The Right Lie

The lie was thick across his teeth, as he stared down at her form across the creamy white sheets. She looked thin, pale, and full of all the wrongs as the soft beeps filled the voiceless noise of the room. It was the right thing to say, as she nodded resolutely and said she would wait for her.

She wouldn’t make it long enough to realize her mother was never coming.

The pale wisps across her head, once regarded as blonde hair stood stark against the smooth expanse of her skin. She looked older than her age, the wrinkles and bare bones a friend to the intense chemo she had gotten accustomed to the past few months. Her teeth clinked when she talked, as if she was uncomfortable with them in her mouth, and her hands constantly shook, like the lively force that was invading into her body could hardly be contained.

She had spent months confined into the thick white bars of the bed, her only family members the nurses with paisley scrubs and the white non-recyclable cups they left in her room. She was ultimately alone in the last few months of her life, a punishment for leaving her past life behind for something she wanted more – a future.

Now, however, when the dust of the past days had settled, her creativity had been resolved and her strong demeanor shaken, and all she wanted was the warm palms of her mother on the side of her face. The soft brown eyes that had brought her into the world would ultimately be the one that would take her out as well seemed fitting.

She cried for her, as the thick sludge of cancer coursed through her veins, balloons of pain contemplating her demise, but never once had her mother arrived at her aid, to tend to the green veins in her forehead and the blood in her stool. She was completely, and utterly alone.

Maybe that was why he lied, in the soft light of the dusty old hospital room, as she cried softly into the white pillows for her life. Maybe that was why long after she was gone he felt almost paralyzed in his entire existence. His tongue was heavy, his bones weary, and he realized with an astounding start there was not much to live for, if they decided there wasn’t much for her as well.