The Space Beyond (The Book of Phoenix) (8 page)

Sissy fell silent, and when I looked up at her, sadness filled her eyes. She reached out for my hands and took them into hers.

“I’m sorry, Be—Bex.” That was the first time she’d called me that, so she must have meant it. “I didn’t come here to pick on you. I’m just worried about you, is all. And I know you hate Ty for what he did to you, but maybe you can find it in your heart to love him again.”

The problem was I’d never stopped loving him. But only as a friend. He’d been the rock in my life, but now I couldn’t count on him anymore. Maybe that was it—I couldn’t trust him. And if there’s no trust, there’s no relationship.

“So you knew he was comin’ back home and you didn’t tell me?” I asked, bitterness filling my voice. I yanked my hands away from her. “Left Mama’s side and came all the way here to convince me to take him back? Did he put you up to this?”

Sissy pressed her hand to her chest and shook her head. “I had no idea he was back, I pinky swear. I just saw him and thought he’d be good for you. He’s always been a good friend to us, and we kinda need that right now.” She folded her hands on the table and dropped her gaze as she picked at her fingernails. “But no, there’s somethin’ else. Did you get my message this mornin’?”

“Yeah, Liz’beth told me. I was goin’ to call you back before I went to my
other
job.”

Sissy’s face lifted, looking even more exhausted than she had before, and I felt bad for my jab at her. Sorta bad. I thought she sometimes forgot who was working her ass off to support us and pay for at least some of Mama’s medical bills. Someone had to do it after all, and sometimes she became quite the martyr, never letting
me
forget who does the caretaking of Mama.

“You need to see her,” Sissy said, her voice soft and quivery.

“I’ve got no need to.”

“Beth …” She sighed. “Bex … she only has a few more weeks. Maybe a month or two, but the doctors reckon it’ll be shorter.”

I stared at her for a long moment, and then looked away, out the window, although my mind barely registered the trucks and cars passing by on Central Street. It was trying to process everything that Sissy’s words meant, but failed.

“She’s your mama,” my baby sister reminded me.

“We may have came out of her hooha, but she’s never been a mama,” I whispered. Sissy was only eighteen months younger than me, but she may as well have been five years sometimes. She’d been younger enough to not remember a lot, and I’d sheltered her from most of the rest. And, I’d admit, she had a bigger and more forgiving heart than I did.

“Don’t be like this. Not now. Mama needs you, just to see you again, to say her apologies and goodbyes, so she can go peacefully.”

My heart squeezed, and my throat suddenly felt like a peach pit had lodged in it. I didn’t know that she deserved to go peacefully, but I also knew that was a shitty thing to think.

“I don’t think seeing her will give either of us peace,” I managed to say.

Sissy reached for my hands again and grasped them firmly. “
I
need you to do this. If you can’t bring yourself to do it for her or for yourself, then at least do it for me.”

My gaze came back to Sissy’s face and her pleading eyes. My heart contracted again. I’d always done everything I could for her, but I didn’t know if I could do this.

“I don’t know when my next day off is,” I said. “Working three jobs doesn’t really give me time to drive all the way to Orlando, you know.”

Sissy closed her eyes and inhaled a long breath that caused her ample chest to lift—at least Mama had given us something to work with. Our looks and figures came from her. Of course, they hadn’t really been her gift, since she had no say in the matter. That was all God’s doing.

Apparently, Sissy’s calming method didn’t work. She stood up and glared at me with her hands on her hips. “Where’s your common decency? Your mama is dying! Maybe you should make your family a priority for once!”

I jumped to my feet, too, knocking my chair over. “Oh, hell no! Don’t you pull that one on me. The only reason I work three jobs is for you and that bitch who’s done nothing but hurt us and leave
us
for dead. You really think she’d give two shits if the tables were turned?”

Sissy huffed out a breath then stomped for the door. As soon as she grasped the handle to pull, she looked over her shoulder at me. “Well, in a few weeks, she’ll never be able to hurt you again. And for that matter, I’ll be outta your hair, too.”

I stared after her as she left with my mouth hanging open.

“You tryin’ to catch flies?” Elizabeth asked behind me. I snapped my jaw shut and went back to work cleaning tables and checking condiments.

