Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I sighed. “I love you, Mama.”
I moved back to the chair next to her. For a while, I just sat quietly with her. I thought about how best to tell her, and finally, I just came out with it. By now she had probably forgotten he even existed.
“Dad’s dead,” I said.
The stiffening of her body was unmistakable. Instantly, I regretted telling her. Why did she need to know? All I had done was distressed her further. It didn’t matter to her either way and I should have just left it alone.
“He can never hurt you,” I whispered to try and console her.
Her mouth opened.
“It’s okay, Mama,” I comforted desperately.
She turned towards me, her eyes urgent. “Are you sure?”
I was so amazed I could only stare at her, speechless.
She took my wrist in a claw like grasp and shook it. “Are you sure?”
I nodded in shock. I couldn’t believe the change in her.
“Have you seen the body?”
I shook my head. What the fuck was going on? “Yes. At the morgue.”
She smiled then. A triumphant curve of her lips. It was bursting with irresistible, immeasurable, uncontainable joy. The smile of someone who finally wrestles victory from the jaws of her adversary after years of determination, effort, hardship, and terrible sacrifice. And suddenly I knew.
My God! It was the most unbelievable, crazy, insane thing, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. All these years she had been pretending to have dementia.
I marveled at her tenacity. For years and years, she had sat in a care home because that was the only way she knew to keep him away. She had waited until I left for College and then she had devised this method to get her away from him.
She reached out and touched my face, her fingers traced my cheekbones, my jaw, my throat. Almost as if she was blind and she was seeing with her fingers. “I’m sorry, Luca. I’m sorry. I cried many tears, but there was no other way.”
“But you threw away so many years.”
“It was worth it.”
I shook my head in wonder. “You never once dropped your act. It was so perfect. You even fooled all those famous specialists I took you to.”
“Hah,” she scoffed. “They were the easiest to fool. My grandmother always used to say, the more educated a man becomes, the more arrogant and foolish he becomes. They were looking for symptoms and I gave them a whole list of it.”
“How did you know what they were looking for?”
“I read the books they wrote,” she said simply.
I looked at her sadly. “You allowed yourself to be poisoned for years with drugs you didn’t need.”
Her eyes danced with merriment. “No, I didn’t. It was not so easy in the place your father sent me to because I had a harder time getting them to put my medication into my palm. They wanted to drop it straight into my mouth, but the one you upgraded me to was a high-trust home so it was much easier. Here, let me show you what I did.”
She reached out to a bottle of tablets, shook three into her palm, and then popped them into her mouth. She made a swallowing movement, then she opened her lips and showed me her empty mouth.
“Did I swallow them?”
I frowned. “It sure looked like it.”
She reached into her lap and produced the three tablets.
“I learned the trick from a sleight-of-hand card trick guy on YouTube. The important thing is to make some other movement with your other hand to distract.”
I stared at my mother in admiration and astonishment. Her ruse had been so elaborate, so meticulously planned and so flawlessly executed. I never once suspected.
“Oh, Mama, all these years, you suffered alone.”
“No, I didn’t. I made friends with a night cleaner called Mabel. She was very kind to me. She was the only one who knew I was not ill. She kept me sane. She smuggled forbidden food in for me. Greasy chips, hotdogs, fried chicken. The midnight feasts we used to have.”
She smiled at the memory.
“Then you moved me here, and I understand why you did it, but I had to leave her behind, the only person who knew my secret, and it hurt me. I’ve missed her. I’ve missed her so much. I’d like to see her again. I don’t know if she still works at the Care Home. She was old you see, and about to retire. Can you arrange for her to come here, Luca, my wonderful son?”
“Of course, Mama. I will find Mabel for you and bring her here.”
“Thank you. Thank you for everything you have done. You will never know the pain I suffered to sit like a statue and never respond to you or the little one. I died a little every time she hugged me and I didn’t hug her back. But I always knew, live by the sword, die by the sword. One day he would die and I would be free.”