The sight had sent a cold shudder through my body.
My mother had thought she was having a heart attack, and I could see why. My father had just had two, both of them in the same month. She’d seen and heard him describe, at length, the symptoms, the possible warning signs.
The doctor ran all kinds of tests on her, but they came back negative. She had not had a heart attack, he’d said.
She’d had a panic attack.
She was going to be fine. They’d given her something, some drug she would no doubt have refused had she known exactly what was in it, but it helped calm her down. Helped steady the horrible stutter in her heart.
For some reason, the doctor had thought I was the eldest.
He didn’t even ask, he’d just assumed, and he’d motioned for me to follow him out into the hall, closed my mother’s door behind him. Shayda had gone to pull the car around. My mother was changing back into her clothes. The doctor grimaced as he turned to me, grimaced and said—
“You’re the older sister, right? Listen, there’s something I need to discuss with you about your mom.”
Perhaps I should’ve told him the truth. There was no doubt a reason he wanted to speak with the oldest child, no doubt a legal or moral or psychological reason why I was uniquely unqualified, as the youngest, to hear what he was about to say. But my terrified curiosity would not allow me to walk away from an opportunity to know more about my mother. I wanted to know what was happening to her. I needed to know.
At first, the doctor said nothing.
Finally, he sighed. “I noticed your father is here in the hospital, too.”
“Yes.”
He tried to smile. “You okay?”
Heat pushed up my throat, the backs of my eyes, seared the roof of my mouth. I swallowed. Swallowed. “Yes,” I said.
He looked down at his clipboard, looked back up. Sighed again. “Does your mother have a history of depression?”
I blinked at the doctor, at the dark scruff growing down his neck, at the surgical mask stuffed into his coat pocket. He wore a scuffed gold band on his ring finger, and in that hand he clenched a stethoscope. There was a smudge of something on his shirt, chocolate or blood, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know what his eyes looked like. I couldn’t meet them.
I did not understand.
“When your brother died,” he said, and I looked up then, took the hit to the chest, felt it shudder through my bones. “When your brother died did she”—he frowned—“has she been—has it been hard for her? Harder than what might seem normal?”
The question was so stupid it struck me hard across the face.
The doctor backpedaled, apologized, tried again. “There’s no right way to say this. I’ve never had to have this conversation with the child. Usually I have these conversations with the parent.” He took a breath. “But I feel that, considering the circumstances—with your father in a delicate state at the hospital, and with your younger sister to care for—I think you should know what’s happening here. I think you should know that I’m highly recommending your mother seek professional help.”
“I don’t understand.” I did not want to understand.
“She’s been cutting herself,” he said sharply, angrily, as if he hated me for forcing him to say it out loud, to say it to a child. “She’s self-harming. I think she needs to be in therapy.”
He gave me something, a piece of paper with something written on it, and assured me there would be more information in her file, with the nurse, or someone, somewhere. He’d recommended a doctor, a program. Grief counseling.
“She’s going to be okay,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I nearly fell to the ground. “She just needs time. And she needs support.”
I carried the tea tray into the living room with trembling hands, glass shuddering against metal, jangling against itself. My mother was smiling at something my sister was saying, her delicate hands clasped in her lap. She was a beautiful woman, lithe with big, dark eyes. Few others had the privilege of seeing her like this, her long hair curling around her shoulder in a single brown wave. She looked up as I entered. Smiled wider.
“Bea beshin, azizam.” Come sit down, my dear.
She thanked me for making tea, thanked me when I poured her the cup, thanked me again when I handed it to her. She was trying too hard, and it was making my heart pound.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said in Farsi, her eyes shining. She laughed, shook her head. “Anyway, khodaroshokr”—thank God—“everything is fine. The doctor said I just need to get more sleep. This tea is excellent, by the way.”
It was not. I’d taken too long to bring it out, and the temperature of the tea had dropped just below what was acceptable, which was a tea so boiling hot it burned your throat. If my mother were herself she would’ve sent it back.
Even my sister seemed to realize that.
“The tea is cold,” Shayda said, frowning.
This was a gross exaggeration. The tea was plenty hot, hot enough for any sane person. It just wasn’t boiling hot.
“The tea is fine,” my mother said, waving dismissively. She took a sip. She was still speaking in Farsi. “Your father is doing better, by the way. They think he might come home soon.”
“What?” I blanched. I nearly dropped my cup. “But I thought they said his situation was critical. I thought—”
“You are unbelievable, Shadi.”
I looked up, surprised, to meet my sister’s eyes.
“You can’t even hide your disappointment. What, were you hoping he’d die? What kind of a horrible person hopes for their father to die?”
I felt that familiar, stinging heat rise up my throat again, press against my teeth, sear the whites