Elizabeth stepped behind the register and flipped through the lunch tickets. “She’s right, you know.”

I let out a low growl. “I don’t need it from you, too.”

“I know how you feel about your mama, including that you’re torn right now on what to do. Which means you
know
what’s right, but you just don’t wanna do it.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, daring me to call her a liar.

“There’s been a dark energy around this place for months,” she said.

“Maybe it’s Papaw Willy angry at your music again,” I half-joked, trying to relieve the tension. Papaw Willy was the original owner of the building and one of the ghosts that hung around to mess with us. That’s what Elizabeth thought, anyway. We’d all witnessed a few bizarre happenings that convinced us
someone
was around who shouldn’t be, but only Elizabeth could feel his presence and put a name to him. He tended to throw his fits when Elizabeth played her heavy metal rock.

“It’s definitely not Papaw Willy. I don’t know what’s causin’ it, but it’s heavy and full of sorrow. And I’m sure any of us showing some extra love and forgiveness wouldn’t be a bad thing. Maybe give a little light to the blackness hanging over us.”

I had no idea what she spoke about and figured she was just trying to take a different angle to talk me into doing the right thing. The dinner shift distracted me well enough, at least until afterward, when I went into the bathroom to clean it. A little, red plastic dinosaur sat on the edge of the sink, left by one of the kids who’d been in earlier, and it taunted me with its reminder of childhood. I picked it up, turned it around in my hands, and blinked back the tears that threatened.

Why couldn’t we have had a normal childhood? A normal mama who cared about us and provided for us instead of making us live on the streets because she was too proud to face her own mama, but not too proud to make her daughters sleep in abandoned cars? Someone who loved us for who we were and noticed that Sissy would want the Dollar Store makeup and I would have been excited for a little red, plastic dinosaur? She didn’t notice at all, or, more likely, she didn’t care. Her gifts for us came from her grabbing whatever she could quickly stuff into her bag or pocket when no one was looking. Always stupid stuff like fancy scarves—we lived in the hellpit of Nowhere, Florida!—or sparkly pins. What were we supposed to do with those? Would they somehow make our third-hand, grimy clothes look newer and nicer?

Didn’t matter. Everything she gave us always disappeared anyway. She blamed thieves until I was old enough to watch her exchange the items for little bags of white powder or brown pill bottles of something that made her sleep for a full day or longer. When I cried about it, she misunderstood my pain. It wasn’t the pretty but useless presents I missed when she sold them for drugs. It was my mama I missed.

I squeezed my eyes shut and didn’t open them again until I’d pushed the memories aside. The bathroom window had darkened since I’d been in here, and nightfall meant time to change and head to my other job. I gave the sink another quick wipe, grabbed the dinosaur for the lost-and-found box up front, and removed the trash bag to take out back. One job down, one to go, and then maybe I could relax a moment and figure out what I was going to do about Mama.

Throughout my hours at Sullivan’s, the truck-stop bar, I still couldn’t decide if going to see Mama was really the right thing. Every time I imagined seeing her face, I wanted to throw something at it. I wanted to hurt her, to make her feel everything she’d put Sissy and me and Grams and the rest of her family through.

As I walked home from Sullivan’s through the RV side of the park to our side, where the permanent trailers sat, the lights on the silver Airstream caught me by surprise. It had been dark for months, and I’d already forgotten that couple had returned. I turned away from my usual path that crossed in front of it, afraid they might be outside, and passed between two other campers and into the clump of trees that separated the two sides. My heart stuttered when I saw a large figure sitting on the steps of my trailer house, but then relaxed when I recognized him.

I exhaled a tired breath. “What are you doing here, Ty?”

I didn’t have the energy to deal with him again. He grasped a brown bottle in one hand and held another up to me.

“I wanted to apologize. I didn’t know everything goin’ on with you and Sissy. Thought you could use a friend.”

Tears pricked my eyes at the kindness. I took the peace offering, sat on the step below him between his legs, and took a long pull on the cold beer. He wrapped a strong arm, thicker with muscle than it used to be, across my chest and pulled me backwards. I leaned my head against his hard stomach.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I’m here for you now, boo,” he murmured as he finger-combed my hair away from my face. “However you need me, I’m here.”

