by E.G. Willy
Mom says, “The nineteenth, that’s an important date. I don’t remember why.”
“It’s John’s birthday.”
“Sorry?” she says, reaches for her hearing aides, tries to adjust their volume.
“John, it’s his birthday.”
She thinks about this. “Did I send him something?”
“No, do you want me to write him a text on your phone?”
She hands me her i-Phone. I see the hundreds of ads for things she can’t remember or knows nothing about. I know if I check her YouTube videos they will be full of ponies, kittens, and stray rescue dogs. She gets up in the morning, slumps over her phone, watches for hours.
“What do you want me to write?”
“Tell him I love him so very much.”
I compose the message: Happy Birthday. I love you so very much.
“And tell him he is the best of all my children.”
“You got it. How do you want me to sign off? Love, Mom? Love, Maman? Love, Mother.”
“Love, Mom.”
I finished the message, send: Happy Birthday. I love you so very much. Love, Mom.
“Let me see what I wrote,” she orders.
I return her phone. Mom reads the message. Her face wrinkles in pain. She knows my brother won’t reply to the message, hasn’t done so for years. And me being the jealous fool I am, I have not included the part where she says he is the best of her children. I know I should have included it but I will forever be the nincompoop loser. I am the one that checks on her, feeds her, takes her to the doctor, pays her expenses, makes sure she has visitors, helpers, picks her up when she falls, and buys gifts for her grandchildren that won’t visit. No one likes that child.
I wait ten minutes or so, watch her watching a YouTube video of a pony that has been neglected by its owners, then stand up.
“Well, mom, I have to go. Dinner is out. Peter will check on you in an hour.”
Peter, the night help, the other person who picks her up when she falls.
“Good night, thank you for coming.”
“Good night, Mom.”
As I open the door, she suddenly says, “You and your sister, I love you too. So very much.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I whisper because I know she won’t hear me.
I stand outside, see the back of Mom’s head in the window, alone as every on the couch. suppress a cry of anguish. When did she begin to tell me she loved me? A week ago? Two weeks? I am not used to this. I wish I weren’t jealous. I wish I were a better person. I tell myself to call my brother. To tell my mother I love her without whispering.
E.G. Willy is a West Coast writer. His short stories have appeared in Conjunctions, Zyzzyva, J Journal, The Gold Man Review, The Berkeley Review, and the Redwood Coast Review. Anthologies that have included his writings are This Side of the Divide, Baobab Press, Stories From Where We Live, Milkweed Editions, The Breast, Global City Press, Creatures of Habitat, Mint Hill Books, and Lock and Load, a Second Amendment Reader from the University of New Mexico.
Hawaii Pacific Review 