“You mean let her go like you did?” I said sharply.

“Hating me won’t help,” she replied. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“She’ll be in the hospital tomorrow.”

“That’s what I meant,” Roxy said. “We’d better start thinking about you. You should call Aunt Lucy.”

“I’ll never go to live with Aunt Lucy and Uncle Orman. You went out in the street. I will, too,” I said, and hung up on her.

After I gathered my thoughts, I called Uncle Alain. It was late in France, but I thought I should call him anyway. He was silent for a moment after I described Mama and what the nurse wanted us to do now, and then he said he would be here the day after tomorrow and would keep his return ticket open.

I couldn’t help myself. I finally began to cry, and cry hard. I felt terrible that I was doing it on the phone with someone who was too far away to reach out and embrace me. He tried with his words. He spoke softly, lovingly, in French and then in English. I listened, choked back my tears, and thanked him. Afterward, I went to tell Mama that he was coming. She surprised me by saying she wished he wouldn’t.

“I wish he would remember me only as I was,” she said. She wanted to say more, but her pain medicine kicked in, and she fell asleep.

I sat up most of the night, in the living room looking at albums. I saw the blank places from which Papa in his rage years ago had ripped out pictures of Roxy. Some of those pictures Mama had rescued, but there were many I imagined he had torn up or burned. For Mama’s sake, I went into the carton of pictures and things she had shown us and began putting some back in the albums. I would bring the albums to the hospital, I thought. It would give us both something to do. I was sure she would want to see them again.

Mrs. Ascott was at the house earlier the next day. The ambulance was not far behind. I felt helpless watching her get Mama ready. Every time Mama saw me watching, she smiled.

“You should just go to school, Emmie,” she said.

“No. I’m going with you.”

“Your mother’s right. They won’t take you, too, in the ambulance,” Mrs. Ascott told me.

It put me in a rage, and I stormed out and marched up the street, walking with my arms folded, my head down. It didn’t take me much longer than it took the ambulance to get to the hospital. They hadn’t even placed Mama in a room yet when I arrived, but they wouldn’t let me see her until they had. Finally, I went up. She was already hooked up to an IV bag and in and out of consciousness. I sat watching her, the rage I had felt earlier still thumping at my heart.

“How dare you die on me?” I whispered. “Papa is gone; you can’t go, too. How dare you leave me?”

I sat sulking like a little girl and didn’t even realize that Roxy was in the doorway.

“You should have gone to school,” she said.

I turned away from her, and she entered. “Is that what you would have done?”

“This could go on for a while, M. You can’t sit here day and night.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I said. I glared at her.

She sighed and looked at Mama. She was wearing a new winter coat now. It was red with a white fur collar. She had a white fur hat with splashes of red in it to match her coat, and she had another pair of knee-high polished leather boots. She wore dark blue slacks and a blue sweater beneath the coat. She took off her designer sunglasses and pressed her thumb and forefinger into her temples. All I could think of was that she didn’t look anything at all like a daughter grieving over her mother’s terminal illness.

“How many different outfits do you have?” I demanded.

She looked at me and laughed.

“What? Why are you laughing at me? My question is silly? You wear something expensive and new every day.”

“One of my clients is high up at one of the more exclusive department stores,” she said. “I get gifts in addition to spending my money on clothes. I like clothes. I’m not apologizing for—”

“For anything, I know. Why are you here, Roxy? Why did you come back now?”

“What do you mean? You came to me, didn’t you? You sent me letters and that charm bracelet.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. I looked at Mama. “I thought it would help her.”

“Maybe it has. I told you not to become bitter, M. It won’t change anything.”

“This isn’t right,” I said. Tears burned under my eyelids.

Tags: V.C. Andrews The Forbidden Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net