Sweet Ache

I fist my hands, the only reaction I can give when all I want to do is punch through the drywall beside me. She turns back to me, hands shoving, hysterics escalating, so that I can’t make out everything she’s saying but I do hear her say the comment that causes the burn of anger to comingle with the tears I refuse to shed. “You’re weak just like your father was.”

I grab on to her wrists as she continues to thump my chest even though they aren’t causing any real damage. The orderlies come in and help Hunter and me try to calm her down some, her head thrashing and arms flailing. I know they’re going to call the nurse in to medicate her if she doesn’t settle down so I do the only thing I can think of, the one thing that sometimes helps.

I begin to sing.

An old song that Aya, our nanny, used to sing to me when I had trouble sleeping after my dad died. When the sound and smell and image of that day would haunt my dreams so that I wanted to stay awake all night so I wouldn’t have to relive it. In my childhood naïveté I believed I could forget it. Fuck was I wrong.

I sing the foreign words that I held on to like a lifeline, some of their symbols inked on my skin still, and hope that it calms my mom so that she can forget: her cruel words, her pain, her mangled memories, her hatred of a tragic event a little boy had no control over.

I’m on the second verse when her resistance begins to abate. Her head sags down, her curses grow quieter, and then as we set her down on her bed, she begins crying. It’s so soft at first it takes me a moment to hear it but I kneel down in front of her, her hands still gripped in mine so that I can look up to her.

Her gaze meets mine and I see the confusion flicker in her eyes followed closely by panic. Her head whips back and forth looking at Hunter and me in a frantic haze as the fear takes hold. “Who are you? Why are you here?” She yanks her hands from mine and reaches for one of her purses on her bed and clutches it to her chest, fingers trembling, breathing rapid. “Joshua?” She yells, the name crippling every part of me. “Joshua?” Her voice escalates in pitch and in terror as she calls for my father.

“Mom! Mom!” I try to get her attention, break through her fear but feel as helpless now as I did standing with my dad.

“Mom?” She says as she looks back. “You’re not my son. My boys are young. Get away from me!” She yelps when I reach for her and scrambles as far away from me onto her bed as she can manage and curls into a ball, cowering.

“Mrs. Wilson,” the orderly says, and hearing someone call her the last name she insisted we abandon after his death is a jolt to my system. But she whips her head up and stares at him, eyes wide and expectant. “Joshua had to work late. He’ll be back later tonight.” I watch her absorb his words, and she gives little nods of her head as her breathing slows down. “He said to leave the—”

“Bathroom light on,” she finishes with a slight smile on her face that makes my heart ache so desperately I have to force the burn that’s back in my throat away. “Joshy doesn’t work at night though.”

“He has a dinner thing tonight.”

“Oh yes. With the Brooks firm. I forgot. Okay then.” She smiles at the orderly again and she seems so young, even the tone of her voice has softened and taken on a youthful quality. “Can you please see these strange men out? Josh would not be happy they’re here. You know he’s been known to throw a few punches in my honor.”

I’m a grown man—successful, famous, tatted up—and those last words, seeing my mom’s love for my dad before it turned bitter and resentful, have just reduced me to a child fighting back the sobs that are warring inside me.

My chest constricts with the pain, with the weakness I feel because I can’t bring him back…. I can’t get us back. My eyes meet Hunter’s and as we start to leave the room, I think of everything I can’t fix lately. But at the same time I know I’m looking at the one person I still can help.

As we leave I glance back at Mom through the open doorway and a part of me just needs her to be my mom again so badly. The one I remember from before. And I’m so desperate for the feeling of belonging, for the love, that there are days I consider dressing like Hunter and coming here to see her. Maybe then she’ll hold me in her arms and tell me she loves me. Maybe then she’ll not look at me and think of her weak son who did nothing to stop her husband’s suicide.

It’s a ludicrous thought. Even I know that, but it does nothing to abate that need I have deep down to hear her tell me she loves me one last time before her mind slips away for good. I swear to God it’s better to miss someone quietly than to let them know and get no response, because that lack of response? That’s the one that kills you.

The nurse comes in to give her her medication, and her appearance saves me from wanting to go back in and tell her good night. I wanted to wrap my arms around her small frame and feel her arms around me like she was hugging Hunter. I feel like a pussy, still needing that connection with her but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how tough you are, what shit life’s thrown at you, every fucking person still wants their mom at some point.

It’s like losing her over and over each time I see her even though she’s right there in front of me.

Chapter 10

QUINLAN

The lecture hall is noisy as I sit down in the last row as part of my perfectly timed entrance. I don’t want to see Hawkin, don’t want to deal with his bullshit—or the unexpected pang I feel at wanting him to look up and notice I’m there.