How am I supposed to kill my own mother? Even if it is to help her. What kind of son would that make me?
“She doesn't want to die like that, Draven.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“No,” I lean back against the boxes of Christmas ornaments. “There's no way I could kill my own mother. How would I live with myself afterward?”
“But if it's what she wants...”
“What about what I want?!” I can feel the tears in my eyes. My mother is all I have left! I already lost my father and my sister, and I don't want to lose my mother as well. “I don't want to lose my mother, Draven.”
“Nobody does, Tony, but put yourself in her position. Would you want to die not remembering anything about your life, your children, even your own name?”
I roll my neck and crack away the tension. Draven isn't saying anything that I haven't already thought about. If anyone else in the world had asked me to help them die, I wouldn't even hesitate to do it. However, this is my mother we're talking about, the woman who gave me life. My heart is breaking knowing that I'm going to lose her, let alone the fact she wants me to do this.
“I don't want her to suffer, Draven, that's the last thing I want.”
“But you can feel your heart breaking knowing this is happening to her?” I nod my head. “I understand how hard this is for you, Tony. I also know it won't be easy to watch your mother deteriorating the way she will over the next few months. When my grandmother was alive, she had Alzheimer’s, and she once told me how it was like a fog in her brain. She told me that she couldn't recall what she'd done in the last hour, and how some days, it was like everyone was a stranger. I couldn't imagine being so frightened all the time, especially when the people you're afraid of are the people you love the most.
“No one will ever think less of you for helping your mother, Tony. Alessia deserves the best of everything, and to spend what time she has left being happy. Don't let her waste her life locked in this house alone. No one deserves that.
“Whatever she needs, she will have. We'll make sure somebody is with her at all times. Well, within reason, or until she can no longer manage alone. When the time comes that she no longer wants to be here, and if you can't bring yourself to do what she wants, then I will.”
I knew he'd say that. Not because he's being a jerk, or that he wants to make me feel like a failure, but because he wants to help my mother.
“How will I know when she wants to die, Draven? How will I know when she won't even know what day it is?”
“You will just know, Tony. The look in her eye will tell you.” I close my eyes for a moment and breathe deeply. This is eating me up inside, and I don't know what to do. Not yet at least, and to be frank, I don't want to know. “Why don't you take some time off?”
I shake my head, that's the last thing I want. “I'm already taking this weekend off with Amy.”
“You need some real time off, Tony. This whole thing won't be easy.”
“I know. I'll take some time once Simpson is out of the way.”
Draven clasps my shoulder. He knows I'm a man of my word, and I gave my word to help get Paul Simpson out of the way so Marnie could find peace. Once the job is done, I'll take my family on vacation somewhere my mother will love. Paris, maybe. She's always wanted to go there, and I want to give her everything I possibly can before it's no longer possible. “Why don't we go see Alessia? It's time she rejoined the party.”
I nod my head at him. He's right; my mother shouldn't be locking herself away when there's a party going on right down the hall.
“Mom?” She's already in the hallway when I leave the closet. She's standing still and staring into space. “You okay?”
“Huh?” I take her hand in mine as she looks at me in confusion.
My mother has tried so hard to hide her illness from everyone, but it's now getting to the point there is no way she can hide it any longer. I don't want to take over her life, but I can't leave her alone in this house any longer. I'm scared she'll forget to blow out the candle she leaves burning for my dad and sister before she goes to bed, or that she'll leave the cooker on. I'm scared she'll end up dead because no one was around to make sure she's safe.
Alessia De Luca spent her life taking care of others. She gave me a lifetime of love, and I will not abandon her because of this. It would be easy to put her somewhere I wouldn't have to worry about taking care of her. So very easy. I'm not taking anything away from those who find it hard towards the end and go down that route, but I could never do that.
I look at her and the way she's looking at me as though she's struggling to recall my name, and my heart shatters. I wasn't as honest with Draven as I should have been. My mom has been struggling for months, and she's only getting worse. I buried my head in the sand because I didn't want to admit the truth to myself.
“Mama?”
