Vegas Knot (✔️) | Love Travels #1

Thirty-Nine

By the time I make it to the city, I've fished my grandmother's old ring out of my purse and placed it back on my finger. I refuse to face my mother in the hospital and have to admit I've nuked my marriage all in one night.

One problem at a time.

The whole walk up the bright white halls of the hospital, decorated at regular intervals with colourful children's paintings, I have to remind myself to breathe. Everything is going to be okay. I am fine and I can do this.

When I finally reach the unit where my mother was having her cast applied, I don't even need to ask for directions to her room, her voice carrying down the hallway like a lighthouse in a storm.

"That's my mom," I say as an explanation when the nurse at the desk looks like he's about to stop me.

"Go ahead," he says, a small smirk reaching his lips. Glad to see she already has a reputation around here. I wouldn't want to be the only one who understands.

"I do not need a wheelchair," my mother is practically shouting at the nurses trying to help her into the chair, a pile of paperwork abandoned on the edge of the bed as Mom's thrashing required an extra set of hands.

"You most certainly do," I say as I round the corner into her room. "And these poor nurses are just doing their job making sure you get to the exit safely. After that, it's your own fault if you do something to reinjure yourself."

I ignore her loud protests and turn to the nurse, who hands me a pile of paperwork and goes through the discharge instructions from the doctor.

"Ha!" I say when the nurse reaches the instructions about independent movement. "I knew you were lying to me. You need someone around at all times. You know what that means? You're coming home with me."

"I don't need your help, Bianca. I'll be fine."

"You called me, Mom."

"Well, I was on pain killers. I wasn't sure how it was going to be once they discharged me. But look at me, I'm fine."

I let my eyes zero in on her cast. "Fine is not how I'd put it. Now, are you ready to go?"

She spends the whole ride down the elevator convincing me to let her go home, the whole trip to my place telling me she doesn't really need help, and the entire walk to the door pressing down on my shoulder like it's a crutch.

"You know what?" I ask once she's finally seated on my sofa. "No one can ever charge you with hypocrisy."

"Is this your trademarked sarcasm again, Bianca?"

"It's my trademarked realization. You always did tell us asking for help was only a last resort. And you certainly live by that motto."

"I did not. Where did you get the idea that someone helping you up made you weak?"

I stare at her, blinking, and then gesture to her whole self. "You look like that and you didn't want me to bring you back here. What made you think that?"

"Let's make some dinner," she says, pushing herself up from the couch instead of asking for help. I race across the living room, slicing my shin on the coffee table on the way by.

"Mama! Can you let me help you? You don't always have to put others before yourself."

You want to make everything better. You hate fighting. You're a peacemaker in the worst way and I love you for it but you don't need to make up for anything.

Why did Enrique have to go and be all wise on this day of all days? And why was I thinking of him while I struggled to keep my mother from falling to the ground as blood seeped out of a gash on my leg?