A Return

She sat in the living room, silent. Her mother lay in the other room, comatose.   Attached to all types of monitors, beeping and droning.  Her ragged breath the only human sound in the house.  Beep beep, drone drone , breath breath..... It could drive a sane person insane.  She sat in the living room, eyes focused forward, her mind desperately trying to decide which direction to take.  Her siblings were absent when hard decisions need to be made.  They told her that it was all on her when she could no longer afford the hospital & brought their mother home to die.  They did not even visit.  However, as the end neared they wanted to know about the finances.  What their mother was leaving behind.  Nothing - she had nothing....  except hospital bills, doctor bills.  They didn't want to hear about those.  She knew she had to get moving and accomplish something, but she sat there in silence....

THEN she heard it....over the beeping, over the droning - a simple word...."help"....then again... "help help help."  She dashed to the other room - her mother sitting straight up - looking at her, then screaming at her "You're trying to kill me - help help help."  She did everything to calm her down and finally resorted to the morphine.  As her mother dozed off the words whispered "Help - you're trying to kill me"...then silence.

She quickly called her sister & told her what happened.  Her sister said she would be over in a day or two.  She didn't bother calling her brothers.

Later on she dragged herself to bed, after checking on her mother.  She slept lightly & was jolted awake by the sound of something dragging down the hall.  She flew out of bed and saw her mother walking down the hall dragging the gizmos behind her.  She intercepted her mother and began to gently move her back to the room - her mother began flailing and smacked her under the eye.  She thought "Well, that will leave a mark".  She finally got her back into bed and her mother looked at her - her hazel eyes filled with hatred... "You are trying to kill me - help help." Her mother looked away.  "No, Mother, I am trying to make you comfortable."  Her mother's head slowly turned back - her eyes still filled with the hatred.  "When is Janice coming?"  (Her sister Janice said in a day or two), but she lied to her mother, "She will be here later."  

The next two days followed the same pattern... her mother trying to escape her house & she was exhausted trying to stay awake.  Her mother refused to speak to her, but the hatred remained.  Finally her sister arrived & she went out just to get away.  She went to a café to enjoy a cup of coffee.  As she was sipping her phone rang - her sister.  She wondered which one of her kids needed her at that exact moment so she would have to return to the house & be with her mother & her hatred once again.  She answered the phone.  Her sister said two words "She's gone."  

She returned home & made the necessary arrangements.  Her sister had left before she got home (she was five minutes away).  

A week later she had the unpleasantness of the funeral to live through.  Her siblings faux grieving, wailing, gnashing of teeth, the whole nine yards.  She sat quietly in the corner.  That was the night it truly began for her... every night the sounds - dragging in the hallway - the cries of "Help help you're trying to kill me" echoing though the house.  The first time it happened she ran through the house looking for her siblings being the shitheads they truly were, but there was no one.  The security system was still active.  This became a nightly occurrence.  She slept little and returned to work drained.  Then when she was at work her home cameras began to alert to movement, but there was never anything there.  The security company came out but found no glitch.  That became a daily occurrence.

She thought maybe a night or two at a hotel so she could sleep would be an answer - but then the phone calls began "Help help you are trying to kill me."