“It’s too much.” She wiped her tears away. “I want to go home.”
I stared at her, thinking she couldn’t be serious. This was Dawson’s dad’s funeral. She couldn’t leave. It wasn’t even over yet. “What?”
“I want to go home, Charlotte. Take me home. I can’t be here for him. Not right now, probably not ever.”
What the hell was she saying? She couldn’t dump the guy at his father’s funeral. “No.”
“Charlotte, don’t. I don’t have it in me right now to fight you. Please take me home.”
“Why?” Anger bubbled through me, but I contained myself as best I could.
“I can’t handle seeing the way people look at me. There’s too much sympathy and pity pooling in their eyes.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Dawson wants something from me I can’t give him. He needs support and encouragement. He needs someone to lean on, to help him through all of this, but that person isn’t me no matter how much he wants it to be. I can’t help him through this when I’m still struggling to help myself.”
I stared at her, unable to move or speak.
“Please,” she begged. “Please take me home.”
“Okay.” I moved around to the back of her chair and gripped the handles.
The accident had broken Emma. I only hoped she wasn’t broken beyond repair.
SUNNY BROOK COTTAGES WAs the nursing home we decided on for Mom. It wasn’t particularly sunny, unless you counted the gaudy, fading mural painted in the main entrance. From the sight of it, I guessed it was probably painted when the place opened back in the eighties. The staff was nice, and the residents—or patients, I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be called—who lived there seemed happy. Although, that could have been due to any number of medications they were being pumped full of.
Emma and I continued to follow Mr. Holbrook through the maze of rooms and halls during our tour. I wasn’t sure I liked the place, but Emma seemed to approve. She had kept a smile on her face since meeting Mr. Holbrook. I knew it was fake, because it didn’t crinkle the corners of her eyes like I remembered her real ones doing, but it was as close to a real smile as I had seen from her in weeks, months even. My sister’s lips had been stuck in a permanent frown since waking from the accident.
“This is the room that gets the most enjoyment from all.” Mr. Holbrook motioned for us to follow him, as though we would have done anything else. We’d been following him for the past twenty minutes. “The activity room.”
I glanced around. The room was large with tables and chairs placed sporadically throughout, a TV, couch, two end tables, and a few bookshelves. Two of the random tables housed puzzles in stages of near completion. Pieces had been spread around and sorted into neat piles by someone. The blues were with the blues, the greens with the greens, and so on. I wondered who had taken time to do such a thing, and if it was the same person working on both of them at once.
A morbid thought hit me: What if the person doing the puzzles died? Did someone else swoop in to finish what the other had started, or did a staff member put all the pieces back into the box, erasing his or her hard work as though it never existed?
“We have a set schedule of weekly activities that occur in this room. Every Monday we hold a folding party,” Mr. Holbrook announced as though it were the best thing ever.
“Folding party?” Emma beat me to asking.
“That’s right.” He smiled. It was a goofy smile, one that made me think there might not be something quite right with him. It was the smile of a crazed man. “Every Monday we have towels, washcloths, sometimes sheets or resident clothing placed in here for those who feel up to it to fold. We call it our Monday night folding party, because some of the ladies here are a hoot to talk with, which makes it feel like a party.”
“They actually enjoy folding laundry?” I couldn’t help ask. The idea of thinking of folding laundry as a party seemed bizarre to me and sort of sad.
Mr. Holbrook nodded his head, his goofy grin growing. “Yes. They do. You see, sometimes they look for things to do. It’s a habit leftover from home. They enjoy doing something familiar, folding clothes is easy and enjoyable.”
“That makes sense.” It did, in a weird way.
“Tuesday night is our rotating night. Sometimes there will be a special guest, card games, board games, or something of that nature. The residents take a vote on what they would like to do.” He moved to stand behind the couch. “Also, once a month, Tuesday night is made into a glamour night for the ladies. The staff does the residents’ hair, nails, and makeup. It’s something fun for us all.”
“Mom would love that.” I knew she would. This was probably the only thing I had heard during the entire tour that made me smile.
“Most of the women do.” He placed a hand along the back of the couch and seemed to comb through his brain for the remainder of the schedule. “Wednesday is what we call Flexercise day. It’s where we play a DVD video for the residents to exercise to. We also have a few instructors who come and do hands-on workouts twice a month to keep things interesting. Thursday nights are another rotating night. Depending on the weather, we might listen to music in the quad out back or one of the staff members might choose a book to read out loud. Fridays are always movie and popcorn night. And weekends are generally when family come to visit, so we don’t have set things on those days.”
Emma glanced at me. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice. What about you?”
“I think it’s perfect for Mom,” Emma said. The fake smile that had been twisting her lips for Mr. Holbrook to see had finally morphed into a real one. “When can she move in?”
“We can go over the paperwork, and then I’ll let you know a date once I get my calendar in front of me. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great.” Emma beamed.
After filling out a stack of papers, Mr. Holbrook told us Mom could move in around the twenty-third, which was nearly three weeks away. The relief that rolled off my shoulders was followed by tiny pinpricks of guilt. Before I could wallow in it for long, I reminded myself of what I had said to Dawson when he mentioned having felt relief instead of all-out grief after learning the news of his father’s passing. I was only human.
Three weeks came and went faster than I thought they would. Mom had taken the news fairly well, but when moving day was finally upon us, I worried the reality of what was happening to her would set in and things would become difficult. I was surprised that wasn’t the case. In fact, Mom had one of her moments the entire time Emma and I attempted to box up her room, which proved to be good for us, because she thought she was preparing to take that cruise she always talked about.
Mom’s room was going to be small at Sunny Brook, so we only packed the necessities. The rest of her belongings Emma insisted we place in the attic. I wasn’t sure why. It seemed like more of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing, which was odd for Emma, because I knew that wasn’t how she felt about our mother. Then again, it could be now. Things had changed with her. She was different.
“I’ll grab that one, if you’ll carry the blankets in,” Dawson said. He had offered to help us move Mom into Sunny Brook even though there wasn’t much to move. Emma hadn’t cared if he came or not. She was colder toward him now than she ever was, leaving me to wonder if she had seen our near kiss that one night or me consoling him after he had gotten the news about his father. I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I figured it would be best to wait and see if she brought it up. “Please, they make me itch.” Dawson flashed me a charming smile, the one that always made my knees grow weak.
I looked away, and reached for the blankets. “Sure.”