Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(25)

“Don’t lose sight of what’s important,” he says. “We’re counting on you.”

“I know,” I respond. I’m counting on me, too.

We both stand there in our chosen spots, neither of us appearing to want to move. I suppose moving means pushing on, something both of us seem almost too exhausted to do. Or maybe it’s because when we do move, it’s not to relax, or escape. It’s to once more deal with what’s happening.

“Where’s Mami?” I question, realizing I’ve waited too long to ask.

“In our room, watching television.”

I nod and start for the stairs. “I’m going out,” he says. “Just for an hour.”

My hand slides along the smooth surface of the banister. “Where are you going?”

“I need some air,” he answers.

Again, I nod, because what else can I do? My father has never “needed some air”. Even during the worst of times he internalizes his pain and simply deals with the stress. But he hasn’t been dealing well lately, not since this last incident with my mother. He’s mourning her. Well, at least who she was.

I suppose that makes two of us.

He’s through the door before I reach the second level. I want to beg him not to go, not to leave me, knowing I’ll be alone as soon as my aunt leaves. Am I afraid she’ll hit me? Not really. I’m more afraid that I’ll find her in the way I hate most: absent of anything that resembles my mother.

The door to my parents’ room is partially open, giving me a view of a television that’s almost as old as I am. There’s a black and white movie playing, a Mexican classic whose name I should know, but one that escapes me. I remember watching it years ago with my parents when I was a child. But it’s late, too late for movies that make me wish for better days.

I open the door slowly, like a little girl unsure she should enter, and hoping for more than I expect to find.

But I find what I expect, and because of it, my heart finishes breaking.

“Hi, Tía,” I say, softly.

Apparently, it’s too softly. She doesn’t hear me, and she doesn’t know I’m there.

My aunt was a battered woman. Although she’ll deny it, I think one or more of those blows she took damaged her hearing. But it’s the emotional toll the abuse took that robbed years from her life. Although only in her fifties, remorse and exhaustion deepen her wrinkles, making her appear more a great grandmother than grandmother.

“Hi, Tía,” I say again.

She startles when she sees me, yet manages a small smile, a gesture I don’t think her own children see from her much. But my attention doesn’t stay on her, it travels to my mother where she’s sitting on the bed.

My aunt perched my mom so her back rests against the old headboard fashioned from fake wood, a pillow placed behind her head to keep her comfortable, though I doubt my mother cares. She stares blankly ahead, to the right of the television screen, her short, curly hair standing on its ends. Tía probably tried to wash it, and comb it, too, by the looks of it. She meant well, but all it does is add a crazed look to my mother’s appearance.

Not that she needed help with that.

“It’s Cucurrucucú Paloma,” Tía says in Spanish, motioning to the television. “One of her favorites.”

I swallow the lump that’s building, forcing a smile as Tía rises from the rocking chair to hug me. “Do you want me to stay with you?” she asks. “Or would you prefer time alone with your mother?”

My aunt doesn’t drive. She can’t leave until my father returns and takes her home. But I’m not blind to what she’s asking. As much as it saddens me to find my mother this way, Tía is sad, too, and she’s been with her long enough.

“I think I’d like some time alone, Tía,” I answer in English.

She nods like she understands and leaves, but not without one last glance at my mother.

I slip out of my boots and slide across the bed. “Hi, Mami,” I say. I take her hand, but as it lays flaccid in mine, I very much doubt she feels my touch. “I went on a date tonight with Finn O’Brien,” I begin. “Remember the O’Briens―the family who lived across the street from Tía? I’ve known him in passing for a few years, but I’m getting to know him more now.”

I turn to her, not expecting her to respond, but hoping she will anyway. “Sofia married his brother Killian,” I remind her. “Finn was at their wedding. He’s a really nice guy, but of course, Papi already hates him.”

Again, no response.

“He makes me smile,” I say, my words forming tears that blur my vision. “And laugh, too. I can’t remember laughing this hard in a long time.”

I sniff. “I wish you could meet him, Mami, so maybe he can make you laugh, too.” The tears fall before I can stop them. But I don’t turn away. She can’t hear me, or see me cry, and probably doesn’t even know that I’m sitting right beside her.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from pleading with her. “You have to get better. This way you can meet him, okay? This way you can let me know what you think and assure Papi that he’s a nice man.”

By now I’m crying, remembering all those times she could hear me―all those times I’d beg her to lay in bed with me when she came to say goodnight―so I could talk excessively about my day, my friends, my dreams―remembering those times she was still my mother, and I was still her world. Because this woman, who doesn’t laugh, who no longer remembers me―who can’t even look me in the eye is no longer the mother I remember.