The Parental Loop

I've heard the story before, countless times, but I don't stop her. It must run on repeat through her mind. A story of her youth, when everything somehow seemed simpler, even though soldiers roamed the streets, families were caught in riots, friends maimed or worse in rebel attacks. The good old days she calls them with a weak smile. Whatever was so good about them I've never asked. No point asking now.

Turning to the open window next to her bed, her pinprick pupils search for a recognisable feature amongst the fresh cut lawns and towering pine trees. A breeze flutters the floral curtains, bringing in a salty hint of the nearby river, and ruffles her gray tangled hair.

Once her pride and joy, a lion's mane of brunette curls. Everyday she spent hours in front of her bedroom dresser mirror, preening, brushing, moussing, a cigarette never far, and a glass always closer.

She rattles out a wet cough pulling me from the memory. Her fluid swollen body ripples, a shaking hand lifts towards cracked lips but the effort is too much. It's the only part of her that moves these days, and barely at that. No more dancing around the kitchen to golden oldie country music. No more singing into a hairbrush and bursting into hysterical laughter when we caught her. She seemed happy then. Seemed.

Strange, and sad, and angering, what adulthood can do to childish memories. Happiness crushed under hindsight, ground into shadow until the light that made you smile seems cast in perpetual gloom.

My brother and three sisters all called me spoiled, and they were right. The youngest, the tallest, and maybe even the craftiest. All too often, to their chagrin, I was allowed to stay off school because mammy said I was 'sick', always with a wink and a smile. I loved when my mornings started like that, it meant it was an adventure day.

Adventure being an over exaggeration of a trip to the shops. But we always stopped in a cafe for sticky buns, or ice cream, but more often it was the toy shop. I could pick whatever I wanted and she would tell me to keep it our secret.

"My lips are sealed," I would say whilst miming a zip.

"Ok, I've got one more message to do, let's go."

Message was a code, one I only deciphered later in life. Regardless, I'd stand outside that shop I wasn't allowed to follow her into, the one with all the bottles, next to the chemist but sold a different kind of medicine. Eating my chocolate or playing with my new toy I'd wait until she would come out with her clinking brown paper bags and we would hurry back to the car.

I never thought anything of it, in fact I thought all mother's ran their own little messages.

Now though, after the years between then and now, my happy adventures seem much...seedier. The day off was because she was lonely, the little secret - her shame, the toy - my bribe.

"Michael?" She's looking at me quizzically.

"Yeah mum." My name's not Michael, that's my brother, but at least today she realises I'm one of her sons.

"When did you get here?"

There is no need to confuse her more, "Just there now actually. You doing alright?"

She goes through a list of ailments, only a quarter of which are actually hers. The rest stream from the hospital dramas constantly on the TV opposite her bed, and right into her subconscious. It's funny what sticks. Today her back and arm are broken, she was helicoptered in last night because of her heart, and her decades buried mother is apparently down the hall making dinner. I stopped correcting her long ago. But there was something I wanted to say, something I came to say.

"Mammy?"

"Yes Gavin," a brief hint of lucidity, she recognises me.

"I just wanted to say sorry, it's been a month, the babys teething, and Jennifer was sick for a while and I—"

"Sure you've been here everyday."

My head droops, I rub the bridge of my nose. There is a cleaner that does the rooms each night, he's lanky, tight cropped hair and narrow faced just like me. But it's not me. She can't accept new faces, it's part of her condition. All the doctors and nurses are former neighbours, colleagues, friends, extended family. I beat myself up not being around more but to her we barely leave. There is a solace to be taken in it, a sad solace.

She stares at me, words lowering to a breathy whisper, until she's just repeating one word over and over. Another seizure. On bad days she's having hundreds of them, each one robs a little bit more of the present, leaving her to live in distant memories.

Seeing her in such a state taints everything, every decision, every inaction. Should I have not kept quiet? Would it have made a difference if I did?

Years passed and I became, as we all do, that rebellious teenager. Hardly in the house for more than an hour at a time, always on the way to somewhere more important, someone more important. On the rare occasion that I stayed in I avoided her. Her songs dwindled, her dancing stopped, her hours no longer spent in front of the mirror but at the kitchen table. Trembling glass in hand, tear tracked cheeks, bloodshot eyes, yellowing skin, talking to framed pictures of lost loved ones, taken by the good old years. Perhaps I should have tried to talk to her then, but she didn't want help, we did try.

Damn but we tried everything. Detox, rehab, intervention. Rinse and repeat. Nothing worked. Her sorrow was too deep to work at, vodka too easy to reach.

She's starting to nod off now. Whatever she dreams, she will wake believing it just happened. There is no telling her otherwise, to her she dances and works, plays and walks. She doesn't realise she's been stuck in this blasted bed for nearly five years now. We do though.

Standing from the wingback chair I say my goodbyes, but she's already asleep. I trudge the corridors rife with disinfectant, and air freshener, it's as if they are trying to cover the real scent. The one no one wants to acknowledge, that lurks round each corner, that follows the zimmer frames, that creeps beside the wheelchairs. Everyone knows its name, no one wants to say it. This is his waiting room. I cringe at the part of me that wonders if she would be better off dead. She's alive but what life does she have? How horrible could I be to even think about it?

Nodding to the carers at reception they buzz me out of the facility. Mammy's too young by ten, maybe even fifteen years, to be in this place, but there was nowhere else. Guilt clouds me, but weirdly I know she's happier here. She sees us everyday, even when we are not there, she speaks to the dead, laughs with ghosts.

My car starts with its usual shutter, pop and bang, and I head for home. Mind overflowing with thoughts, memories, crossroads not taken, what ifs and what could have beens. They serve no purpose, still though I can't stop them. Days like today I almost regret stopping smoking. Then I remember why I did.

The front door opens with a welcome click and I hear the one thing that will brighten any day.

"Dada!" Her smile erupts into a scream of excitement as she toddles across the wooden floor of the hallway.

I squeeze her a little tighter, nuzzle her neck until she arches with giggles. She looks at me like I am all she needs, I smile but tears well.

Becoming a parent makes you realise that your own weren't the super heroes you imagined. They had their problems, their sorrows. Maybe the good ones hide it better. Maybe not. Someday my little girl will see me as a normal person, and she will see my flaws, I just hope when that day comes they don't darken the good times we have yet to have.

My partner looks at me from the living room doorway like she knows what I'm thinking, I've come back from the Home like this before.

"Dada, adventure?" She wants to go to the park, so do I.

"Sounds good, little one."

She runs off to get her coat and I sigh at my reflection in the hallway mirror, my partner hugs me, kisses me on the cheek. I have no reason to be sad, none of this is new to me, what is done is done.

My little lady toddles back, arms shaking, coat flapping. An adventure with daddy makes the world right.

Someday she will ask about her grandmother, and I'll tell her of the woman that spoiled me, kept me safe, made me who I was even though the world seemed to be closing in on her. I'll tell her how she danced, and sang, how she was a superhero, a lioness, a happy light in dark times that took me on adventures. My choice what to tell, she will not need to know the burden of truth.

It will be my story to repeat. She will want to say she has heard it before, countless times, but she won't stop me.