stomach to churn. “He’ll never be able to do that again, goddamnit. But it’s what I need—for me.”
I tightened my grip around her. “That’s what you have me for, Mom.”
“I know, baby.” She wrapped her fingers around mine, and I stared back, trying to take some of her aching so she didn’t have to bear it all. “But I want it to be him, Jesse,” she cried. “I want it to be my husband.”