And the thought of how badly I needed him right now should have scared me. Instead, against my better judgment, I took him up on his offer and let him be my friend. He did what he’d done so many times before: held me while I cried over my mama.

Chapter 8

I couldn’t believe I was doing this. My heart pounded a beat hard enough for a Godsmack song as the elevator rose, racing with the thought of what was about to come, as well as with the memory of my first elevator ride. It had been in a fancy hotel in some big city I didn’t know then and couldn’t remember now. Mama had smiled at Sissy’s and my excitement, chattering on about how beautiful the hotel was as it raced by through the glass walls. Her hands shook so bad, though, I’d thought she’d been scared.

When we reached our floor way up high, she led us down a corridor that smelled good, like expensive soap, to a door that a strange man answered. I didn’t like the look he gave us as he ushered Sissy and me through a door in his room to another room exactly like his but with two beds instead of one. Mama told us to watch TV and be good while she visited with her new friend. They closed the door, and we had to turn the volume on the TV way up to drown out the man’s icky noises coming from the other side of the adjoining door. It lasted all night, except for a while when Mama came to see us, wearing the hotel’s robe. We got room service—our first meal in a week that hadn’t come from a McDonald’s dumpster—and slept in real beds, and Mama got her drug money. At the time, I didn’t know that’s what it was, but I knew she suddenly had a wad of cash in her purse, we still didn’t eat again for two days and went back to the car to sleep, and she’d stopped shaking.

My stomach squeezed at the memory, and I forced myself not to retch.

Maybe I should have taken Ty up on his offer to come with me. Nah. I needed to do this alone. And I needed somebody to stay on my side, to not see her in her weakened state, but to remember her like I always had: a selfish druggie who’d abandoned her young daughters. I’d see Ty tonight. Elizabeth had given me the entire day off, and I hadn’t been on Sullivan’s schedule. I had a few things to do for Uncle Troy when I got back, but after that, Ty had promised me dinner. I kept telling him it wasn’t a date—reminding myself as much as him—and he insisted he was still just being a friend. He said I’d need it after today, and he couldn’t have been more right.

The elevator dinged when it reached the fifth floor and the doors slid open. I stood frozen, staring out at the corridor in front of me, glad no one else was in here to push me out. Forcing the lump in my throat down with a hard swallow, I wiped my hands on my miniskirt, and wobbling on the heels I usually had no problem walking in, I took a step forward at the same time the doors began to slide shut. My breath caught, and I jumped backwards. The doors came to a close, and the elevator began moving downward without me pushing a button. Maybe this was a sign that I shouldn’t be here. Nothing good could come of it. In fact, there was a strong possibility I’d put Mama out of her misery early, and I’d be hauled off to jail.

By the time the elevator reached the ground floor again, I was prepared to walk out the hospital doors, to my car and get the hell out of here. When the doors parted, though, Sissy stood on the other side, wearing yoga pants and a tank top.

Her eyes popped wide open. “Betha—Bex! You came!”

She rushed inside the elevator and swallowed me into a hug.

“Did you already see Mama? I wish you woulda told me you were comin’. I woulda been there to provide support and all. I ran out to grab somethin’ to eat, though, but I s’pose she told you that already.” She pulled away and punched the 5 button before quickly retreating to my side as more people stepped on board. “Do you mind comin’ back up? Did you get to talk to the doctors? I know Dr. Hayes really wanted to chat with both of us at the same time.”

My head swam. My palms started sweating again as we rose. My stomach once again threatened to toss my measly breakfast.

There was no point in lying to her. Mama’s face when she saw me would give away that I hadn’t been there yet. My voice came out sounding like a toad’s croak. “Um … I couldn’t remember the room number. I haven’t seen her yet.”

Sissy took a closer look at me, and her brows drew together. “Oh, bless your heart, look at you. I can’t tell if you’re scared or want to puke.”

A little bit of both, actually.

“Don’t you worry,” she said as she slid her hand up and down my upper arm. “You’ll be fine. And it’s the right thing to do, Bex. Besides, she’s a whole different person now. Too weak to be a bitch, bless her heart.”

The smartly dressed woman standing in front of us glanced over her shoulder with a look of disdain. I wondered if she’d be so disapproving if she knew everything our mother had put us through. Of course, nobody but I knew about everything, not even Sissy.

