Page 9 of Mourner for Hire

FIVE

DOMINIC

NINE MONTHS LATER

“How are you today?” I ask Mom as I slip a bouquet of roses next to her bedside table and a fresh bag of butterscotch candies—a habit we picked up from my dad.

He never wanted to finish a meal with a mint but something sweet.

It’s a weird quirk of the Dunne family that only makes sense to those within it.

Everyone around us just thinks we’re addicted to sugar.

“Fine,” she answers with a slip of a smile that does nothing to hide her exhausted expression.

Fine. It’s always fine. Even when hospice was called in: fine. Even when they upped her morphine: fine. Even when they told her she had six months left to live: fine.

That was six months ago, and the dreaded hourglass of life has finally run out of sand. Granule after granule of life tumbling through delicate glass until there’s nothing left. Except there is. She’s still here.

I sit next to her bed and hold her hand, trying to ignore how much they’ve changed. She’s practically skin and bone, but still sarcasm and attitude. My dad used to tease her that her stubbornness will either keep her alive or kill her in the end. It turns out it’s done both .

She was stubborn about her skin checks and never went until that spot on her shoulder seeped its ugly cancerous talons into her bloodstream and attacked her brain.

Now, her stubbornness is pushing her past her life expectancy.

“You know you can tell me how you really feel?”

Her smile widens, but the expression in her eyes remains broken. “I can, but I won’t.”

“Why?” My chest twists.

“Because I don’t want to go out complaining about how shitty cancer makes you feel.

I don’t want to go out telling everyone how I feel like I’ve become a shell of a human.

Like some goddamn skeleton while my soul floats above me, trying to find any semblance of something normal.

” She squeezes my hand tightly, but even that reminds me how weak she is.

“I’m not going to go out like that. I’m going out with a battle cry screaming fuck cancer.

Because I have loved my life. Every single bit of it. ”

“But it’s okay to tell me you’re not fine, Mom.”

“I am fine. I’ve made peace with it,” she says. “But you know what I haven’t made peace with? The fact that you are alone.”

I roll my eyes, and she points a bony finger at me.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me. And don’t let this situation change the course of your whole life.” She gestures to her bedside table, littered with orange pill bottles. “You had dreams, Dominic. Big ones. You dropped them for me, and when I’m gone, I need you to pick them back up.”

My throat feels like it’s closing in as I swallow. “That’s unfair. You know why I came home.”

She nods once. “And you have let that eat you up for years.”

I won’t deny that. But I never got the chance to say a final goodbye to my dad. That’s the problem with optimism—you believe everything will be fine, until it isn’t. And by then, all you’re left with is regret.

“Dad wasn’t mad, honey. He understood. Really, he did.”

I grit my teeth. “I know he wasn’t mad, but I am. I could have had just a few more days, minutes with him, and I didn’t. I put myself before him, and I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do! You’re our child, Dominic.

Parents raise their kids to have more and be better than we ever were.

And I’m not saying I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done for me over the last three years and all the extra time we’ve gotten, but when I’m gone, live for yourself a little bit. ”

My gaze drifts to the floor. I hear her, but I don’t know how to.

She pulls a manila folder from her bedside table and puts it on the quilt covering her legs.

“What’s this?” I ask, already reaching for it.

“Your future,” she says. “Your dreams.”

I stare at her.

“Oh my God, open it, for heaven’s sake!”

I do as I’m told and find three packets of applications for residency programs all over the US.

I run my fingers over the emblems, wondering how I went from being a medic in the Air Force to a college student, to training to be a doctor, to making cocktails in a run-down bar.

Scratch that—I know exactly how. Time moved on without me.

Five years after Dad died, Mom was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma.

I quit everything. My residency. The career I’d spent years building and preparing for.

By then, I’d already completed my four years of active duty and transitioned out of the Air Force, trading in my commission for medical school.

But when Mom got sick, none of it mattered anymore. I packed up, moved home, and bought Leonard’s old bar—hoping that if I planted roots here, maybe I’d finally have a stake in this town that went beyond family.

“When I’m gone, I want you to go back to doing things for yourself, okay?” she says with red-rimmed eyes.

My jaw clenches, and tears burn my eyes. “It all feels so trivial and unimportant.”

She grabs my face. “ You are important. You are not trivial. You go and do whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be… or I’m going to haunt you.”

A small laugh tumbles out of me.

“No one wants that from their mother.” She winks, and I shake my head.

“What about the house? The beach cottage? I?—”

She waves me off. “Don’t worry about the cottage. It’s all taken care of. And the bar doesn’t have much life left in it, and you know it.”

She eyes me knowingly. I’ll admit buying the bar was merely my way of planting seeds in a town I’ve always loved, hoping they’d take root.

But it was already going under when I bought it from Leonard, and with the lack of patrons wanting to stop on the side of the highway for a drink, I’m barely breaking even.

“Apply.” She nods at the folder. “You will make an amazing doctor one day.”

I stare at the papers. “You know all the applications are online now?”

“Oh, shut up and appreciate the symbolism,” she teases, and I laugh, wiping my eyes.

She sits and leans forward, forcing me to look at her. “Quit marching in the past, Dominic. Life isn’t there anymore. It’s here.” She points to my heart. “Let life change, okay? Promise me. Even when I’m gone.”

Her words make my composure crumble. I don’t want to think about Mom dying.

Growing up, it was just us—the three musketeers.

When Dad died, it was like losing a leg.

Now, with Mom’s prognosis, it feels like a cloud of confusion is drifting over me.

Where do I belong without an anchor? Who am I without my family?

“Promise me you’ll let life change, and promise me you’ll create a beautiful life you want to live.” She pauses for emphasis. “I’m not dying until you promise me.”

I laugh a little. “Well, then I guess I’ll never promise you. I guess I’ll be miserable and lonely, manning a bar that’s barely staying above the red.”

She flashes a wry smile and narrows her eyes.

“Fine.” I relent while grief grabs me by the throat and squeezes.

My chin shakes no matter how hard I bite down on my lip, and as soon as Mom says, “It’s okay, honey,” every tear I’ve never cried pours from my eyes.

I fall onto her shoulder, shaking and sobbing while she holds me like I’m just a little kid.

“You’re always my baby. No matter how big you’ve grown or how many of those stupid tattoos you get, you’re my kid. Just don’t turn into one of those weird men with mommy issues, okay?”

I snort out a laugh and drag a hand down my face.

“I’m not ready, Mom.”

She cups my cheeks and collects tears on her thumbs. “I’m not ready, either. But it’s not up to us when we have to say goodbye.”