Sweet Ache

Now, if I only had her phone number.

“I see you figuring your angles on how to fix this over there Hawky-boy … but it’s going to take a whole lot more than you think. A woman scorned is a whole different animal than a groupie….”

I laugh. “Yeah, they leave bite marks.”

“Hey, a little pain never hurt anybody,” he muses with a slow nod of his head and a tip of his bottle back up.

My phone breaks through our comfortable laughter. Vince looks down at my phone sitting on the soundboard next to him. “Westbrook,” he says, holding the phone out to me.

Fuck. Dread rifles through me. They never call for good news. “Hello?”

“Mr. Play, please.”

“Is my mom okay?” I ask like I don’t know what’s coming next.

“She’s quite agitated. I’ve called your brother but he isn’t answering. We can either give her something to calm her down or—”

“I’m on my way.” I blow out a breath and give Vince a look he knows all to well.

I grab my keys on the run, the familiar burden of responsibility a son should never have weighing heavy on my shoulders. I just wonder how much longer I’ll be able to carry the brunt of it before my back breaks.

Weak is not an option.

Chapter 9

HAWKIN

The beige walls are supposed to be warm and comforting to the residents but in my mind they do nothing but reinforce my mother’s institutionalization here. The dreary color serves as a steady reminder that she’s so far beyond my ability to help that I have to pay other people to do the job that I no longer can.

I can take the number one spot on every chart in the world with the songs I sing, the lyrics I write, the beats I create, but none of it really matters because I can’t take care of my mother. When will the rest of the world realize that I’m a phony? That I’ve sold out as a son, failed to take care of her as I’d promised Dad, and that I’ve left her with strangers to deal with her so that I don’t have to?

Riding shotgun beside my guilt is the relief. Even that thought causes more guilt to spiral within me as the soles of my shoes squeak down the monochromatic hallways. Because without the daily interaction I was so used to, there’s no opportunity for her to unleash her disdain of me, her spite, her disappointment. Yes, I know it’s her disease talking most of the time but that knowledge does nothing to abate the searing ache of the loss of my mother.

Of the mother who once loved me.

And of the only woman I’ve loved. I’ve spent a lifetime building walls to keep everyone at arm’s length and yet with a single phone call, a single word from her, she can bring me to my knees in all senses of the word.

She can make me weak.

I shake off the morose thoughts, force myself to push away the memories from earlier that are still clouding the edges of my mind.

“Hawke!” Hunter’s voice calls from behind me, and as pissed as I am right now over all of his shit from earlier, a part of me is relieved that I don’t have to do this by myself. It’s better not to face her alone since he is the one that somehow calms her.

So I stop walking, letting the reprimands die on my tongue because this isn’t the time or place, and wait for him. “Nice of you to show up. Next time pick up your damn phone.” Those are the nicest words I have for him, so I stop there, before I turn and keep walking the familiar path.

Muted televisions play as we pass by rooms with open doors but for the most part there is a peaceful calm over the unit when we approach the nurse’s station. The nurse, Beth, raises her head as Hunter and I approach.

“Thanks for coming,” she says, repeating the same thing she says on my at least twice-weekly urgent visits here.

“What’s going on?” Hunter asks.

“How is she?” I ask at the same time.

“Dr. Manning had thought the sundowning had peaked,” she says, referring to the syndrome with dementia patients where they become more agitated, revert to a previous time period in their life, and in most cases it occurs from sundown to sunup. I know this is her polite way of saying my mom’s Alzheimer’s has progressed to a more advanced stage. “Tonight, though, she’s been extremely distressed—more so than normal. We’ve been able to placate her by making sure she has all of her handbags with her.”

I nod my head at Beth, grateful they’ve accepted my mom’s need to have her purses with her—for some reason they help to calm her when she becomes agitated. The doctor doesn’t understand why but has heard of it in a few other cases, and instructed the staff to let her have the purses if needed to calm her down and bring her back to the present.

“Okay, thanks,” I tell her as Hunter moves ahead of us and toward our mom’s room.

“It’s almost as if something is really getting to her today,” she says as I start to walk past the desk.

Hunter continues in, and I stop and hang my head for a moment before meeting her eyes. “I’m not sure but we’re approaching the anniversary of my dad’s suicide,” I tell her, voice quiet, memories colliding in my mind. The day our lives changed forever.

The catalyst.

One moment in time when a person’s inherent makeup can determine whether they are going to overcome or succumb to an obstacle … fight or flight … sink or swim. Too bad what most individuals don’t realize is even if you swim, that doesn’t mean everyone else around you will too. Regardless of how strong you are for them all…. You become the life preserver while everyone else holds on, fingers gripping, hands slipping, hope waning, until they drag you down with them.