Just Jack

Part Two: Chapter Nineteen: Just Letting Go

Chapter Nineteen

Just Letting Go

     Time stands still. You're sitting there, looking around. Paralyzed. Frozen to the spot. Time, it doesn't move yet, you want more of it. You would do anything for just another day, an hour even. Minutes become hours, hours are days. Suddenly, your heartbeat becomes the clock. It's beat reminds you that time is still going. It says, yeah you're still here so act now. Lost time will never be found. The time you killed is all of a sudden killing you. Slowly. You spent your whole life counting days. Now though, you're trying to make the days count.

     Its funny, I've spent so long away from hospitals and clinics that I have kind of forgotten what they are like. The smells and noises. I wish it could have stayed that way. Even when mom was getting her treatment over the last few months, she never wanted me or Sammy there. And we obeyed. Keith, however, was not so obedient. He would accompany her to most of her chemotherapy sessions, all her doctors appointments and has always been there to help out at home. For all of this, no matter how much I dislike him, I am grateful. Especially now as she lays in, what is sure to one day be, her deathbed he is still here. It's nice to see him sitting by her side, at the very end.

     Is this the end? Even saying that in my head seems so idiotic. My mom, crazy work obsessed Karen, she can't die. Not this young. She can't leave me like this. She can't leave Sammy, so young. She still has mothering to do. She still has advice to give us. Who will warn Sammy about boys and tell her about puberty? Who will help me with colleges and see me off when it's finally time to go? I need to have the crying mom in my dorm. This can't be the end. Yet, standing outside her hospital room, looking at her through the glass window, at her pale skin, lifeless eyes and thin body, a part of me wishes it was. For her sake. And maybe mine too.

     Its bound to happen again, third time is a charm they say. I guess it will come full circle. My dad died, and it all started. The anorexia. The calorie counting. The doctors and needles – the white padded room. I was twelve years old. Then I got better and stayed that way for years. Then Chris fake-died, or whatever, and it all started again. Surely I am destined to go through it all again, one final time, and maybe this time end up dead like Amelia's son. Maybe death-by-anorexia is my destiny. Not college, not adulthood. Not life without both parents.

     I contemplate entering her room but Keith and her seem to be in deep conversation. Every so often he wipes a tear away from his cheek. I have to admire him on some level. Most men would have left by the whole widow with two kids, oh yeah and one is anorexic. But he stuck around, through it all. Maybe he's not so bad for her at the end of the day. I guess it's good to have someone to mourn you. To grieve when you die. How beautifully tragic.

     Karen sits up in her bed, slowly, as if this slight movement is using up most of her energy, which it probably is. She sees me standing outside and smiles remorsefully and then nods for me to come in, to join her in her final moments. I return her smile and hold up my hand, I'll be there in a minute it says. I just want to watch her from afar for a moment. Watch her smile and move. Watch Sammy cuddle up beside her as she embraces her. Watch her laugh when Keith complains about the food and trash TV. God knows that soon enough I won't be able to see her do these things anymore, and it will be moments like these that I will replay in the dead of night when she is gone. A single, content tear falls all the way down my cheek and reaches my chin before I even notice it's presence.