Page 6

Janelle made a quick trip home, had a shower, and changed. By the time she was back, her mother had been moved to the new room. She sat down beside her and whispered, “It’s okay, Mom.”

Her mother’s eyes opened briefly, and she stared at her without recognition.

She smiled at her and whispered, “I’m here. I’m right here.”

Her mother didn’t even nod. She just seemed to drift in and right back out again.

With a sigh, Janelle settled in to watch over her mother.

The nurse walked in and asked, “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. It just seems interminable.”

“It is. Absolutely. You want it to go by faster, then you feel terribly guilty when you realize you’re hoping for someone to hurry up and die.”

“ Ugh .” She looked over at her with a shrug. “And I don’t want her to die at all, but this pain that she’s going through is so hard to watch that I don’t want it to continue for another minute.”

The nurse smiled and nodded. “Don’t let guilt get to you. Some things in life you can change, and others you cannot. So just adjust as much as you can and be there for her when she’s awake. You should be good in here. We are still getting her into hospice though.”

Janelle just nodded and didn’t say anything because the thought of her mother being moved yet again didn’t seem likely. It seemed more like she was now in a very tiny corner of the hospital, where people were prepared to wait her out. It sounded terrible, but Janelle was under the impression that hospitals always had a complete shortage of beds, so this waiting element didn’t necessarily make sense to her from a for-profit hospital viewpoint.

And again nobody seemed to care. She had her ideas, and everybody else had theirs, as far as she could tell. But it also wasn’t in her to judge. She was grateful they had taken a moment to move her mother as it was. And now that the move was completed and her mother was back to sleep again, Janelle could hopefully settle down and relax. She had brought a lot of work with her. Using a small lap table, she sat down, hoping to get some work done.

When Jasper popped by a little later, she looked up at him and smiled. “We got this much done. Mom is in a new room.”

He nodded. “Any sign of your fake doctor person?”

She shook her head. “No, not at all.”

“Good.”

“Is it good though?” she asked in a wry tone.

“Yeah, because, if he finds you, it could be for all the wrong reasons, so chin up.” He looked around and noted, “We tried to get you located away from the normal hospital rooms, but still where you could call out for help if you needed to.”

“Oh my, I hadn’t even considered that.”

He laughed. “You can thank Guilliam for that.”

She nodded, her smile falling away.

Jasper added, “It sounded like you were hoping to be friends again.”

“Honestly, I would like to be a whole lot more than friends with him again,” Janelle replied. “I made some tough decisions back then and chose to take care of my mother.” She cast a glance back at the frail woman in the hospital bed. “How do you walk away from a woman who devoted her life to you? So, when she gets sick, you need to decide on what you will do. I decided to focus 100 percent of my attention on my mother. What I didn’t think through at the time was that I didn’t need to stop or abandon every other aspect of my life to do that. That was the mistake I made,” she admitted. “And, yes, I do believe I’m paying for it.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

“It would be nice if he would forgive me.”

“I’m not sure if forgiveness is the issue. I think it’s probably trust. Realizing that, when push comes to shove, you’re not number one is difficult because chances are, if something comes up again, you won’t be number one again. So how can you ever be okay with not being number one, when you feel like you should be, even in a circumstance like this?” he shared, with a smile. “I do know that he was head over heels in love with you.”

“Yeah. And that’s what hurts.”

He shrugged. “Everything takes a bit of time. He did arrange for you to be moved here, so he’s certainly not indifferent.”

“Maybe. And maybe he’s just making sure that, if I have any other information, I’m ready and available to give it to you,” she quipped.

He asked, “Do you?”

“I don’t think so. I get that it’s not something to joke about, yet it’s hard to understand just what else I could offer,” she said. “You know who the fake doctor is now. So I’m sure you’re looking for him. He’s got a record, or at least I presume he does, since he’s known to you and in a mugshot book already. He’s bound to have an unsavory past of some kind.”

Jasper nodded, then brought out a picture and asked, “Do you know this man?”

She looked at it and frowned. “No.”

“If you see him, let us know immediately.”

“Sure,” she agreed, taking another look at the picture. “Any particular reason?”

“Just somebody of interest, but not necessarily in a negative way. So, if you do see him, I don’t want you approaching him.”

She winced. “Right. That again.”

“Yes, that again,” he declared, his voice hardening. “We can’t have that.”

“Right. Fine, fine, fine,” she muttered, with a wave of her hand. “I’m just staying out of everything at this point.”

“Yeah, let me know how that works.” He laughed.

“You don’t think I can?”

