“I didn’t want you to come here. They did.” Sara gestures to the hospital staff milling about outside of her room.
She birthed me, but she doesn’t love me. I don’t think she can love. She can’t hurt me anymore with her words. She can’t beat me with her hands. She can’t touch me. She’s only my mother. That’s all. I repeat this and breathe deep.
“Say what you gotta say,” I fire back.
“I’m sorry ’bout what happened with Alice, son. We know the world is a dangerous place, don’t we?” She tries peeling the orange sitting on the table attached to her bed. Her dark brown fingers shake. “I mean people ain’t even safe in they own houses anymore. But the Bible says, ‘It rains on the just and the unjust.’” She shakes her balding head; a few stray gray hairs cover her white pillow.
“You’re quoting the Bible now?”
“Just sayin’ bad things happen to good people more than it ought to, I guess.”
My mouth waters, like it does right before I take my first drink of the evening, happy to let my problems melt away with a little liquor, but I don’t have a drink in my hand. I want one. My body wants it, but I’m not at home. And Alice isn’t at home.
“Are you sorry, I mean really sorry something bad happened to Alice?” I ask.
“Course I am! You wasn’t the only one who felt some sort of responsibility to that girl! When Naomi told me Alice was coming to Chicago for college, I promised to look after her. Couldn’t even do that right.”
Sara takes her mask and breathes in the oxygen once, twice, three times. Her collarbone rattles around, sharply jutting out from her skin. Her eyes hard set and drilling into mine. Naomi was one of Sara’s few friends she’d do anything for. I still don’t know how she got Sara’s love. What do you have to do for that? What do you have to sacrifice?
“Well, I don’t know what you promised Naomi you’d do for Alice. None of my concern anyway. I wasn’t even there.”
“Yeah, ’cause your ass was in prison for killin’ that boy... What was his name?” she asks, clumsily clawing at the fruit.
I snatch it from her hands, making short work of skinning it and placing the wedges in front of her. “Syrus. Syrus Myllstone,” I reply.
It was January. Before I met Alice. Before I had a business and a family. Before I became a good Christian man, I was sent to prison for killing a boy no older than me. The few times I’ve seen Sara in these last years, she always brings up my time downstate. Trying to hurt me, she dangles my past sins in front of my face as if she doesn’t have to answer for an abundance of her own.
“Considering the job you did raising me, it’s a wonder I didn’t kill someone sooner.” My stomach tightens. I swear I can smell the stale musty air of our old apartment, remember my stiff fingers cutting around the moldy bread to the edible parts.
“I did the best I could,” Sara retorts.
“Your best? Damn, Sara, I’d hate to see your worst.”
“Did you better than my daddy did me.”
“Least you knew your daddy.”
“Shut up, boy. Just...you don’t know so shut up talking about the past. Don’t do us no good, and I ain’t got enough of a future left to relive it.”
Next to her bed is a vase of dying roses and the picture of her and two girls. I can’t see the other faces all that clearly. It’s black-and-white, kinda blurry in a dirty silver frame. I saw it only one other time on her dresser next to some raggedy doll named Louisa. I snuck in her room trying to find a toy Sara took in one of her fits. She hit me when I touched the picture. She didn’t have any pictures of me.
“Why your fists clenched?” Sara asks.
I shrug. Often, I don’t notice one way or the other what my hands tend to do.
“Alice brought my picture to cheer me up. Make the place feel a little like home is what she said. She was a good wife. Not that good of a cook from what I remember, but a good wife to you at least.”
Sara chuckles empty and cruel. “Anyway, seeing as how they figure my old ass is gonna die from this cancer, they want some kin they can talk to and make arrangements. All I got is you, my son.” She coughs, a hard, phlegmy sound from her lungs. She grabs for her oxygen and takes big, deep gulps of air.
“I can see about talking to someone, but I got somewhere to be, Sara.”
She puts the mask down and sits up. “You disrespectful as hell, boy. I’m your momma.”
“If you acted like one, I might call you one.”
“If you was worth a damn, I might’ve claimed you more. Only thing you ever was good at was whining. If they gave out awards for that, you’d have at least been good at something, might have these hospital bills paid.”
“I provide for my family well enough.”
“No the hell you don’t. You don’t provide for me!”
“I don’t owe you a damn thing! Plus, I do better than you ever did.”
