Game Changer (The Field Party)

“Hello,” I said, wanting to hear my mom’s voice and realizing I needed to. I missed her. She was home. I didn’t miss the house, but I missed her.

There was a pause and I closed my eyes, preparing myself for her to hang up. To back out. “Mom,” I said. I wanted to plead, “Please don’t hang up.” But I didn’t.

“This isn’t your mother,” a voice I didn’t miss said over the line. He wasn’t dead. He sounded okay. He was beating Covid just fine. At least he sounded like he was. Not surprising.

I didn’t reply. It was me who was ready to hang up.

“Your mother has Covid. She’s in the hospital. The ambulance took her last night. She was… struggling.”

Images of my mother, her smile, her laughter, her attempts at cooking, the way she would tuck me in when I was little and reassure me when I was scared. All of it came rushing back, and the ache I had been feeling over missing her exploded in my chest. This was not supposed to happen. I needed to see my momma. I missed her and now this.

“What hospital?” I asked.

“Franklin, but no one is allowed to see her. No one is allowed in hospitals right now.” He stated this as if I didn’t fucking know it already. I had seen the news.

“Okay,” I said, ready to end this call so I could call the hospital and talk to a nurse. I didn’t want information from the man who had made my mother sick. He had probably done it on purpose. He had stayed in the damn house with her. Selfish bastard.

Before I could waste more time, I said, “Thanks,” and hung up. I didn’t care how he was doing. He was at home. He sounded fine. Even if he wasn’t, I didn’t give a fuck. My momma was in a hospital alone. I hadn’t seen her in four months, and now she was beyond my reach.

Guilt, shame, regret coursed through me as I searched for the number to Franklin on Google, then called the number. I should have checked on her. I should have gone to see her or fucking called her. I wanted to hear her voice now more than ever. I needed to know she was okay. She was going to make it. I needed my momma.

My heart was racing as I waited for the operator to connect me to her floor. She said the nurses’ station could give me updates if I was immediate family. When someone finally answered after five rings, I said my mother’s name again and told the nurse that I was her son, that my father had just called me to tell me.

The world felt wrong. Tilted. Off its axis as if it would never straighten again. I wanted my momma. Now. I’d not felt anything like this since I was a kid. Knowing I could lose her made me frantic, yet there was not a damn thing I could do.

“She’s on a ventilator. Right now, that’s all I can tell you. Call back tomorrow morning after the doctor makes his rounds. If anything changes before then, your father will be notified.”

That didn’t fucking help me at all. My father was a bastard. He wouldn’t keep me updated. “Can you call me? I’m… my father and I aren’t on good terms. He may not tell me.”

She didn’t respond right away, and I prepared myself to beg if needed. “I’ll try. I can’t promise someone else will if I’m not here, but I will make a note on her file. Name and number?”

I gave it to her and she said she’d do her best, then ended the call.

I sat there staring at the wall with the phone still in my hand. There was nothing I could do. Not one damn thing. I’d thought the night on the bridge was my darkest moment. I was wrong. Life could get worse. This was worse. My momma lying alone on a ventilator in a hospital where I couldn’t get to her was worse. I needed to call my abuela and tell her. She hated my father and vice versa. He wouldn’t tell her. I was lucky he had told me.

Making the call right now and saying the words seemed impossible. My throat was thick with emotion, my chest throbbed with fear, and I had never been more alone in my life. Even when my momma wasn’t calling me, when she sent me away, when she didn’t even try to see me… knowing she was there helped. I thought I had time. That we had time. That she would eventually call and we would heal what had been damaged. I’d thought this summer I was alone, but I realized now I didn’t understand the meaning of alone until this moment.