A Mother's Goodbye

‘Don’t worry, only the good things are.’

‘Yes,’ she murmurs as she falls back asleep. ‘Only the good things.’

I call Stella when Grace’s asleep. We’ve developed a strangely intimate relationship over the last few days, conducted through texts and phone calls, pictures she sends for me to show to Grace, while I give her halting, grief-ridden updates. I hear the warmth in her voice when she talks of Isaac and her children, and it comforts me. There’s not a single pang of envy or shard of regret in me when I hear her voice, and I recognize the love she already has for Grace’s son.

Then I call Kevin. When I had told him I needed to stay with Grace, he didn’t offer one word of protest. He just said ‘Of course.’ I loved him all the more for it.

He is my rock now; taking time off work, talking me through it all, helping me to be strong, knowing how important this is. How beautiful, in its own painful way. Because this is painful, all of it, even as it feels right to be here, to be a part of it. And Kevin is a part of it, as well. When I told him I’d said no to Grace, that we wouldn’t take Isaac back, he just hugged me. He offered me comfort, because he knew how much I was hurting. Just as he does now.

‘How’s Amy?’ I ask Kev on the second night, my body aching with tiredness, my eyes gritty. Grace is dozing fitfully, twitching, her eyes fluttering open before she sinks back into sleep. She hasn’t eaten anything in nearly eighteen hours.

‘She’s all right. Quiet. She hasn’t gone anywhere. Out, I mean.’

‘Is she going to be okay?’ I ask Kev, as if he can tell me. As if he knows.

‘She’ll get there. We all will. It’s just going to take some time.’ And I decide to believe him, because I need to believe in my family, the family I chose seven years ago, and am choosing now.

Later, when Grace has lapsed into a deeper sleep, Dr. Stein comes in and checks on her. Her forehead is furrowed as she reads the notes clipped to the end of the bed and then checks Grace’s pulse, scans her face. I hold my breath.

Dr. Stein gives me a quick, sympathetic look. ‘Not long now,’ she murmurs, and I am jolted, as if by electricity.

‘You mean…?’

‘I’d say no more than twelve hours.’ She pats my hand and leaves. I stare at Grace, fighting an urge to shake her awake, to somehow make these last hours count. I think of Isaac, and my chest hurts. Everything does.

Outside dusk is falling, the sun sinking below the buildings, making the dozens of windows shimmer like gold. I pace the little room, stretch my legs. Wait.

My mind starts to reel back, a montage of what-if moments. When I first saw Grace’s profile on the internet. When I first mentioned her to Tina. When I first met her. I had no idea back then how our lives would become so intertwined, so intimate.

And then, of course, seven years of visits. Of silent, crackling tension and quick, sharp looks. A world of conversation in pointed glances, suppressed sighs, thinned lips. What if we’d hammered out our objections, admitted our fears, back when Isaac was a baby? Would things have been different? Could we have become friends a long time ago, instead of now, when it feels so late? But not quite too late.

Maybe we needed everything to happen the way it did, messy and complicated and unplanned, so we could be where we are now. Where we need to be.

Grace opens her eyes. They look bright, almost green, and her mouth curves in a faint smile. My heart turns over and I sit down next to her.

‘Can I get you something?’

She licks her lips and shakes her head. ‘I thought Isaac was here. He was a baby, sitting on the floor, smiling up at me. At us.’ She closes her eyes briefly. ‘I know it’s not true, but it’s so strange.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’

‘It’s the morphine, Grace.’

‘I know.’ She opens her eyes. ‘My father was the same.’ She looks at me, maybe taking in how bedraggled I must look after spending two days and nights on the hospital floor. ‘Have you been here long?’

I know she doesn’t really have any sense of time. ‘Not very long.’

She falls back asleep, and at some point I do too. When I wake up something feels different, it’s almost as if the air has changed. I jerk upright and check on Grace; she’s still breathing, but more slowly, her head tilted to one side, her body slack. It’s as if something vital has left her, something I didn’t even realize she still had to

lose. My heart starts to race.

A couple of hours pass and no one comes in. It’s as if we’ve been forgotten, as if we’ve entered some Twilight Zone of reality, of life, a hovering between one thing and the next.

She stirs, twitching restlessly, and I take her hand and clasp it between mine. Her bones feel hollow, her skin dry and papery. Everything so light.

Autumn sunshine pours through the windows. It’s a beautiful September day, the kind of day when you feel like starting something new; going on a jog or making something fancy for dinner. Breathing life in deep.