She smiles brightly and cups my cheek. “Tony.” She blinks as though blinking away the fog in her mind, and it's all coming back to her once again. “What are you doing out here? Amy must be wondering where you are.”
“I came to find you. We haven't had our mother-son dance yet.”
“You look worried, Tony.” She has no idea how worried I truly am. “I'm sorry that I can't spare you from this. I can...”
“No,” I cut her off because I know what she's going to say. I wrap my arms around my mother and hold her gently. “You aren't going anywhere. I'm going to take care of you, Mama. Right to the very end, I promise.”
My mother sobs in my arms, she's so frightened, and I have no way of taking that fear from her. Draven tips his head to let me know he'll give me a moment alone with my mother. I nod my head, silently thanking him for being a true friend when I need one.
My eyes find Amy's. I had no idea she was standing behind my mother, watching us with tears in her eyes. She's been my rock these past few months. I don't know what I'd do without her.
I hold my hand out to Amy. She wipes the tears from her cheeks and comes to me. She wraps one arm around my mother, and the other around my waist, and I hold them both to me for a moment.
Mom pulls away. “That's quite enough of that; we have guests. The hosts cannot be hiding in hallways. Besides, didn't you say something about a mother-son dance?” She smiles at me, and for now, she's my mom again.
“Come on, baby, let's get back out there.”
“I'll go anywhere with you, husband of mine.” She leans up and kisses me. “We'll get through this together, Tony. We're a family, and family sticks together.
Always.
Chapter Twenty
Marnie
Oh, Brooke, he's beautiful!”
“Thank you,” My sister smiles sleepily, happily, contentedly.
Brooke gave birth in the early hours to her second son, DJ, or Dante Junior as is his official name. Hawk called me the second the baby was born. Okay, not the second, but within the first ten minutes. Draven wouldn't allow me to come to the hospital when Hawk called at 3: AM, and I was not pleased, at all. Brooke was asking for me, Hawk told me so.
I was so gutted that I couldn't be there with her that I cried. I wasn't trying to emotionally blackmail Draven into taking me, but I felt hurt that he flat out refused to let me go until 9: AM. He said that would be a reasonable time to go after I'd had a few hours sleep. I mean, six hours? How would I be able to rest that long?
Even though I was hurt, even though I desperately wanted to leave then and there, I didn't cause an argument. The old me would have, the old me would have screamed that he couldn't tell me what to do. The new me is too pregnant to fight with him. Not that the hormones don't make me a snappy bitch on occasions, but I always tell myself that if it weren’t for Draven, I'd be in the gutter right now. That's why I just wiped my eyes, nodded and turned over in bed. I wouldn't be able to f
all asleep, but I could pretend.
It took Draven fifteen minutes to throw back the sheets and tell me to get dressed, and he'd take me to his sister. I was so excited that I jumped all over him, kissing the big bad Don all over his face and telling him how much I loved him. He made it out like it was no big deal, trying to keep up the macho thing he does when around people. Not that he needs to do that with me, but I guess it's ingrained in him; however, I could see the smile he was trying to hide from me.
Draven and I arrived at the hospital at 3.45: AM, and I've been cuddling my new nephew for half an hour now. He's adorable, and I can tell already he's going to look more like his father than Gabriel does. That little boy looks like his mamma, but DJ, I can tell, is going to have a shade darker skin than his brother, and he's going to be his father's mirror image.
“I can't wait to see what your little one looks like.”
“Nor can I.” I look at Draven and smile, and he winks at me from his seat beneath the window.
Holding this baby boy brings back so many memories of my little girls when they were born, I got to spend so little time with them. I will never forget what it felt like to hold them, to breathe them in, to tell them how loved they were by me.
There are no real words to describe how it feels to know your child is out there somewhere and you can't get to them. The only pain more significant would be the death of a child, and that's one thing I never want to experience.
Will this feeling of failure ever leave me?
I've been my brains in wondering what life would have been like if I'd only snuck away in the middle of the night with my girls the way Brooke did with Gabriel. I have no real excuse as to why I didn't, but Peter locking me in at night was a big factor. Then there was the fact I'd been hoping my father would allow me to take Amber to a doctor to get her checked out.