The house is so quiet, I hear Spencer’s efforts as if they’re in surround sound. I feel the scream in my throat, but it doesn’t come out. I don’t have anything left.
“Nothing yet,” Spencer says. He’s out of breath, or maybe he’s just panicking because it’s not working.
It’s. Not. Working.
I keep my eyes closed. I had to deal with Dad. I can’t do this again.
Please breathe, Mum. Please don’t leave me.
Why did she change her mind? It was only a few hours ago that we were sitting around the table, drinking tea.
She encouraged us to go out. Did she know this morning that she was going to kill herself?
How long has she wanted to die?
I curl my fingertips into the carpet as despair swallows me whole. This isn’t fair.
“Indie! Indie!” Spencer’s booming voice cuts through my despair. “Open the door.”
Sitting up, I hear it. Sirens.
Help is here.
The paramedics can fix her.
Leaping up, I run from the living room and slam into the front door. My hands shake as I push the handle down and yank the door open. The ambulance stops outside my house, and two paramedics rush towards me.
“She’s not breathing,” I say as they approach.
“Okay. Where is she?”
“In there,” I tell them.
They’re a flash of green as they dash past me. I close the door slowly and take a ragged breath.
My hands shake.
Will she be angry when she comes around? How can I look her in the eye knowing she could leave me? How much pain has she been in? I didn’t know. Every conversation has ended on a positive note with her telling me that we’re going to be okay, while sharing her plans of a bright future. She wanted to watch her grandchildren grow up.
When she wakes, we’ll get her back into rehab, for longer this time. I should have done that the second the world found out about us. Something big had changed, yet we didn’t change her treatment. How could I not have seen that?
Well, I see it now, and I know what to do.
“Indie,” Spencer says, looking for me as he walks out of the living room. His turns around, a bit frantic, clearly scared that I could have run away.
He stills when he finds me. His face is pale, and he gulps. He looks a little broken himself.
“Hey, come here,” he says, taking a step closer.
My chin trembles. I feel it wobbling as I stumble into his open arms. He holds me tightly, like he’s stopping me from breaking apart. I think he might be.
I breathe him in, and my unsteady heartbeat stabilises. “What’s happening?”
His lips touch my forehead. “They’ve taken over. They’re trying.”
“She wanted to die…”
“Shh, it’s going to be okay.”
I want to believe him so badly, it hurts. Even if she doesn’t die, we’ll both know that she wanted to. It makes sense. She was willing to drink her life away with Dad. Of course she would want to die with him, too. They were always together from their late teens.
The short answer: you don’t.
How do you live without the other half of you? I wouldn’t be able to if anything bad happened to Spencer.
“What are they doing in there?”
“Trying to start her heart,” he replies softly, and his fingers find my hair.
“I’m cold,” I whisper.
Spencer holds me tighter. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of his heart. His is beating hard and strong.
“Will she hate us for helping her?” I ask.
“Don’t think like that, baby. One step at a time.”
His fingers dig into my back.
He had to perform CPR. That’s not something you just forget. Trying to revive someone is a cause of trauma.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about me. Let me look after you.”
“She’s gone, hasn’t she, Spence?”
He kisses my forehead again, harder this time, like he’s trying to heal me. “Don’t lose hope.”
Hope is evil. It makes you think things can be okay again, and then you’re more crushed when it isn’t. Hope can, frankly, fuck off.
Eventually the paramedics come through with Mum on a stretcher and an oxygen mask over her face. One is still treating her while the other guides them out. “She’s breathing but we need to get her to A&E.”
They got her breathing but neither one of them looks hopeful.
Forty-Eight
Spencer
We’re in a waiting room thirty minutes later, when the doctor walks in. “Miss Croft?”
Indie nods. I hold my breath.
“I’m so very sorry. We did everything we could… but your Mum has passed away.”
She doesn’t move, blink, or make any indication that she’s heard him. She has, though.
“Thank you,” I say, and he retreats.
I turn to her, completely at a loss. She’s not said a word since we arrived. We both followed the ambulance in my car. She could have gone with her mum but chose to come with me. Fear, that’s what stopped her going. She didn’t want to watch her mum die in the back of an ambulance.
Jessica is gone, and now Indie has to deal with the loss of another parent.
This one chose to go in a much more direct way.
I don’t know how you even begin to process your mum choosing to leave you behind. I’m not going to belittle Jessica’s suffering, but Indie needed her. She had the chance to be a proper mum to the most amazing woman.
“Indie?”
“We should go now,” she says. “I don’t want to be in this tiny room anymore. There’s nothing to stay for.”
“Babe…”
“No! I can’t go in and visit her. She’s dead!” Her breathing hitches and rattles like she can’t get enough air. “Why are we still here, Spencer? I need to leave!”
“Shh, shh,” I whisper as she thrashes away from my grip.
“Get me out of here!”
I raise my palms. “Okay, okay,
