Her eyes reminded me
of two gray translucent pebbles which can be found on a sea shore. Myriad of sparkles I used to see in my childhood were gone now. Her body, exhausted with years and pain, was lying under the blanket. I was happy the doctor let her stay at home for a while. Mum was so tired of hospitals.
She`s had another seizure tonight. I`ve given her morphine, as the doctor told me, so she could sleep a little bit. She didn`t answer my question about her well-being this morning. Mum stopped talking to me in these later days. I think that`s because she is still mad at me and offended.
I took her hand. The fingertips were cold, but still as soft as they used to be in my childhood. I remember these gentle hands braid my hair when I was five. That process made me feel goose bumps. Her lips have lost the color of vitality so long ago. Day by day my mother has been turning into something gray and merging with the gray blanket she was lying on.
“Look!” there was a voice somewhere in my head “You did that to her! You are the worst daughter ever!”
Sudden scream shot me. I grabbed mum`s shoulders. Her body was rebelling again. The loud pain was clambering through her throat. When the tumor in her brain wins, she has nothing to do but scream. Such seizures began to happen more often these days. Mum desperately grabbed the sheet, straining each muscle of her body, but it barely could help, I guess. The pain was burning her alive again.
“You are the devil!” sounded in my head “Enjoy watching her suffering? You think you have any right to can her in your memory tin like a strawberry jam in a jar to eat later in winter?”
I shook my head. I hated that voice so much, but I hated myself more. I was so tired during all these years of hospitals and useless treatment. I tried so hard. We flew to German to do the surgery, but after spending ten hours in waiting room I was told that my mother was paralyzed from the waist down. The tumor came back four month later. I`ve been trying to hold the hope in my hands as long as possible, however it`s been slowly disappearing with each sun rise. I wasn`t ready to admit I had nothing to hold in my hands anymore.
Mum was screaming and crying. I could just watch her not to fall down in convulsions. Her wide opened eyes were peering into the ceiling. I couldn`t imagine what she was going through, but it probably was like daily getting stuck in a meat grinder.
“Please, stop it! Help me!” she was crying.
She begged me every time, but I`ve never wanted to listen to this nonsense, until one day she started blaming her suffering on me.
“I can`t give you morphine, it`s too early, I`m so sorry!”
“Stop whining, chicken!” said the voice in my head.
Mum looked at me angrily. Her glance made me feel nauseous. She kept silence, but I knew already what she was telling me.
“I won`t do that, mum! Don`t make me!” I was angry at her because of her weakness, but also at myself because of mine.
“How could you?!” mum screamed and painfully squeezed my wrestle. “I always got you what you wanted, and this is the only thing I`ve ever asked you for and you refuse me?! Again?! How much time do I have to ask you?”
“She knew what she wants” was sounding in my head “Just a little bit more morphine, that`s all. I don`t understand, why are you so stubborn?”
My eyes filled with tears. I felt myself choking and nauseous at the same time. If the God exists, why he permits such sickish choices? My hands got wet; my heart was pulsing in my temples. It seemed to me all the air in this grey bedroom was pumped out.
“You little tiny chicken-girl” sung the voice.
“Give me the goddamn syringe!” mum said “I`ll do it myself, if you don`t have the guts!”
Her face and hands were sweating, the pupils dilated. The seizure started to cease. I couldn`t breathe, I couldn`t be in that place anymore, seeing her face and hearing her voice. I dashed to leave the bedroom.
“Don`t leave me!” mum`s scream tried to catch me “Alice, come back right now and look in my eyes! You are killing me, you are worse than the tumor in my brain!”
I couldn`t stop crying.
“Oh, look at you, you are so miserable” the voice was laughing inside of my head.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, animal!” I barely broke my voice and couldn`t stop myself from whisking away the cup nearby.
It hit the floor and smashed, but I didn`t feel relief.
“I hated you since your born!” mum was screaming upstairs “I knew you would be ungrateful and selfish trash! Stop cherishing your stupid egoism and let me die!”
I loved my mother, no matter how harsh and demanding she was. There always were just she and me, although we`ve never been linked with warm family relationships. I always did everything to defy her, and she always wasn`t satisfied with me. The terrible hints of consent began to emerge in my thoughts about six months ago. Every time I heard those dull accusations from her, they were growing inside my head likewise mother's tumor. That day, I think, I broke up like the cup. I brought her chamomile tea, which she loves so much, and let the triple dose of morphine flow through her veins. The last thing I saw was her happy smile and relief in her eyes.
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