A wheeze and a smile cut across her face. “Tried to tell Alice about you before y’all got married but she had stars in her eyes and a baby in her belly. Still thought she could find a way to make her dreams come true. Dreams just childish. Thinking she could make people good. You can’t make people nothing. They are what they are.”
Her eyes are unfocused while she talks to me or more precisely at me; I could be air and she’d still ramble on. It’s probably the drugs they’re giving her. They make you loopy, like you’re talking to the past and present. I don’t know if she’s berating me or a ghost.
“Lotta good you did for her in the end. She prayed. She went to church and pretended things was fine and you stood by and acted like you was a good person, a holy person and people in church pretended right along with y’all.”
“So, you asked me to come here to fill out paperwork and talk shit about me and Alice?”
“Umm. I—I’m just saying you ain’t important. I ain’t either. You’re money in the collection plate. If you honest with yo’self, the real reason you even go is to make people think you a good person. It’s the only reason anyone goes. You go and dress up nice and pretty to cover up all the ugly things you do. Like God even hear us anyway. Remember, he the bully holding the magnifying glass—”
“And we’re the ants. Yep. You know everything.”
“Hmph. You just mad about what happened to Alice.”
“What do you know about any of it?”
“Just what I saw on the news. Caught Jackson on the TV talkin’ to a reporter. He looked nice, downright regal. They say they ain’t ruled out any suspects yet.” Her eyes hold mine searching for something deeper, an answer she won’t get from me. Not today. Not ever. “You don’t gotta say nothin’ to me about it. What goes on in your house, stays in your house. What goes on in my house, stays in mine. Am I right?”
“Yeah.” It’s the only thing I can say to her. Remembering that night. Ruby holding Alice in her arms as a small pool of blood became a red sea. The sirens and the questions. The bulging eyes and flapping mouths up and down the street.
“How’s Ruby? Not like she even know about me. Don’t know why I’m even asking after her.”
“You think I’d bring Ruby around you the way you act?”
“I’m still her family,” she fumes.
“She ain’t seen you since she was five.”
“Alice and you invited me to her birthday party. Well, Alice did—I know your ass didn’t want me there.”
“You drank too much like you do and damn near ruined the party, slurring your words, falling down everywhere.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I do. I remember. I’m happy Ruby never saw you after that.”
My throat burns. I walk up to her bed. She stuffs the last wedge of orange into her mouth, a bit of juice leaks from the left side of her mouth and she smiles. Like we’re having some pleasant conversation. Talking about good ole times.
Sara’s hooked up to all manner of machines, tall and short, skinny and wide. Blood and medicine and oxygen pumping through collapsing vein and deteriorating bone. But no doctor can remove whatever it is that made Sara so angry, so mean. No cure for that. It just is. Malignant.
“Well, Alice still came and saw me. Careful she was, careful about what she said and didn’t say, careful how she moved.”
God, just let her shut the hell up. Please!
“You always was a little shit. A little shit who thought the world owed him—”
I grab her sunken face with my right hand. I tighten my grip ever so slightly and watch her eyes grow wide. “The world didn’t give me anything I didn’t damn near kill myself trying to get. And even when you’re here, even when you’re dying, you can’t even pretend to act like you give a damn about me. So stop talking about shit you don’t know about.”
I let her face go. She massages her jaws staring at me more like an enemy than a son, but we are more foes than family.
She hisses, “I talk about what I goddamn well please! You don’t scare me. I seen monsters like you before. Ain’t nothin’ you can do to me. Nothin’ you can do to Alice anymore either. You tore her away bit by bit. You’re good at that.”
“Like mother, like son.”
“Bastard,” she mumbles.
Sunlight doesn’t shine on this side of the hospital yet, but I make out my reflection in the window to the right of Sara’s bed. Gray pinstripe suit, white dress shirt and a coral tie adding a pop of color. This shirt isn’t as crisply pressed and starched as I like it. Alice always ironed them better than I could. She knew I could be difficult when I didn’t get my way. But we gotta fight for everything we want. Sometimes kill for it. Everything. A nice suit. A friend. A good job after a five-year bid for manslaughter. A life.
Fight and kill. Those are your weapons. That’s how you live.