“No, I’m not sure you can,” he replied, “because I think your wanting to help wasn’t so much about helping, as much as it was about finding a way to be useful to Guilliam, so that he would at least talk and pay attention to you.”

She sucked in her breath and stared.

“I know that may feel like a low blow, and I don’t mean it that way,” he explained, “but it is something that you may want to consider.” And, with that, he nodded and left.

As low blows went, it was definitely hard-hitting. Was he right? Maybe. She certainly hadn’t thought of it that way, but she did want to be friends with Guilliam again, if that were possible. She truly wanted more than that. She wanted to go back to what they had—or rather build something to replace what they had. She just wasn’t sure how to do that. Their breakup was all her fault for the decision she’d made, and she hadn’t given him a chance to convince her otherwise.

She’d been so righteous in her need to help her mother that she had ignored the suggestion that what she was doing was wrong—even when it came from that very same mother Janelle was trying to help. Something about that need to pay back—or maybe it was a need to be needed. She didn’t know. It just seemed as if everything had been so messed up for so long, and there wasn’t much she could do about it. She returned her attention to her work, was on the phone several times, and when she looked up at one point, her mother was staring at her.

She hopped up, walked over, and asked, “Hey, how’re you feeling?”

“Like I’ve got one foot on either side.”

She sucked in her breath at that and sat down beside her mom. “I’m going to be fine when you go. You know that, right?”

Her mother patted her hand. “I know you will be, especially if Guilliam’s back.”

“He’s back, but that doesn’t mean he’s back with me .”

Her mother snapped, “Then you need to fix that.”

“Not sure I can,” she muttered. “I hurt him pretty badly.”

Her mother just nodded and closed her eyes.

Janelle repeated, “Don’t you worry about it, Mom. I’ll deal with it.”

Her mother’s lips twitched. “Sure, but you have a tendency to deal with it through avoidance.” And, with that, her mom drifted back to sleep again.

That was another one of those hard-to-handle truths. Two of them right after each other. Janelle sat there for a long time, and then, because she couldn’t focus on work, she brought up her journal and wrote down everything that she needed to deal with in terms of Guilliam. Could she live with the fact that he may not be interested in getting back together with her? And what would that look like for her, outside of painful?

Somehow she’d always just assumed, in the back of her mind, that he would be there. That whenever she got her shit together, whenever this trial was over, she could call him up and would step right back into the relationship that they’d had before.

What she hadn’t expected was for this process with her mother to take as long as it had because they had been looking at her getting over this, the cancer, not succumbing to it after a long and valiant struggle, which is where they were at now. And, therefore, the process had taken way longer than Janelle had expected. Despite the hope for the future, she had been tucked away. No way she could have asked him to wait for her all this time. For all she knew, he’d already had half a dozen other relationships. That thought would crush her if she let it, yet she had no right to expect he had not.

She was the one who’d hurt him. She was the one who had chosen to walk away from him. And that sucked. When she was finally done pouring out all her emotions onto the page, she realized her throat was parched from crying in soft, quiet sobs that she hoped nobody had heard. Not that anybody would care because so many people here were dealing with their own pain and struggles. So a woman crying at the bedside of her mother shouldn’t have caused shock or surprise for anybody else. Not that she wanted anybody to witness her anguish.

She quickly dried her tears and walked over and gave her mom a kiss. “I will go get a cup of tea.”

And, with that, she put her laptop and her journal into her bag, tucked it on the far side of the bed, a habit she’d gotten into because leaving something out didn’t seem like the smartest idea, and then she headed down to the cafeteria. She stopped in at the ladies’ room first and gave her face a good wash, spruced up her hair, and even went so far as to smack her cheeks to put some color back into them. Nothing quite like looking after a dying person to make everything else fall apart. Then she headed to the cafeteria, where she managed to smile, as she moved her way through to get her tea.

When she had finally paid for it and was heading back up to the room, one of the nurses stopped her and whispered, “Your mother had another episode.”

She froze in fear.

The nurse added, “She’s okay at the moment but…”

“Right.” Janelle turned and raced to her mom’s room. As she walked in, a doctor stood there, studying her chart. “I just went to get a cup of tea.”

He gave her half a smile. “All it takes is just a few minutes away. Sometimes they don’t want to pass away while you’re here.”

“She’s alive then. She’s okay?”

He hesitated, then spoke. “Yes, but I don’t think hospice will be an option anymore. This move, if anything, has highlighted that she’s,… she’s almost gone.”

“And I don’t suppose you wanna hazard a guess as to how long she has.”

He shook his head. “If I give you my best guess, chances are, I’ll be wrong, but I will hazard a guess anyway and hope that you have at least that much time. I suspect she will go in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” And, with that, he gave a small nod and walked out.

