My brain’s screaming: Please sleep, I beg you! Sometimes I flick on my computer, plug in my earphones so as not to wake Danny. Danny being woken without reason is another headache altogether. I’ve an ear plugged in and the other exposed in case Mum needs me. It’s never anything forbidden I look at online. I fire Lou’s name into Google, and Harriet’s. Try Facebook, Instagram. Find nothing to excite me.
Occasionally I play dead, listening to the darkness: a peace that only occurs in the calm of night. The thoughts that swirl through the mind at that time tickle and torture in equal measure. It’s exhausting.
It’s Mum who keeps me awake, I know it is. She glides between the walls and floats beneath the floorboards. Her spirit is ever present. I hear every grunt and groan, every whimper. Suddenly I’m up, eyes wide, ears pricked, ready to spring into action.
The snoring is the worst, not because she sounds like an overweight builder after a skinful of booze. See, the actual snoring I can deal with: bizarrely, that’s the comforting part. It’s when it stops abruptly that I am riddled with panic. I can easily nod off to the rhythm of Mum’s snoring: my bedtime story, my hot milk. So I’m constantly checking on her, making sure she’s comfortable, that she’s not going anywhere.
Too often I find myself watching Mum sleep, following the laborious piston action of her stomach. And I pray. Well, not as such, but I do think if there’s a God up there, why does he allocate certain people this existence? The chosen few. Where does he bugger off to when disease raps? How does he decide who lives to a ripe old age and who doesn’t? Why does he let people die slowly, devastated by pain? Why does this God rob my family’s potential? This damn God is no friend of mine. And, as far as being my saviour, don’t make me vomit! Maybe that’s why you never hear his name uttered at any of the Poztive meetings. I guess we all feel abandoned by him. Might not even be a him.
I stand over her bed pretending she’s normal, that our little family is normal. I blank out the fact that her speech is regressing; becoming progressively more slurred by the day, with words that sound like gargled water. I visualise her walking without my help, or without those bloody sticks. And when we’re harping on about the future, I know it’s all bullshit, all pretence. Lou’s discussion with Roddy plays in my head: his pessimism and dour outlook rebooted my brain. You see, Mum’s getting gradually worse while we all jam our heads in the sand and stay mute. Mine jammed the deepest. I do all the intimate stuff; I stroke her bones, I know how her muscles work and I see the intense sadness and humiliation in her eyes because her seventeen-year-old child has to wipe her arse and wash her most private areas. And all I want to do is tell her that she should feel no shame, but for some reason I choose not to. I do the tasks impassively, as if she were a mannequin, a non-human. And that fucking shame is all mine.
The urge to slide into bed beside her and snuggle up tight is always a powerful one. To role reverse all the cuddling and cradling she gave us when we were toddlers. When I’m standing at Mum’s bedside in the quiet of night, the desire to pull her into my arms is so overwhelming that it envelops my entire body, like being grief-wrapped in cling film. And I don’t know how to navigate: I’m rudderless, directionless.
Now I think of my mother in that room, lying contorted, eyes planted on specific ceiling points. I can’t imagine where her mind travels to. I hope it’s to somewhere magical.