“Hello, Mr. King?” A doctor comes in the door, chocolate-tinged skin with a white coat. “The nurses told me you were here. I wanted to stop by and introduce myself, Dr. Liza Savoie.” I barely hear the click of high heels on the floor as she extends her hand to shake mine.
Walking over to Sara she gushes, “I also wanted to check on my favorite patient before the end of my shift.”
I’ve never known Sara to be referred to as a “favorite” anything. Ever. Maybe favorite pain in the ass. Favorite drunk. Favorite hell-raiser and child beater.
Dr. Savoie scans her chart; thick lips form a smooth grim line, and then a tight smile.
“Let’s talk about the latest results and our options,” she begins. “First, I’m sorry to say, but the cancer has metastasized to your liver and both kidneys. Now, we can continue with chemotherapy. However, with the current pace...”
“How much time I got?”
“I can look at some other options, Ms. King, if you’ll allow me...”
“How much time?”
“Two months. Probably less.”
Sara takes Dr. Savoie’s hand and, with more care, fake or otherwise, in her eyes than she could ever muster for me, says, “I made my peace with my God. I’ll take whatever comes.”
I’ve never seen Sara in a church. I’ve never seen her touch a Bible. Never heard her mention God’s name except to take it in vain. But it’s something to say to a doctor who thinks this old woman is someone worthy of saving, and if she can’t be saved, someone whose memory is worthy of keeping. And I see how good Sara is getting people to believe she’s vulnerable and sweet and loveable. Human.
We’re both good at pretending.
Sara never gave me much, but she taught me the shit that can help you survive in a world where dark skin and no money are liabilities. How to make people think you are what you’re not. Getting others to give what they wouldn’t willingly if they knew, really knew, who you were.
“I truly wish I had better news, but I’ll be back tomorrow so we can go over some more options including hospice care, if you want to go that route.”
Sunlight streams through the window now and I make out the thin watery film of tears as Dr. Savoie shakes my hand again and hurries out of the room.
“You give niggas a damn degree, they ass get all siddity. Using them ten-cent words to say you gonna die.”
And like that, she’s back. The real Sara. The one that doctor will never see.
“She seems to really like you so why you gotta be like that? You understand what she said. Why you care what words she uses?”
“Shit, my time is short. Don’t use five minutes to tell me what you can in one.”
Sara’s mouth puckers and she draws the thin bedsheet closer to her chest. “Women like that think they got something ’cause they wear a white coat and got a title. Just wasn’t place for that nonsense when I was younger. No place for dreams. I coulda done that. I was smart. Momma always told me I was smart.”
Dr. Savoie wasn’t that much younger than Sara. She probably went through a lot to have a white coat with her name on it. Saying this wouldn’t make a difference. Truth plain in front of her face rarely does. That’s why she had liquor I suppose. Easier to deal with your life at the bottom of a glass full of whiskey.
“Mmm-hmm, bet you’re gonna say your daddy said the same thing. Poor smart, sweet, innocent Sara.”
“Shut the hell up! You don’t know what you talking ’bout!” Sara’s body tightens, she grimaces and hits a small plastic button attached to the twisted artery of tubes and her body relaxes. Whatever liquid concoction she released takes hold quick. She tries to yell, but she’s whispering. In her head, Sara’s probably calling me all kinds of names like when I was a kid, but she mutters, “Don’t talk about...him...no right.” Her eyes glaze quickly and close. Her breathing is uneven and she whimpers like some wounded animal. And I’m at peace. Not because it’s quiet and she isn’t grumbling whatever cruel nonsense comes out her mouth.
I might be happy. Maybe not so much happy as I need Sara dying to mean something more to me. I’m scared it won’t. That’d make me even less human than I already feel. Who doesn’t feel something when their momma dies?
Me and Sara are tethered by time and hate, by blood and broken promises and dreams, and even more fractured beliefs of who’s guilty for what’s happened between us. Without Sara, who do I blame for...being me? Are children supposed to forgive their parents for the horrible things they’ve done? Alice begged me to see Sara, to listen to her story, find some understanding for why she is the way she is. Alice wanted me to do this for the sake of our family, for “our little girl Ruby,” she said. And I never listened, because my anger was righteous. It still is.
