“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke said gently. “I know tellin’ ye to relax is stupid, but what ye need to do is calm yourself all the way down.”
I found myself nodding as I focused on my breathing. I went to my quiet place where I blocked everyone and everything out, and focused on nothing other than breathing in and out. It had taken years of practice to be able to acquire this focus but it helped me massively and had done since I was a young child.
“I know you wouldn’t lie.” I opened my eyes. “But I just can’t believe what you’re tellin’ me.”
Dr O’Rourke grunted. “I’ve been in shock since I found out, but I’ve had a few days to process the news. So has your ma.”
I jerked in response to his words.
“She knows?”
“Of course,” he answered. “I was with her when she got her diagnosis.”
“And she remembers the conversation?”
“Yes. We’ve spoken about it a lot, about how to go forward. Like I said, it is a progressive disease. She isn’t goin’ to just forget every single thing right away. It’s small things right now. Like where she put her keys, forgettin’ recently made appointments, buyin’ extra milk because she forgot she already bought some, or cookin’ food and forgettin’ about it.”
I felt a gigantic wave of shame crash into me.
“I had no i-idea,” I stammered. “I had no clue she has been goin’ through this.”
“Frankie, neither did she. This is all as new to her as it is to you.”
I understood that but I still felt like I should have noticed the things that Dr O’Rourke did. I was incredibly close to my mother, she was, in many ways, my best friend. We spoke every single day and saw each other frequently too. I had only moved out of her house in the past few days and moved in with Risk, into a cottage near the pier. The only reason we even got the cottage was because Dr O’Rourke was our landlord.
He offered to rent to us during dinner a couple of weeks ago when I brought up that Risk and I wanted to move in together as soon as he turned eighteen. I was hesitant at first because my relationship with Dr O’Rourke had shifted from strictly being a doctor and a patient to a new sort of family unit. It wasn’t a problem though, he used a letting agency so we never had to deal with him directly, which made it feel less personal.
This man noticed the signs in my mother that I should have spotted first; the guilt I felt was incredibly hard to stomach.
“She asked me to tell ye about her diagnosis while I was here,” Dr O’Rourke continued. “She was alert when she was brought into the hospital earlier and asked the on-call doctor to notify me. She didn’t want ye to learn about her accident over the phone, she was terrified ye’d have an attack.”
“Which I did,” I swallowed. “She knows me like the back of her hand.”
I thought I knew her like the back of mine too, but all of the signs that she was ill were right in front of me and I missed every single one of them. I couldn’t describe the emptiness that brought. She was my mother, my best friend, and I didn’t see that she was sick. I didn’t see it.
“That she does,” he said with a sad smile. “She thinks of everyone before herself. You’re the light of her life, ye know?”
A lump formed in my throat and I sucked in a breath when a lone tear fell from Dr O’Rourke’s eye and meandered down his cheek. I had never seen him cry in my entire life. I had never seen him in a situation that was personal to him where he was vulnerable. It was entirely new ground for me to walk on, but my heart went out to him.
“I love your ma, Frankie.” He wiped his cheek. “She has made me happier than I ever thought possible. I promise ye, I’m goin’ to be standin’ right by her side with you. She won’t go through this alone. Neither of ye will, I swear.”
My chin quivered. “Is it goin’ to kill her?”
Those words were thick enough for me to choke on.
“You’re thinkin’ of the worst possible scenario right now because you’re scared. You’re lookin’ too far ahead; with this disease we need to only look as far ahead as the minute we’re in. Okay?”
The fact that he didn’t answer my question with a solid no was not comforting in the least.
“I want to see her.” I pushed loose strands of hair from my face. “Right now.”
“I’ll drive ye,” Dr O’Rourke nodded. “Ring Risk, he should be with ye right now.”
Before I hurried out of the room, I put my inhaler back inside its air box and closed it. It had been ingrained in me to always put them back when I took them out for use. A good habit to have when my asthma was as bad as it was.