There is quiet whispering behind me, and then the footsteps move closer. Yasmin slips past me and holds open the door to the room. She pulls back the covers, and I place Mom down in the middle of the bed.
The night nurse rushes after us and starts adjusting the covers and checking her breathing and pulse. We asked her to give us some space today, so we could spend it as a family without her hovering over us, a constant reminder of all the bullshit that our lives have become. All of us needed a little bit of normality, if only for one day.
The nurse, Agatha, I think, lifts her head and finds us watching. “She’s fine; you should go and get some rest,” she whispers, offering me a kind smile.
I nod, but my feet are glued to the ground. It’s only when Yasmin tugs at my hand that I finally start moving.
I let her pull me out of the room and up the stairs toward my room.
“You should take the room. I’m…”
Yasmin presses her finger against my lips, shushing me.
“You’re dead tired on your feet, Nixon. You have to sleep, and you won’t get that on the couch.”
“I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes…” I shake my head, not even wanting to go there. “I can’t shut my mind off long enough to fall asleep.”
“Let me help you.”
Yasmin rises on her toes, her lips pressing softly against mine. My throat bobs as I swallow. I shouldn’t let her do this. I shouldn’t use her like that, she deserves so much better.
As if she can read my mind, she repeats, “Let me.”
Taking a step back, she tugs at my hand. I don’t resist her. Not when she leads me to bed. Not when she kisses me softly. Not when she helps me take off my clothes. And certainly not when she lets me forget everything and lose myself in her body.
Loud banging wakes me up. It’s like somebody has taken a hammer and it’s banging against my brain. I jump upright, the covers falling to my lap. Confused, I look around, noticing the details of the room surrounding me. Blue walls, king-sized bed, trophies… My room. I’m home.
“Nixon!” Jade’s panicked voice breaks me out of my stupor. I jump out of the bed, looking around the room until my eyes land on the sweats I had on yesterday discarded on the floor.
“Coming!” I pick them up and start pulling them on.
“What’s going on?” Yasmin’s sleepy voice comes from the bed. I give her a quick look; she’s sprawled on the bed, her hair a mess of curls spread over my pillow. The pillow that we shared last night.
After we…
Pushing the thought away, I concentrate on here and now. “No idea, but Jade’s upset.”
She lifts her head off the pillow, her face turning serious instantly.
“I have to go and see what’s going on.”
Not waiting for her response, I turn on the balls of my feet and slide into the hallway. I almost crash into Jade, who’s waiting on the other side of the door. My hands land on her shoulders to steady her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her, my heart going into overdrive at the sight of her. She’s still in her pajamas, her hair a mess, and there are tears streaming down her cheeks.
“M-Mom,” she stutters.
One word. That’s all it takes. Letting go of my sister, I sprint down the stairs. The pounding of my feet matches the hectic beat of my heart echoing in my eardrums. I don’t slow down or stop until I’m standing in the doorway of my mother’s room, where two nurses are working on her.
“She’s breathing,” one of them says, hooking her to machines.
Breathing?
“What the hell happened?” I demand, not knowing what to do, where to look.
“She stopped breathing for a moment there, but we have her stabilized,” the nurse from last night, at least I think it’s her, explains, not even bothering to look at me as she resumes her work.
Stopped breathing.
Stopped… breathing.
Stopped…
Jade sobs somewhere behind me. I turn around to find her but Yasmin’s there, her arms wrapped around my sister’s shaking shoulders as she tries to soothe her. But there is no soothing this pain. The wreckage that caused these wounds is too grave, leaving scars that will never be able to heal.
I catch Yasmin’s gaze and find tears pooling in her eyes. She murmurs something to Jade I can’t hear, but whatever it is seems to calm her a little.
We stay on the side, letting the nurses work. They hook Mom to more machines, the insistent beep-beep-beep measuring her heart rate filling the room. I hate and love that sound with equal ferocity. It’s a sign that she’s still alive, her heart still beating, but at the same time it’s counting down slowly until her heart gives up completely on us.
Finally, the nurses give us the go-ahead and leave. Not waiting a second, I move closer to the bed, sitting on the very edge and taking Mom’s hand in mine. At some point, they hooked her to an IV. I trace the prominent veins on her hands before covering her cold one with mine. It swallows hers completely. The hand that once held mine as she introduced me to the world around me, the hand that soothed my pains and fears, the hand that led me to my first day of school, my first practice, gave me my first football, brushed away my tears, has now come to this.
I’m not sure how long I sit there just holding her hand.
“You should get something to eat,” Yasmin says from behind me, her hands landing on my shoulders and giving them a firm squeeze.
“Not hungry.”
“She wouldn’t want this for you, Nixon.”
“She isn’t awake to say so, now is she?” I snap at her.
I expect her to back off, but she doesn’t even flinch. Closing my eyes, I force myself to take a deep breath and count to ten; only when the tension in my shoulders eases a little do I look at her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
Yasmin doesn’t deserve my anger, not when she did her best to make things easier for me. For all of us. She shouldn’t let me slide just so she doesn’t upset me.
“It’s not,” she agrees. “You can make it up to me by going to the kitchen and getting some coffee and pancakes into your grumpy ass.”
“Yasmin…”
She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a hard, you-don’t-want-to-mess-with-me look. “I’ll stay with her while you eat. You don’t want to be an asshole when she wakes up, now do you?”
When she puts it like that, what can I say?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
YASMIN
True to my word, I take Nixon’s place, taking one of his mother’s hands between mine as I watch her chest rise and fall at a slow but steady pace.
Although still pale and thin, sleeping like this she looks peaceful, almost… normal.
“I’m afraid that losing you will break him,” I confess softly, the empty room my only companion. Mindlessly, I trace the lines on her hands with the tip of my finger.
I’ve never seen somebody care so much as Nixon does for his mother and sister. But when you lose an integral part of yourself, you learn how to love the ones that stayed fiercely. I know that better than most people. And Nixon, Nixon loves more fiercely than most.