But what if I’d have forgiven Sara earlier? Would I have been different? I don’t know what a better man is supposed to look like. But maybe I wouldn’t feel like I’m almost underwater without my wife, so lost when I look at our kid who has that same look in her eyes for me, the same one I have for Sara. And I know that girl can do something about it. And the hate Ruby has for me is the same flavor I have for Sara. Salty with a little bit of smoke.
I have no answer to who Sara is to me and why she is the way she is, why I am the way I am, because whatever haunts her, haunts me. What I should do with her. There’s no action for this situation that seems whole enough to provide relief for the inside of me, the parts constantly churning and moving.
The nurses’ station is perched just outside of Sara’s door. Some of them type. Some of them are on the phone. Dr. Savoie calls my name right before I make my escape. “Mr. King, can I steal a few more minutes?” She shrugs on a long black wool coat. The muted clack of her feet ringing in my ears. I do my best to muster any semblance of sadness or sense of loss or anything a son about to lose his mother would feel. Something other than relief.
“Mr. King... I again want to...”
“What’s up, Doc?” I chuckle. “I’m sorry, I just...”
“It’s fine. I’ve heard it all.” An easy smile graces her face. Like the kind Alice had when we first met. The one I hadn’t seen in years until I witnessed it a final time in her open casket.
“Mr. King, your mom needs you. She’s a fighter—”
“That she is, Doc.”
Her eyes go wide for a brief moment as she continues, “I know she puts up a tough front, but Sara’s scared. Having someone there for her, to hold her hand can make these next days easier, for both of you. Maybe easier isn’t the best word, but I...well I hope to see you more.”
“Sara doesn’t need anybody.” I can’t snatch back those words after they escape my mouth. “What I mean to say is she’s tough and she deals with things the way she deals with them, and sometimes it’s alone. That’s her way. It’s best to leave her be.”
Her mouth opens to respond, but she thinks better of it and squeezes my shoulder.
“I appreciate your help and you being so nice to her,” I say.
She smiles that smile again. “Well, you know your mom, but we all need someone. Connection is a human thing. We all recognize that especially if there’s something...propelling us to an inevitable conclusion.”
Sara is right. Dr. Savoie uses too many words.
“What I mean to say, Mr. King, is to visit her if and when you can as much as you can handle. I’m sure your mom will appreciate it and, in the end, so will you.”
She glides to the bank of elevators beyond the clustered desks and computer screens, past the glossy pictures of doctors pretending to care for patients with rosy cheeks and hope in their eyes. I start to follow when I hear my name again. A nurse with flat dark eyes and golden skin motions me to the desk.
“Mr. King, we still need the rest of your mother’s insurance information.”
“I’m not sure what it is. I don’t really handle that.”
Alice begged me to visit Sara before all this. In that cramped, dirty apartment, where my childhood was broken off into my blood on the floor, and the men in her room and the light in the refrigerator with no food.
“Well, do you know who does, because we have to contact them in order to maintain care and we can’t do that without—”
“Money. Yeah, I get it. What’s the balance?”
“I don’t have the current information, sir. Accounts Receivable would deal with that.”
“Give me an estimate,” I say, my voice starting to rise.
The nurse’s tiny nose goes slightly in the air and she closes her eyes though I can see the slight roll of them under her lids. “Sir, as I said, I don’t have the current information. So anything I say...”
“Goddamn it! Just tell me what the hell I need to know!”
The rest of the nurses’ eyes cut in our direction, a pack of wolves ready to protect their own.
“Mr. King, I’m gonna need you to lower your voice!” She smooths her crisp uniform as if it had wrinkled from my shouting. “If you don’t have your mother’s information, there are programs that can subsidize her care. Medicare. Medicaid. I’m sure you can visit one of those offices and they can help you. I’m trying to let you know what’s coming.”
“Help? Yeah if that’s what you call it. I’ll get my own subsidy or grant or whatever,” I say softer.
“Of course you will.” The fake politeness drips from her thin lips as a smile mars her ashen face.
Death isn’t the hard part. It’s the money it takes to die. Money I got tied up in other things and doesn’t deserve to be spent on Sara, on a mother, even if she’s my own.
But we all need a backup plan and I have the church. And I ain’t planning on praying for money either. I just have to ask for it. Church folk, folk like my wife, Alice, would say ask in Jesus’s name. I don’t have to ask Jesus though. I just have to ask Reverend Jackson Potter Sr.
Problem solved. Prayer answered. Ain’t God good?