The Unwelcomed Knock

I groaned as the knock on the door woke me up. I checked my phone. Two o’clock in the morning. I groaned again. I had three missed calls from Dad, but he would have to wait; the knocking had grown louder and more persistent.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” I called.

I trudged out of bed, my Toy Fox Terrier Bubs trailing after me as I made my way across my studio apartment. I flung the door open to find my brother, Darrell, waiting impatiently on the other side.

“What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?” I asked.

“Why aren’t you answering Dad’s calls?” Darrell countered.

“I’ve been sleeping, that’s why!” I paused. Something wasn’t right; Darrell looked more gaunt than usual, and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Darrell looked me straight in the eye as he replied, “Mom died.”

My chest tightened. Tears sprung to my eyes but did not fall.

“What?” I asked. “But…no. That can’t be possible. I talked to Dad just last night. He said he was going to take her to a hospital in Sacramento tomorrow to get a referral to a specialist…”

“Well, he lied,” Darrell snapped. He sighed and ran his hand through his buzz-cut hair. “Or at least, he didn’t tell the whole truth. Apparently, Mom’s cirrhosis was further along than even he knew. The doctors weren’t straight with him, and he thought that we had more of a chance of getting her to a specialist, but in fact…”

He sniffled. I had never seen him get this close to crying before, even when we were children and Mom and Dad were fighting.

“I…I…” I swallowed against my tears. “Has anyone told Steve?”

Darrell nodded.

“I texted him. He and Shannon are on their way up now. They should be here in a few hours.”

Great, I thought. He couldn’t bother to come see her when she was alive, but he’ll come see her in death. Better late than never, I guess.

“We better hurry if you want to spend any time with her,” Darrell said.

I blinked.

“What?”

“Mom. The police have already been by to mark down the time and cause of death for the death certificate. We’re going to have to hurry if you’re going to spend any time with Mom before the people from the funeral home come to take her—“

“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head, “I’m not doing that.”

Darrell’s head lurched back, surprised.

“What do you mean? I thought that, of all people, you would—“

“Well, you were wrong.”

I started walking to my bed, leaving the door open, and Bubs gave Darrell a single bark before following me.

“You’re going to regret if you don’t see her one last time,” Darrell said, leaning against the doorframe.

“And you think that I want my last memory of her to be of some cold, lifeless corpse?” I snapped, but I couldn’t look him in the eye.

Darrell tilted his head.

“Are you sure that’s why you don’t want to see her?” he asked. “Or is it maybe because then you’ll have to admit that Mom is really dead?”

I wrapped my arms around myself and shrugged.

“Why does it matter? I don’t want to do it,” I said, knowing very well that I sounded like a petulant child.

Darrell sighed and pushed himself off the doorframe.

“It’s OK to be upset,” he said, stepping towards me. “It’s perfectly natural, in fact. I’ve been through it quite a few times—“

“But it hasn’t gotten any easier for you, has it?” I spat at him. “So why should it be easy for me now?”

“It shouldn’t,” he countered. He reached out and gently touched my arm. “All I’m saying is that seeing her could give you some much-needed closure. If you don’t do it, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

My eyes closed, and my face scrunched up. Tears flowed freely down my face. I hugged myself tighter, until I realized that my brother had wrapped his arms around me as well and pulled me close to him.

“It’s not fair,” I cried, burying my face in his neck. “She was my best friend. What am I supposed to do without her?”

“I don’t know,” Darrell replied truthfully. “All that you can do is just live. Live for her, live for yourself. It’s what she would have wanted.”

“But how can I without her? We did everything together…”

“Do everything you did with her, and remember that she is by your side in spirit.”

“I just…I don’t know…”

I cried into his shoulder for several minutes. Darrell just stood there and held me, occasionally rubbing my back and giving me a squeeze, until finally my breathing slowed down and evened out.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“Any time, sis,” Darrell replied. He gave me one last squeeze and pulled away. “Are you ready?”

I nodded.

“Just give me a couple minutes to get dressed, then we can go.”

“I’ll be out in the car.”

With that, Darrell left my apartment and closed the door behind him.

I quickly changed my clothes, put Bubs in his crate, and grabbed my phone. I paused just before the door and opened up the text conversation between Mom and me. Her texts had gotten more and more jumbled since she had been admitted to the hospital until, finally, she stopped answering at all.

I clicked on the text bar and typed, “I love you, Mom.”

I hit “Send”, knowing that there would never be an answer again.