Started With a Lie

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four
Recap:

So basically, Ivory’s mom is in a coma from an accident and there’s a bit of suspicion on what happened but she ignores it because she’s your average stupid main character.  Her college brother, Brent is back also. Madam Jin and Ivory go visit her mom and suddenly Madam Jin starts acting weird. And there are hints of warmth between Ivory and Lee, but is it all an act just for Madam Jin? Should she care about Lee while Mark is being so sweet to her? Play the song when it says, "Play Song."

 

“Madam Jin!”

    As the color disappears from her face, her frail body slowly crumples to the marble white floor. She lands next to where she had dropped her flowers, a few inches away from my mother’s hospital bed. The beep of the monitor connected to Mom’s heart rate is all I can hear in the eerie silence. And then I’m rushing towards her.

    I kneel down beside her, holding her forearm. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Are you okay? Are you not good in hospitals? I can take you out for a second.”

    She doesn’t respond, her fingers shaking. I pull her to her feet. I think it’s best she goes outside anyways. I place her in one of the plastic seats in the waiting room of the hospital and rub her cold, shaking hands in hope I can calm her down. I have no idea what’s wrong with her.

    “It’s okay,” I whisper again and again. I rub her fingers with my hands. “Everything’s okay.” Should I call a doctor to check on her or what?

    Her breathing slows and I decide she’s fine.

    She looks up at me and there’s a look in her eyes. It has so much emotions. I never thought you could actually feel emotions by looking at someone’s eyes but as I look into hers I feel it—the pain, the loss, the shock—and I see the tears.  I raise my eyebrows in confusion. I know people can be sympathetic and cry with you over your loss but this is a whole other level that Madam Jin is on.  It’s like it’s her mother on the hospital bed and not mine.

    “I,” she speaks, “I’m sorry about that.”

    “I don’t know what to say,” I tell her. “What happened? Do you need a doctor?”

    Madam Jin looks away. “She just… she reminds me of someone.” She wipes her bloodshot eyes and sniffs. “It just, it can’t be the person I’m thinking of, I’m sure.”

    Oh. It’s not anything serious, I think in relief.  I speak too soon.

    “But I can’t be too sure,” she says suddenly. Her phone is suddenly in her hand and she’s up, pacing around the hallway and she punches in numbers in the phone. “I know this is disrespectful but I need to make sure.”

    I stand up. “Make sure what, Madam Jin? What’s going on?”  I follow right behind her, tracing her steps. I don’t want to let her out of my sight. She’s not stable.

    Suddenly, she stops. She rushes inside the room where my unresponding mother is. Madam Jin looks at the phone, then my mother, the phone, and then my mother. She does it one more time and then she drops her cell phone.  

    “It’s her.”

    “Who?”

    “She’s…she’s my Mary.”

    “Madam Jin… What are you talking about? This is my mother. Her name isn’t Mary, it’s Helen,” I whisper. It’s so difficult to see someone so composed standing in front of me, a complete mess, calling my mother by a different name.  I have no idea what’s going on. While Madam Jin continues to stare at my mother, I whip out my phone and text the one person that I always go to.