A Son's Love For His Mother

(Word count: 2691)

Christopher’s mind was elsewhere when he stepped off the bus and into the path of a passing car.  The blue Mazda sedan came to a screeching halt just centimetres from his suited figure and the driver blasted the horn and yelled some expletives that Christopher couldn’t hear.  He looked into the eyes of the female driver and could see she was as shaken by the close call as much as he was.  He mouthed ‘sorry’ in all sincerity and crossed the road to his office.
Christopher was annoyed with himself, not because he almost got himself ran over, but because he’d left his mobile phone at the office in the morning before he left for the all-day conference on the other side of town.  If not for his forgetfulness, he would’ve been able to go directly home from the conference, rather than returning all the way to the office at this hour. He entered the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor and wondered how many missed calls and emails he’d received throughout the day. 
The lift delivered him to his office and Christopher checked his watch as the doors opened.  5:46pm. He knew that most, if not all of the staff would be gone by now. 
He walked through the glass sliding doors and strode towards his desk.  “Margery,” he spoke to his secretary.  “What are you still doing here?” 
“Christopher.  I’ve been trying to contact you all day.”
He noted the alarm in her voice.  “I left my phone here,” he said, reaching into his drawer to retrieve it.  Looking at the screen he noted fifteen missed calls and about the same number of text messages, some from Margery but most from his brother.
“Your brother called just after nine this morning, just after you left.  I called you straight away, but I couldn’t reach you.”
Now he detected slight panic in her tone.  “It’s ok.  My fault I forgot my phone.  And I should've told you the venue of the conference.  What is it?”
He read the first text message as Margery continued.  Both delivered the same news.
“It’s your mother,” she started.  “She’s had a stroke.”
Christopher scrolled through the text messages from his brother as a feeling a dread filled him.  His brother had always been the most successful, sensible one of the two, and the fact Christopher had forgotten his phone at this time, well, quite frankly, scared him.  His brother intimidated him.  Christopher felt that in his brother’s eyes he always did the wrong thing or not enough of the right thing, and being out of contact all day, the day his mother has a stroke, made him feel very, very uncomfortable. 
Rather than listening to the voice messages, Christopher called his brother’s mobile.  It went straight to voice mail.  “Jude, it’s Chris.  I forgot my phone.  I’m going to check the messages you left and find out which hospital mum’s in and I’ll be right there.”  Margery held up a Post-it note with the hospital name and ward number.  Christopher paused to read it then continued to voice message.  “Ok, I’ve got it.  The Royal Women’s Hospital.  I’ll be there in ten minutes."
“How bad do you think it is?” asked Margery as Christopher took the note from her and headed for the door. 
“I’ll find out soon.  Thanks Margery, and sorry for the trouble.”
“Christopher,” she called out after him.  He turned to see her holding out his mobile phone.  He rolled his eyes and took it from her.  "Thanks Margery."

After checking at the nurses' station, Christopher hurried to the ninth floor.  His mother's room was the last on the left, he'd been informed.  Stretching out before him was the long, white corridor.  Familiar hospital smells that he couldn't name filled his nostrils.  As he strode down the corridor he saw his brother walking towards him, eyebrows knitted.
As they neared Christopher asked, "Jude.  How's mum?"
"Where the fuck have you been?"
"I was at a conference all day and I left my mobile phone at..."
"I've been here for eight fucking hours.  I'm going home to eat and then take Shep to basketball training, sleep and come back tomorrow.  Wanker."
Jude didn't stop as he talked to Christopher, who turned and watched the back of his brother angrily walk down the corridor to the elevator.  Shep was Jude's son, a real chip off the old block, Christopher often secretly thought to himself.  He, on the other hand had never married and had no children, something Jude would sometimes scoff at.
Wanker.  Christopher remembered the morning in Year 7 at high school when he found the word 'wanker' written across his locker in thick black letters.  The kids around him laughed and he heard sniggers such as 'weirdo' and 'pervert'.  As he put bag away and collected the books he needed for the first lesson, an older boy approached him and leant on the locker besides his.  Christopher didn't know the guy's name, but he knew he was in Year 10, same year level as Jude.
“So, you wank everyday?” the older boy quipped.
“What?”
“Wank.  Play with yourself.  Spank the monkey.  Everyday, hey?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”  He fumbled for his books.
“Yeah you do, pervert.  Everyone knows.”
“Just leave me alone, man.”
The older boy persisted.  “Your brother told our class.  Told he caught you wanking in the shower.  What a sick fuck you must be.”
The day before, Jude had indeed caught Christopher masturbating in the shower.  It was only his second time at doing it, and as a thirteen year old he wasn't sure what it was about, but he knew all guys did it.  He guessed.
The morning bell sounded. 
“Okay, wanker boy, off to class,” the older boy said and walked away, not before shoving Christopher with his elbow. 
Christopher closed his locker door and the word stared him in the face.  Wanker.
He recognised his brother's handwriting.

