“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why did Grandma get me out of school?”
“I wanted to see you,” she said, “and the way the morphine’s been sending me off to Cloud Cuckoo Land, I didn’t know if I’d have the chance later.”
Conor crossed his arms tightly in front of himself. “You’re awake in the evenings sometimes,” he said. “You could have seen me tonight.”
He knew he was asking a question. He knew she knew it, too.
And so he knew when she spoke again that she was giving him an answer.
“I wanted to see you now, Conor,” she said, and again her voice was thick and her eyes were wet.
“This is the talk, isn’t it?” Conor said, far more sharply than he’d wanted to. “This is…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Look at me, son,” she said, because he’d been staring at the floor. Slowly, he looked back up to her. She was giving the super-tired smile, and he saw how deeply pressed into her pillows she was, like she didn’t even have the strength to raise her head. He realized that they’d raised the bed because she wouldn’t have been able to look at him otherwise.
She took a deep breath to speak, which set her off into a terrible, heavy-sounding coughing fit. It took a few long moments before she could finally talk again.
“I spoke to the doctor this morning,” she said, her voice weak. “The new treatment isn’t working, Conor.”
“The one from the yew tree?”
“Yes.”
Conor frowned. “How can it not be working?”
His mum swallowed. “Things have moved just too fast. It was a faint hope. And now there’s this infection–”
“But how can it not be working?” Conor said again, almost like he was asking someone else.
“I know,” his mum said, her sad smile still there. “Looking at that yew tree every day, it felt like I had a friend out there who’d help me if things got to their worst.”
Conor still had his arms crossed. “But it didn’t help.”
His mum shook her head slightly. She had a worried look on her face, and Conor understood that she was worried about him.
“So what happens now?” Conor asked. “What’s the next treatment?”
She didn’t answer. Which was an answer in itself.
Conor said it out loud anyway. “There aren’t any more treatments.”
“I’m sorry, son,” his mum said, tears sneaking out of her eyes now, even though she kept up her smile. “I’ve never been more sorry about anything in my life.”
Conor looked at the floor again. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like the nightmare was squeezing the breath right out of him. “You said it would work,” he said, his voice catching.
“I know.”
“You said. You believed it would work.”
“I know.”
“You lied,” Conor said, looking back up at her. “You’ve been lying this whole time.”
“I did believe it would work,” she said. “It’s probably what’s kept me here so long, Conor. Believing it so you would.”
His mother reached for his hand, but he moved it away.
“You lied,” he said again.
“I think, deep in your heart, you’ve always known,” his mother said. “Haven’t you?”
Conor didn’t answer her.
“It’s okay that you’re angry, sweetheart,” she said. “It really, really is.” She gave a little laugh. “I’m pretty angry, too, to tell you the truth. But I want you to know this, Conor, it’s important that you listen to me. Are you listening?”
She reached out for him again. After a second, he let her take his hand, but her grip was so weak, so weak.
“You be as angry as you need to be,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard.”
He couldn’t look at her. He just couldn’t.
“And if, one day,” she said, really crying now, “you look back and you feel bad for being so angry, if you feel bad for being so angry at me that you couldn’t even speak to me, then you have to know, Conor, you have to know that it was okay. It was okay. That I knew. I know, okay? I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud. All right?”
He still couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t raise his head, it felt so heavy. He was bent in two, like he was being torn right through his middle.
But he nodded.
– • –
He heard her sigh a long, wheezy breath, and he could hear the relief in it, as well as the exhaustion. “I’m sorry, son,” she said. “I’m going to need more painkillers.”
He let go of her hand. She reached over and pressed the button on the machine the hospital had given her, which administered painkillers so strong she was never able to stay awake after she took them. When she finished, she took his hand again.
“I wish I had a hundred years,” she said, very quietly. “A hundred years I could give to you.”
He didn’t answer her. A few seconds later, the medicine had sent her to sleep, but it didn’t matter.
They’d had the talk.
There was nothing more to say.
“Conor?” his grandma said, poking her head in the door sometime later, Conor didn’t know how long.
“I want to go home,” he said, quietly.
“Conor–”
“My home,” he said, raising his head, his eyes red, with grief, with shame, with anger. “The one with the yew tree.”
WHAT’S THE USE OF YOU?
“I’m going back to the hospital, Conor,” his grandma said, dropping him off at his house. “I don’t like leaving her like this. What do you need that’s so important?”
“There’s something I have to do,” Conor said, looking at the home where he’d spent his entire life. It seemed empty and foreign, even though it wasn’t very long since he’d left.
He realized it would probably never be his home again.
“I’ll be back in an hour to get you,” his grandma said. “We’ll have dinner at the hospital.”
Conor wasn’t listening. He was already shutting the car door behind him.
“One hour,” his grandma called to him through the closed door. “You’re going to want to be there tonight.”