The elevator emptied as we made our way up, and by the time we reached the fifth floor, I was glad to have my sister by my side. She took my hand and led me out of the box and down the hall. We stopped at the closed door of room 532 and paused as I inhaled a deep breath full of the nasty odors of disinfectant, bleach, and sickness. I blew it out slowly. Sissy watched me closely until I nodded that I was ready. As ready as I’d ever be, anyway.

Except I’d never be ready for the sight that greeted me.

The thing lying in the hospital bed looked nothing like my mama. In fact, it barely looked human at all. The top of the bed was raised, and a low-watt lamp behind the bed was on, haloing the head that was barely more than a skull. She’d once had a full head of scarlet red hair like mine and the same bright complexion covered in freckles. We’d inherited our blue eyes from our daddy, but her brown ones had the same wide shape. They did at one time, anyway. She’d been a looker way back when. Even before she’d left us, I’d seen the drugs taking their toll on her. I just hadn’t imagined it would be this bad. She looked ninety, and she wasn’t even forty yet.

Her brown eyes turned to me, still appearing large but only because the sockets were sunken. There was no roundness to her face at all, only gray, mottled skin pulled tight over sharp cheekbones, framed by patches of thinning, dull-red hair that looked brittle enough to break if a brush even touched it. Recognition flickered in her eyes, and her thin lips parted in a crooked O, showing her few remaining teeth that looked too large for her mouth because the gums had receded so much. She lifted a bony hand off the bed a few inches, the tube leading under her skin following, and I was surprised she even had the strength for that because she seemed to have barely any muscles left on her bones.

“Beth’nee,” she whispered hoarsely. “You came.”

Sissy gave my hand a squeeze, then gently pushed me forward. I about fell face first because my feet remained glued in place. I’d wanted to be angry. I’d wanted to yell at her, to tell her once and for all how badly she had hurt us, how much she had made us suffer. I’d wanted to throw a classic hissy fit that I felt completely entitled to. In fact, the only way I’d been able to talk myself into coming today was by thinking that this was my last chance to tell her exactly how I felt. And once again, she was robbing me of that satisfaction. How could I yell at this skeleton?

“It’s okay,” Mama said. “I know you hate me. And I prolly look scarier than a hellhound on Halloween. I’m just pleased as pie that you came at all.”

She paused to draw in a breath that rattled through her lungs as though pebbles filled them. She didn’t look scary, though. Not as scary as she did when she went through withdrawals and took her problems out on us. She looked weak and vulnerable and sad. Very sad.

I glanced around the typical hospital room, noting that no one occupied the other bed. At least she had the privacy of a single room without the cost. A chair sat next to each bed. An adjustable table stood next to Mama’s, rather than over it. A meal of soup, Jell-O, and juice was on top, looking barely touched.

“Um …” I swallowed against my tight throat and tried to make conversation. I wasn’t really sure what to say, though. “Did I interrupt your lunch?”

“Oh, no, I’m done. I ate until I was fuller than a tick on a hound.”

Sissy walked over to the table, examined the contents and looked back at Mama. “You didn’t eat a thing, Mama. You need more than that.”

She pushed the table closer to Mama’s bed, sat on the side, and picked up the spoon. She scooped out some green Jell-O and brought it to Mama’s mouth. Mama rolled her eyes at me while parting her lips in compliance. The chords in her neck strained as she swallowed, and I wondered if she was actually still hungry but didn’t have enough energy to feed herself. Which meant she probably needed help with other necessities, like going to pee and cleaning herself.

No wonder Sissy spent so much time here. She probably had even more to do when Mama wasn’t in the hospital. Sissy had pretty much moved into her one-bedroom apartment to care for her up until a week ago, when they put her back in the hospital. We’d had a big fight a while ago about how I needed Sissy to help out with the bills, but then she showed me how much a home nurse would cost. I’d had to bite back the words I’d wanted to say and gave in. Now I understood better. Mama needed full-time help, and not just someone to bring her a meal every now and then and do her wash. I could have never helped Mama like this. Not because I hated her, but because it just wasn’t in me. I’d rather work three jobs and let Sissy handle this part. I knew what it was like to take care of a helpless child, but a helpless adult was a different story.