Shaking himself out of this memory, Christopher turned, took a deep breath and continued towards his mother's room.  Stopping at the door, he took another deep breath and prepared to enter.  He didn't know how bad the stroke was.  Could she move?  Could she talk?  Would she recognise him?
He entered the door and saw an old woman lying in a bed.  For a moment he wasn't sure it was her.  It looked like the right side of her jaw had been removed as that side of her face drooped so much.
Tears welled in his eyes.  "Mum?"
"Yeah," she responded.
He saw in his mother's eyes sheer despondence.  She tried to smile.
"Mum, are you okay?"
"Yeah."
He leant to kiss her on the cheek.  "I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier.  I was at a conference all day and couldn't be reached.”
"Yeah."
"What time did it happen?"
"Yeah."
"Mum, what time did it happen?" he repeated.
"Yeah."
He gently sat on the bed and brushed the hair from her face.
"Yeah."
His concern grew.  "Mum, can you understand me?"
"Yeah."
"What day is it?"
"Yeah."
Christopher's heart sank as he realised the severity of the stroke.  "Mum, can you move?  Turn your head to the right."
"Yeah."  She didn't move as tears filled her eyes.
He lifted her right arm a few centimetres and let it go.  It dropped to the bed.  Now tears rolled down her face.
And he knew in that moment that his mother was inside there, inside the broken body that wouldn't permit her to move, that wouldn't allow her to speak, except for the word 'yeah.'
He leant in and hugged her.  “I'm so sorry, mum.”
“Yeah.”

He remembered something that hadn't entered his mind for years.  A long, forgotten memory, so irrelevant at the time and yet strangely impressing.  It was when his mother's aunty, Lorna, had a stroke years ago, and they went to visit her in the hospital, just Christopher and his mother (Jude didn't want to see 'an old vegetable of a woman').  They walked into the ward and he remembered his mother putting her hand to her mouth to muffle a gasp.  Before Christopher had a chance to see his great-aunt, his mother turned him around and walked him to a waiting area just outside the room. 
"You wait here, love.  I don't want you seeing her how she is.  I won't be long."  She kissed her son on the forehead and disappeared into the ward again.
Christopher was in his mid-teens at the time, a time when smoking was still permitted in hospitals.  He looked around him at old men in pajamas hooked up to portable oxygen tanks, puffing away at their cigarettes.  He avoided eye contact with them, but when he shot a glance into their eyes, he could see their shame and self-loathing that the brown weed and brought them to this, and yet here they were still puffing away.
His mother returned.  They didn't speak until they were in the car, driving along the Calder Highway towards home.  His mother was paler than before, and she gripped the steering wheel with a strange determination.
After pulling into their driveway she turned off the car engine and turned in her seat to him.  "Christopher," she started.  "Promise me something."
"Promise you what?"
She took a deep breath and stared forward again at the garage door, and lit a cigarette.  "Promise me, you'll never let me stay like that."
"Stay like what?"
"Like that."  Smoke swirled from her nose as she sighed.  "Like Aunty Lorna.  If I ever get like that, pull the plug."
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's had a stroke.  She can't walk, she can't move, she can't even frigging talk.  I don't want to be like that, ever."
"You won't be like that, mum."
She turned to him and smiled for the first time since leaving the hospital.  "My little saint," she said and ruffled his hair.  "You know why I called you Christopher?"
"You liked the sound of it?"
She laughed.  "After Saint Christopher."
"Who's he?"
"Oh, he was a strong and brave saint, and legend has it that he protected travellers on their journeys until they reached their destination."  She paused.  "Apparently he carried Jesus across a treacherous river as an infant."
"What's that got to do with me?"  His mind turned to the bullying at school.
She turned to him.  "Christopher, when you were born, I knew you were different.  Mothers know these things."
He guessed she meant different to Jude.  "Different how?"
"Oh, I don't know."  She stubbed the cigarette in the car's ashtray.  "I could tell as a baby you were the more gentler one, the kinder one."
She did mean different to Jude. 
"And how you were scared of the dark!" she laughed.  "And in the middle of the night you'd come in and crawl into bed with me because you said you were scared."
I still am scared of the dark.  But he would never admit that to her or anyone.  Even now as an adult, he has a night light.
"Anyway," she said, breaking herself away from her unpleasant thoughts.  "Enough of this talk.  Let's get inside my little saint and get dinner going."
He watched her get out of the car.

