I met her gaze once again, seeing the blue eyes that were identical to my own.
She continued to study me, looking at me like a painting on the wall of an art gallery. She took in my features, committing them to a memory that she wouldn’t maintain. If she remembered that I was her oldest son, it would be a miracle.
I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
“You were here before…with a woman.”
I released the book, and it slid down my knees and hit the floor. I didn’t bother picking it up because I was in shock. Every night when my mother went to sleep, all the events, conversations, and activities of that day were wiped clean. She woke up the following morning without a single recollection. The nurses had to explain that she lived in a nursing home now because it was the best place for her. “Yes…”
“Where is she?”
Rome wasn’t by my side because she wasn’t in my life anymore. But I didn’t think I had the strength to say that out loud. “She couldn’t make it today…”
“Oh…” My mom didn’t hide her disappointment. “Lovely girl. I enjoyed the sound of her voice.”
She remembered Rome more than she remembered me. It made me both happy and fiercely depressed.
“Something about her,” she whispered. “I enjoyed her company.”
“Do you enjoy mine?” I don’t know what possessed me to say that. It just came out, my frustration obvious. I lived a life of cold cruelty, having no emotions. I told myself I didn’t need anyone because I didn’t. But I came here every Saturday because I was missing something. I was a grown man who’d been taking care of himself for decades. But I would always have a spot in my heart for my mother, the woman who nurtured me into adulthood. The only good childhood memories I had came from her.
She watched me with pursed lips and a confused gaze. “Of course. Is this woman your wife?”
“No.” Even when my mom didn’t recognize me, she still pushed me to get married.
“Are you hoping to make her your wife?”
“No.”
Her lips fell into a frown. “That’s a shame. The woman is perfect.”
“You don’t know her.” My mom didn’t even know what she’d had for dinner last night.
“But I can tell. And I could have sworn she meant something to you. I remember the way you looked at her…”
I grabbed the book off the floor and placed it on the chair beside me. Why did Rome, a complete stranger, elicit so much emotion from my mother that she could actually remember her? But my mom didn’t recognize her own son? I had to admit, I was a little jealous. “She does mean a lot to me. But we want different things.”
“What kind of different things?”
“She wants marriage and kids. And I want to be alone forever.” It was a simple reasoning. I didn’t need to explain to my mother that I was a creature of the underworld, just like my father, the man she despised.
“Who wants to be alone forever?” She cocked her head as she stared me down, her authoritative tone emerging like it had never left. I remembered the way she straightened me out when she caught me feeling up a girl when I was thirteen. Even though I was a teenager, she whipped my ass with a belt. “I live in a nursing home with no friends or family. Being alone is overrated.”
“You aren’t alone,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same. Do you want to end up like this?”
The idea of losing my memory, of forgetting about all the people I cared about and who cared about me, was devastating. To live out the rest of my life without someone to remind me of the beautiful life I had once before seemed harsh. That was a whole new kind of alone, to be trapped in your own mind with no way out.
“Calloway.” She said my name the same way she had a million times in my childhood. “All handsome young men want to sow their seeds forever. I was young once. I understand. But there will only be one amazing woman to walk into your life. There’s never two—only one. So, you can give up your ways and choose a life of forever happiness. Or you can keep sowing your seeds, watch her end up with someone else, and at the end of your lonely life, you can find yourself like me—sitting on a balcony all alone.”
She was giving me a lecture—just like she used to. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony. I hadn’t had an experience like this with my mother in decades. It was refreshing to experience a normal familial relationship again.
“That’s my best advice, Calloway. I hope you take it seriously.”
I nodded. “I will, Theresa.”