Page 109 of Kings Don't Break

I help Mama out of her outdoor clothes—she insists on being presentable in a button-up dress, stockings, and girdle for each appointment—and change her into her favorite fuzzy robe and slippers. It takes a few more minutes than usual, with Mama struggling to get her arms and legs through the openings of the clothes, but we manage. Once she’s settled in the armchair in front of the TV, I’m fixing her a snack for her next dose of medications.

The pharmacy bag crinkles as I dig inside and pull out the different pill bottles and vials of insulin. The frown I’d worn earlier returns reading the labels.

“Mama?”

“Hmmm?”

“Is this the medication you took at the doctor?”

“It… is.”

“This is the wrong kind. This is the Domnicron that makes your blood pressure shoot up. Mama… Mama!”

She’s gone still in the armchair, her eyes closed. The bottles slip out of my hand, my heart thundering out of instant alarm. I launch myself across the room, practically stumbling over my own two feet to get to her.

“Mama!”

“Hmmm?”

“Mama, keep open your eyes!” I yell.

“Oh… baby…” her words slur.

I don’t understand anything about what’s happening. It’s some disturbing joke being played; it’s some terrible, horrible nightmare that I’ve slipped into. Because there’s no other conceivable explanation for this moment.

Her right arm twitches in place, like she’s lost control of it. The same side of her mouth seems to droop.

“Mama… hold on!”

I punch 911 into my keypad, so panicked I can’t stand still. I’m unable to breathe, my lungs sucking away only to draw in nothing. Dizzying little spots appear before my eyes before I blink and shake them away and scream at the emergency operator to send help.

“Please!” I cry out. “My mother… she’s having some kind of reaction to the wrong medication! I think… I think she’s having a stroke!”

“We can have an ambulance out to your residence in ten to fifteen minutes.”

“She doesn’t have that long!”

“That is the soonest responders will be able to be in your area, ma’am. Can you repeat your address so I can put in the request?”

I rattle off our apartment address and beg the operator to please work a miracle and get the ambulance here sooner. The second I’m off the phone, I’m kneeling in front of the armchair to keep Mama’s focus on me.

“Just stay awake,” I say. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. Oh… Mama… how could this happen?”

“Baby…” she mumbles.

It seems to be all she’s capable of saying. The fingers of her right hand continue twitching, some kind of involuntary spasm she has no control of. It seems she can’t move the rest of her body.

Tears roll down my cheeks and wet my lips. My voice is hoarse, producing only a whisper when I try to comfort Mama and remind her help is on the way. Any other thoughts become too difficult to process.

The panic rings too loudly from every corner of my being. It makes it impossible to do anything but kneel before Mama and wait out the ambulance. Fists pound on the door and jostle me out of my panic-induced state. I stumble onto unsteady legs to unlatch the lock on the door and wrench it wide open.

I’m expecting a team of EMTs to flood into the apartment in their haste to help Mama.

Instead, a lone man enters.

Ken steps past the threshold and into my apartment before I can digest what’s happening. At the last second, I move to shove the door closed and force him out. He slams his hand against the door, exerting hardly any effort at all to launch it back toward me.

“NO!” I scream out. “Get out of here!”