Fourteen

My mother’s hospitalization and subsequent treatments in France took place over a number of months. My mother returned home as soon as she felt better, trying hard to get back to normal. Her chances were considered good, and the French hospital played a crucial role in her recovery. But while her wellbeing improved in France, my daily life worsened. Not having any paternal figure around to look after me, my time was spent at friends’ houses, smoking joints, playing video games, and waiting for the weekends to come so I could go clubbing and drug myself up with any substance available. Of course, things at school were not going well. Personally, the situation seemed to have no effect on me. I always avoided the hospital visits, especially the ones in France. Confident of that she would recover, I chose to ignore what was happening to my mother’s health. The time I spent at home with her each fortnight gave me enough satisfaction and fulfillment; normality seemed to have returned. This had a profound effect on our relationship. We became closer, connected on a deeper level. We had many long conversations about our philosophies and ideologies, which we found were very similar to one another’s. My passion for the unknown and all things related to science and astronomy was contrasted with my mother’s apparent inclination for all thing spiritual, especially since her diagnosis, something that naturally brought her closer to spiritualism and thoughts of life after death. This state of mind was reflected directly in her paintings. She began depicting surreal landscapes painted with icy colors, in complete contrast to her previous work. She provided few explanations for these works, but I sensed that the recurrent theme was a personal interpretation of paradise. Her colorful landscapes contained all types of strange objects, flying or sometimes just lying on the floor. Generally, her paintings were framed by open windows, as if my mother was preparing herself mentally for her own death. When I asked about it, her explanations were vague and almost evasive, claiming that it was just a way to express herself. But it always seemed much more to me than that. Over time, we spoke more about it, and I felt that she was giving up on the idea of death. I noticed that her health was significantly improving, even though her illness continued to haunt her. After another Paris fortnight we all received wonderful news. My mother had recovered from her cancer. A couple of treatments more, and my mother would take her place among that slim percentage of cancer patients who fully recover. Then, while preparing to live a healthy life again, my mother discovered that she had grown a tumor in one leg—a very painful one, which made walking very difficult. A choice had to be made, between extracting a very painful tumor on the one hand, or proceeding with another fortnight’s treatment away. It was eventually decided that removing the cancer was more important at that stage, and choosing to skip therapy in France would put her recovery at risk. This was a risk that ended up being fatal. Another hospital session in Paris showed that the cancer had metastasized again, and viciously. Meanwhile, still smoking on a regular basis, I spent as much time as possible with my mother. Generally, from 7pm to 10pm each night, I sat with her in the living room, an almost religious routine. While my alcoholic father watched TV in another room, Brother Four and I stayed with her, keeping her company. We both enjoyed that time with her, a short period each day we thought of as “mum o’clock”. This was unfortunate, because Brother Four was always present. The little sucker had grown up to become a full-on moron. Always glued to my mother, he chose once to stab me with a bottle opener for no reason. Brother Four was the type of kid you have to warn friends about, as if a wild animal were on the loose. Although biting was never a real danger, there were other dangers from this child. One of the most historic moments I ever witnessed, in fact, relates directly to him. One day, after a chat on the phone with Kevin, I agreed to a meet-up in at my house. I was waiting patiently for him to arrive when I noted that my moronic brother had gone missing. I didn’t realize until too late that he was up to something. Brother Four had overheard my conversation with Kevin and decided to hide on the balcony. As soon as Kevin rang our bell, I opened door to welcome him, and witnessed a sudden stream of piss coming from upstairs. Unaware of this, Kevin walked confidently up the front steps, until this little flow of yellow liquid falling from the balcony above reached his head. The Little Moron had decided to surprise Kevin with a very warm greeting. A savage little kid with no sense of right or wrong, he was still very young at that point, and was unprepared for what followed. A few weeks later, watching TV during at yet another mum o’clock, I noticed her worried expression and body language. She said nothing, but seemed very anxious, which I thought had to do with the rough foreign treatment she had just received. How wrong I was about this. My mother was only waiting for the Moron to leave, so that she could share her mind with me, as she often did. What was to come was a life-changing event, a conversation that united us in grief. It was a simple chat that triggered an inexplicable chain of events, which even today I avoid thinking about.