“I remember when it was me feeding you,” Mama said.

And that one statement brought me back to life.

Renewed anger jolted through me, and I nearly jumped at her.

“Oh, hell no! You have no right to say that!” I nearly screamed. “
I
fed her.
I
made sure she had food, and
I
made sure it got in her stomach while you lay on the couch all drugged out. And I was only three years old!”

Tears stung my eyes, and my body trembled. I couldn’t believe she’d even gone there!

“Bex,” Sissy hissed.

Mama placed a hand on hers, stilling it from bringing another bite to her mouth. “No, she’s right. She’s right about me, and she’s right to be angry. I deserve it. I was talking about you, Beth’nee. When I used to feed you. Peaches were your favorite. And ice cream. Boy, did you love ice cream.”

She wheezed another breath then began coughing. My mouth slammed shut and my anger deflated.

“I was a good mama once, but you don’t remember that,” she eventually continued. “You were just a wee thing. When your daddy died, God rest his soul, a piece of me died with him. I tried to escape the pain with drugs. The doctors prescribed them at first. Ain’t that a hoot?”

I didn’t find it a hoot at all, especially as she broke into another coughing fit. What kind of doctors prescribed drugs to a pregnant woman with a one-year-old?

“The doctors started it twenty years ago, and now they’re tryin’ to fix it,” she continued. “I reckon they’re a little late, though.”

Sissy looked over at me with an expression full of warning. Apparently, Mama didn’t know how right she was.

“Speakin’ of doctors,” Sissy said, probably wanting to change the subject, “has Dr. Hayes been to see you yet?”

I swore Mama’s face lit up at the name. “Oh, he’s a looker, ain’t he? I know how you like him, Sis. No, he’s not been in yet, lucky you.”

Sissy’s face flushed. Interesting. She hadn’t mentioned anything about this Dr. Hayes to me.

“He wants to
talk
to us,” Sissy said. “That’s why I asked. I was hopin’ we hadn’t missed him already.”

“Mmm …” was all Mama said, and then her eyes closed, her head rolled to the side, and her mouth fell slightly open.

My breath caught and my heart raced as I watched closely for her chest to rise, because she looked deader than a doornail. Panic swept through me. There was still so much to be said. We needed more time! Why hadn’t I come sooner? Done more? Been the better person? How could I be so stubborn? So selfish? My hand flew to my mouth as a sob threatened its way up. But then I saw her chest move. Her breaths came slowly, but they did still come. I could finally take my own breath.

I guess I didn’t want her dead as badly as I thought I did.

Sissy rose and took my hand and led me out of the room, the first I’d moved since arriving. She pulled the heavy door behind her, ensuring it closed quietly.

“I don’t know how long she’ll sleep,” she said. “Sometimes it’s only for a few minutes, and others it’s for hours. You’re not gonna go, are you?”

I pushed my hands into the front pockets of my miniskirt while watching her face that filled with hope. “You said the doctor wanted to talk to us, right?”

She smiled and nodded, then headed down the hall for the nurse’s station. I stayed by Mama’s door, leaned against the wall with one ankle crossed over the other, and let my head fall back to stare at the ceiling. My mind and emotions were all over the place, and I needed to see which way was up. How could I still love this person I hated so much? I didn’t think I had, but couldn’t deny it now. Not with the way I’d reacted when I thought she’d died right before my eyes. After treating us worse than dogs and leaving us on Grams’ doorstep with not another word until two months ago, how could I possibly still love her?

Because she was my mama. That’s why.

“You must be Bethany,” said a male voice that sent a shock through my nerves.

I came to immediate attention, stood up straight, and opened my mouth to correct him, but nothing came out. My stomach did this crazy-ass flip-flop thing I’d never felt before. My heart made its own gymnastics move in my chest. When he lifted a brow and gave me a model-like smile, I had to squeeze my thighs tight because I thought my panties would fall right down to my four-inch heels, soakin’ wet and steamin’. Holy. Shit. Dark hair and silvery green eyes like the color of Spanish moss, a tanned complexion, and enough scruff around his square jaw and chin to make me wonder what that would feel like against my cheek … okay, against my thighs. This was one sexy specimen of a man. And he didn’t look much older than me. Well, maybe by four or five years. Still acceptable.