Beverly took a breath and then beckoned me outside the room. ‘About that . . . ’ She paused, reluctant in the hallway. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to let her go. She’s missed so much already, and if she’s not coming back . . . I need someone I can rely on.’
‘Fine.’ The word was a lie, but I needed to get her out of there. ‘Whatever you want. I get it.’ I took a long breath and managed to meet Beverly’s eyes. ‘Now, can you leave us please?’ I was shocked at how reasonable I sounded. ‘I should really get her home.’
‘Of course.’ Beverly’s head bobbed. ‘Call me, OK? Let me know how she’s doing.’
She walked away and I stepped back into the room: left alone with the weeping stranger who used to be my mother.
I swallowed. Panic threatened, welling up like a dark tide inside me, but I forced it back with shaking breaths. ‘Come on.’ I took Mom’s hand, limp. ‘We need to go now.’
Mom didn’t move. She just lay there, her body heaving, gasping for air in a limitless flood of tears.
I tried to loop my arm around her waist and lift her to her feet, but she didn’t move.
‘Please,’ I whispered, helpless. ‘Let’s just go home.’
There was no reply. It was like she didn’t even know I was there. She was making animal noises, raw and desperate, as if the surface of herself had cracked, shattered, leaving nothing but this foreign weeping thing on the floor.
‘Mom!’ My voice broke. I tried lifting her again, ungainly, not trying to be gentle any more, but I barely made it a few paces before she slid from my grasp and slowly crumpled back to the ground.
I stood, stranded in the centre of the room. The panic was beating down on me now, a thick flock of fear. Voices came from the hall, friendly and carefree, and I listened to them pass, wondering how they could be so close and so far away at the same time: two realities spinning on the same axis, but a thousand miles apart.
A minute passed, the clock on the desk counting past the seconds.
She would stop crying in sixty seconds, I told myself. In forty. Thirty.
Please.
But the countdown ended, and the sobbing didn’t stop. I stayed there, paralysed. I didn’t know what to do. How could I? Beverly had mentioned psych consults and sedatives, but that would only make it worse, bare our ugly family wreckage to the world. I didn’t want Alisha knowing, didn’t want the sheriff’s sympathies.
Do something. Anything.
I wrenched myself out of indecision, grabbed my phone and dialled.
Ethan was there in twenty minutes. I heard a tap, uncertain on the door, then he edged it open.
‘Chloe?’ He paused there, the question fading on his lips as he looked from me, to my mother, and back again.
‘I can’t lift her,’ I said, helpless. ‘I need to get her home, but she won’t move. I can’t do it.’
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He strode over to the corner and crouched down in front of her. ‘I’m Ethan,’ he said, his voice clear and even. ‘I’m a friend of Chloe’s. Will you let me help you up?’
Mom slowly opened her eyes. The weeping had stopped, thank God. ‘Chloe?’ she whispered, her eyes darting around.
‘I’m right here, Mom.’ I swallowed back the frustration in my voice and moved to her other side. ‘We’re going to get you home and into bed. Everything will be OK.’
Mom paused, then gave a weak nod.
‘Hold on around my neck,’ Ethan instructed her. He put one arm around her waist, and the other under her knees, and lifted her clear off the floor. He straightened up, and I leaped to get the door. I looked behind us, remembering to grab Mom’s purse and keys before following them out and down the hallway.
It was quiet, with only a handful of people around to gawk and stare as Ethan strode towards the elevator, me trailing behind. He carried Mom easily. Too easily. Her sleeve fell, loose, and I saw with a pang of guilt how skinny her clothes fitted; a gap at her waist, bony collarbone protruding above her collar.
I hadn’t noticed, all this time, the weight dropping off. I’d cleared away her uneaten plates, annoyed at the waste of effort, not seeing her starving herself. I should have noticed. I should have taken better care.
Ethan backed carefully out of the exit doors. His truck was parked up by the sidewalk, and he carefully settled Mom in the front seat.
‘I can get her car later.’ I tried to think of what I might be missing.
‘You rode here?’ Ethan asked. I nodded over to where I’d left my bike and he swung it into the flatbed with barely a pause for breath.
‘I . . . ’ I felt like I should say something, explain somehow, but nothing came out.
Ethan touched my arm lightly. His eyes were warm. ‘Let’s just get you home.’
The sympathy in his voice was too much, and I almost let out a sob, but instead I gave a sharp nod and scrambled up into the front cab on the other side of Mom.
We drove home that way: Ethan at the wheel, Mom between us, and me holding her up, the thin body slumped against me. Now that the immediate crisis was over, I felt a slow flush of shame winding up my spine. I hated that Ethan had seen us like this: Mom, so broken, and me, helpless and weak. He was kind enough to humour us and act as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in picking my mother off the floor like some drunk or homeless woman in the street, but I knew he must be silently judging us with every mile that sped past.
Back at the house, Ethan carried Mom up to the bedroom. I settled her in bed, pulling the covers up around her and drawing the curtains, shadowing her in the dark.
I walked Ethan downstairs, still feeling the flush of humiliation.
‘Chloe—’ he started, turning to face me by the doorway.
I cut him off. ‘Thank you. I . . . I don’t know what to say. Thanks, I mean it.’ I opened the door, waiting for him to leave.
Ethan looked at me but, worse than any judgment in his blue eyes, I saw pity instead. ‘Is there someone you can call?’ he asked gently.
I shook my head sharply. ‘We’ll be fine.’ I lied again.
He paused. ‘I know it’s not my business, but, that, back there? That isn’t fine.’
‘I pushed her too hard,’ I argued firmly. ‘She wasn’t ready. It was my fault. She just needs more time.’
Ethan looked as if he wanted to argue.
‘I should get back to her,’ I said quickly, looking away. ‘And you’re missing work.’