She stepped out in the hallway and watched him leave, the tears already streaming from her eyes. With death that close, the time to be with her mother was truly fleeting. She needed to be with her as much as she could, as much as anybody could, and yet knew that it won’t be nearly enough time. Somehow they’d hit the end of the road,… and now Janelle knew it. She’d known it was coming. There’s no way she hadn’t, but supposedly knowing it was a whole different story than living it and having it pointed out in terms as specific as a number of hours.

As she walked back inside, she stopped, and feeling an odd sense, she turned to see a man walking quickly down the hallway in a white coat. She froze as she recognized the tilt of the head and pulled out her phone and contacted Guilliam.

“He was just here,” she said softly. “As in, I think he just saw me.”

*

“I’m on my way. I was heading to the hospital already, so I’ll be there in a few minutes. Just go in and stay with your mother and remember that you’re not alone.” And, with that, Guilliam hung up.

As far as getting to the bottom of this Mason sniper shooting, Guilliam hadn’t had a chance to do anything so far but drive past the dead intruder’s family home, realizing it was a very large estate with big locked gates outside. Guilliam wasn’t sure who even lived in the home. He understood that the owner’s wife was in cancer treatment, but he didn’t know at what stage her cancer might be in.

As he headed to the hospital entrance, it occurred to him that it was possible this vengeful rich guy might have a legitimate reason for being at the hospital. Not for impersonating a doctor, if that’s what he was doing. It wasn’t that Guilliam doubted Janelle, but he did recognize that she was not in the best mental state, considering what was going on in her world.

As he stepped into her new hospital room, he saw Miriam open her eyes and stare in his direction. He stepped closer and picked up her hand. He carried it to his lips and kissed it.

She gave him a ghost of a smile. “You did come.”

“I came.”

“Just in time,” she murmured.

He shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I’m here, and it seems like maybe it’s time for you to relax and to let go.”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “And maybe I can, now that I know you’re here.”

“But you knew I was here before,” he said.

“Yes, but I just didn’t know -know.”

He looked over to see Janelle in the doorway, staring from the hallway. Whether she heard them or not, he didn’t know, but it was obvious that her mother had something that she needed to say.

“I’m so grateful that you’re here for her now.”

He didn’t want to correct her, so he didn’t say anything.

Miriam nodded. “I saw the way you looked at her.”

He leaned over and whispered, “I know, but it’s not that easy.”

Her lips twitched, and, with great effort, she whispered right back, “It’s not that hard either.” Then she closed her eyes and fell back asleep again.

Guilliam waited a moment to confirm that her chest was still rising, realizing what Janelle had been through, going through this ordeal on a daily basis, for all this time. When he straightened up and walked toward Janelle, he saw the tears in her eyes.

She whispered, “The doctor said it would be twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

He wasn’t sure it would even be that long and thought it was almost like Miriam was letting go, now that she had seen him. He nodded and whispered, “And maybe that’s for the best.”

“It is for the best,” she conceded, as she turned to look back at her mother, “but that doesn’t make it easy.”

“No, of course not,” he whispered. “How are you holding up?”

She shrugged. “Terribly. I’m a wreck, but I guess this isn’t something I’m supposed to excel at.”

His lips twitched at her caustic tone, and he nodded. “You could be right.”

She groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult.”

“Listen. You’re entitled to be snappish and off guard and fed up and upset. You’re in the process of saying goodbye to somebody who really matters to you.”

At his wording, Janelle’s tears started to flow again. She sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I keep telling myself I’m not doing this.”

With that, he just pulled her into his arms and held her. As she sagged against him and bawled, he understood the devastation that was going on in her life. She’d made a lot of decisions regarding care for her mother, and, as much as he understood why she had left him behind, it had still hurt terribly at the time. He just held her close, gently rubbing her back.

When she finally ran out of tears, she mumbled, “I’m sorry. I keep thinking I won’t cry anymore. I keep thinking I’m done with the tears, and then something happens, and I just can’t hold it together.”

“You don’t have to hold it together all the time, you know,” he muttered. “Don’t expect too much of yourself right now.”

She looked over at him. “And yet that seems wrong too.”

“And why is that? Remember that your mother has been there through all of it, and, while her body may be worn out, her constitution is strong. She’s caring, she’s capable, and… she’s ready to go.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make the process any easier.”

He nodded. “I’m not trying to make it sound like it’s less than it is,” he murmured. “Obviously going through what you’re experiencing is probably the hardest thing anybody has to go through. I just want you to look after yourself in the process.”

“I’ll look after myself… after I’ve finished looking after my mother.”