The Big Black Hole

My mother (Cynthia) puts her hand on the blanket over my chest. I know she’s staring at me. She stands there for a long time. I can feel the warmth of her hand. She says, “Nicholas, it’s me: Mom. Nicholas, I love you.” Her voice is shaking. She thinks I’m sleeping. I can tell she’s going to cry again. Oh God, I can’t stand it! Adults, they’re always crying. Yes, she’s crying.

Sometimes I play a game: I try to guess what she’s wearing. It’s hard to get it right because from my bed, I can’t see out the window, so I don’t know what kind of day it is. I usually don’t guess right. Today I thought she would be wearing her green silk suit but she’s not; she’s wearing her short beige skirt and a brown jacket. I’ve decided that when I’ve guessed right five times in a row, she’ll smash her car into the back of a truck on her way here. It’s a bit like stepping on the cracks on the sidewalk. When I was little, I always knew it wasn’t true that I would break her back, but I liked playing the game anyway.

Now I can hear the metal legs of the chair scraping across the floor. The rubber tips are worn out. She’s pulling the chair closer to my bed. She sits down comfortably. She wipes her face dry. The tears have left long, dirty streaks on her make-up. She’ll fix her face in my bathroom before leaving. Now, she opens her leather briefcase and pulls out some files. She is shuffling through the loose sheets. She writes notes on some of them, stops to think, scratches her head, looks in my direction. She taps her bottom lip with the tip of her pen, sighs, writes more notes. Her lips are still shiny. She must have put on some fresh lipstick just before coming into my room. Once in a while she looks at me as though she’s hoping I’ll open my eyes and say, “Hi, Mom. How are you? I’m better now. Let’s go home.” But I always close my eyes just in time.

Sometimes, when she thinks no one will see her, she gets up from the chair and walks to and fro by my bed, talking in a low voice to herself. She makes gestures with her arms, like someone in Romeo and Juliet; she makes all kinds of faces (serious, ironic, angry). She turns around suddenly this way and that, and I hear her say things like, “Your Honour,” “my witness,” “the evidence.” She looks at her watch once in a while, and every time she does that, she glances at me after. She usually stays about an hour, and I always pretend to be sleeping.

There is also the doctor. She’s like one big mother goose, and behind her there’s usually a trail of stupid goslings each with their own clipboard and pencil, all waddling around as though they have all the time in the world. They ask me questions and I don’t answer and they write things down and then they go away.

The nurses come with little paper containers of pills and they say, “Here, Nicholas. Take this. It will help you.” And I open my eyes a little, and I take the pills and they go away.