She Wins

CW: Mental health, psychological abuse

SHE WINS

A call late on a Saturday afternoon moves us with urgency. Mums had another stroke. With only a hastily packed backpack and the hospital post code we drive late into the night to get to her bedside.

“We’re here, Mum”, David says, sitting close, stroking her hair, holding her hand. The nurse brings me a hot tea. Black. I sip it immediately. The scolding heat comforts the chill I feel inside. The chill I feel for Mum.

Audrey, Mum’s friend is here, along with Mum’s sister Jean. No one knows what to say. A palpable silence only interrupted by Jean repeating the same notion again and again.

“It was all so sudden, you know, we were just talking in the garden.”

We nod along in surprise each time she says this.

Mum is unresponsive. Her eyes are closed, her body frozen. I count her laboured breaths; seventeen a minute. Every inhale feels exhaustive. Every exhale catches, as if phlegm rattles in her throat – one hard cough away from release. I imagine her clearing her throat ending this whole episode, phlegm unforgivably landing on herself, or worse, on another person. She sits up, apologises profusely to the unfortunate recipient. Uncomfortable. Mortified.

I flicker a twitch of a smirk.

She lays motionless under a mountain of blankets. Her body is shutting down and cold to touch. I secretly place my hand beneath hers, as if she’s holding it. I imagine her telling me everything will be OK - that she loves me, that she’s proud of me. That I was the daughter she always dreamed of having.

None of this is true, of course. She wasn’t nice. She wasn’t loving. She didn’t care for me unconditionally like a mother should. She didn’t put her arms around me and tell me everything was going to be alright. She didn’t tolerate feelings. She suffered her life with nicotine and a vile temper projecting her past onto me - her insecurities, her pain, her shame. She told me I had to live with my mistakes. She quietly bought me Slimming World cookbooks when I struggled with disordered eating. She awkwardly navigated my first period, leaving sporadic pads on my bed every other month forcing me to ration the little I had, a habit I still can’t break. She loved conditionally, moving the goal posts frequently, like a slot machine randomly paying out with rare hugs and breadcrumbs of approval forcing me to keep feeding quarters, hoping that my win will come. It never does.

Five-year-old me traces her hand with my fingertips, feeling her weathered nails, and bumpy veins. I picture her smiling fondly at me. The sun warm on my face. She is buying me a 99-ice cream and a helium balloon from the man in Romford Market. I spill the ice cream down my pinafore corduroy dress. Her eyes narrow. I’ve embarrassed her, again. She pulls at my wrist, walking faster than my legs can keep up with.

Tears prick my eyes. I blink them away. I cannot cry. If she sees, then that means she’s won.

I won’t let her win.

I can’t.

The Doctor quietly enters the room, pulling a brown plastic chair close to the foot of the bed. She shows us the MRI scans.

“The bleed is catastrophic,” she says with a frown. Her brow furrowed. The scan looks like an ink blot test. A child’s potato art print picture stuck on a fridge next to stick man drawings and glitter glued dried pasta.

“It’s just a matter of time.”

My shoulders soften. I stay focussed, I keep counting.

“Seventeen still,” I say to David. He doesn’t acknowledge me.

We thank the Doctor and shift back towards Mum. It’s gone one in the morning. Jean is ninety-two and frail, she needs to rest. Her daughter arrives to take her home. We exchange sombre nods as she carefully escorts Jean to the door, offering a parting squeeze of my forearm on the way. Stay strong.

“Make sure you remove the jewellery before she goes to the morgue,” Audrey says over her shoulder as she follows Jean. Classy.

The room is still. David and I don’t chat. There are no words. We didn’t grow up with the same Mum. She idolised him. The good boy. The people pleaser. The boy who gave up his purpose to serve her. I was the bad girl. The difficult one. The girl who saw the dysfunction and dared to call it out. I broke up the family. I was ostracised.

“I guess I’m just a terrible mother then,” she would write to me in lengthy texts. Always signing off with luv Mum. Tactical. She knew how to spell love. She chose not to write it.

I hate her.

I want to call her name loudly, shake her shoulders and tell her she’s fine, for goodness’ sake. Let her know how it feels. I want to scream at her, tell her to stop causing all this trouble. Get this phlegm out of her once and for all so we can all head home.

I gulp down my tepid tea.

“Should I take off the rings?” I ask David. He nods. Tears in his eyes. I suspect he’s remembering different things than I am.

I reach under the blanket and softly lift her hand from the mattress. It’s stone cold. Her fingers are stiff. I tug gently at the rings, but they don’t budge.

I look to David for approval. He nods again.

Drawing her hand out from under the blankets, I place it in front of me and straighten out her ring finger. With a firmer grip I pull at the rings with force. Intention.

We witness one last exhale.

Then silence. No final gasp of air. No more rattle.

David looks at her with disbelief. Tears well in his eyes, mouth agape.

“Mum,” he whispers, resting his head on her shoulder.

I place her hand back under the blanket.

Tears flow. Ugly, unstoppable tears.

She wins.