Now he watched her in the hospital bed, the way she must've looked at Aunty Lorna. 
"Mum, I want to ask you some questions.  I want you to blink once for 'no' and twice for 'yes'.  Do you understand, mum?"  he whispered gently, and watched.
She slowly blinked twice.
"Okay."  He held her hand.  "Am I your son?"
She blinked twice.
"Am I your father?"
She hesitated, then blinked once.
"Okay, that's great mum."  He smiled down at her and squeezed her hand.  Drawing a slow, deep breath, he continued, "Do you remember when we went to see Aunty Lorna in the hospital?"
Two blinks, the second pushing the tear welling in her right eye until it rolled down her cheek.
"Do you remember what you made me promise you?"
Two quick blinks.  Two more tears.
"You promised me not to let you be like that, do you remember?"
Two quick blinks.  "Yeah."
"Mum, do you want me to do that?"
Two blinks, faster than before.
"Mum," Christopher continued, leaning closer and whispering more softly.  "Are you sure?"
He felt her squeeze his hand and saw she blink twice.  He kissed her forehead.
Closing the door of her private hospital room, Christopher found his mother's handbag in a bedside drawer.  He went to the small private bathroom and locked the door behind him.
The Valium were in the bag, where he knew he'd find them.  Two boxes.  His mother had been taking them for years, since his father died, and her sympathetic GP of many years usually gave her repeat prescriptions.  He tore the lid off the unopened white box and removed a tin foil tray of the pills.  He counted ten pills on the tray, and counted ten trays.  One hundred pills. 
He rested the hospital-issued plastic mug on the ledge above the sink and started popping the pills out of their individual bubbles.  As each one landed in the mug it gave a little ting sound.  He didn't want her to hear this, so he turned on the tap to drain out the noise.  He chose the hot water tap.
After he'd emptied the first ten pills into the mug, he looked about for something to crush them up with.  Nothing.  Then he reached into his inner pocket and retrieved his pen.  It was awkward and taking longer than he wanted, but eventually he crushed them up, added a little hot water from the running tap, and stirred.  The hot water made it easier to dissolve the pills.
He got the next tray of ten pills, and repeated the process until he had a mug of one hundred dissolved Valium pills.  The thick, milky substance was almost to the rim of the mug.
He unlocked the bathroom door.  He walked to his mother's side.  He kissed her again on the forehead.  Gently cradling his hand behind her neck, he lifted her head a little. 
"Mum, you sure?"
Two blinks.
Bringing the mug to her lips, he poured a little into her mouth.  Her face twisted at the taste.  And she swallowed.  She looked him in the eyes and blinked twice in quick succession.  Christopher brought the mug back to his mother's lips and poured a little more in.  After a couple of minutes, the mug was only half full.
He knew that would be more than enough.
He patted the corners of her lips dry with a tissue and rested her head on the pillow again.
"Mum, I'll be back in a minute," and gestured to the mug so she knew he would get rid of the evidence.
Christopher returned to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.  He looked at the mirror, which was partially steamed up still from the hot running water from a few minutes ago.  He rubbed it clear with his sleeve and started at himself, deeply looking into his eyes.  His image that looked back gave a faint smile. 
He knew there would be consequences of this, severe consequences.  Yet, he didn't care.  He had made his mother a promise, and he knew she would rather go meet her Creator now, and not rot away in that bed for who knows how long.
His reflection smiled some more as he took a deep breath and swallowed the other half of the contents of the mug.  He rested it on shelf again and returned to his mother's side.
It took him a minute to gently move her to the right side of the bed.  Removing his suit jacket and shoes, he crawled into the bed and held her in his arms, her head resting on his chest.
"You're never alone," she heard her little saint whisper to her.
Christopher closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't afraid of the dark.

The End