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The bathroom door opens. I set my cellphone down and stand up as Paige slowly steps out, her eyes sunken and tired. She looks like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out.
“I’m sorry,” I say first. “I shouldn’t have?—”
“It’s okay,” she says.
“No, I violated your don’t answer your phone rule. I’m sorry.”
She nods, swallowing hard.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Paige walks toward the bedside table and drops her phone onto it. “Yeah,” she answers. “Oliver, I think I need to... cut this night short a bit.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I have... some things I need to...”
She doesn’t say more. I wish she would, though.
“Is it anything I can help with?” I ask, not wanting to leave.
“No.”
“Paige, you know that you can tell me anything,” I say. “I mean, I’ve told you more about myself than I’ve ever told anyone, and I felt a lot better afterward. I’m here for you. You know that.”
Paige exhales hard. She sits down on the edge of the bed with her heavy eyes on the floor. I stay standing, prepared to leave. Or prepared to hold her. Whatever she needs.
“It’s my mom,” she finally says. “She had another one of her episodes tonight.”
“Are those why she’s...”
She raises her head. “At Lowell?” she finishes, looking at me with glistening eyes.
I nod. “Maureen mentioned it.”
“Yeah. Sort of,” she says. “She’s also in a wheelchair. She can’t feel anything from the waist down and she only has partial motion in her left arm.”
My chest clenches. “I’m sorry.”
“Car accident. No one else was hurt, but she…” She looks down again. “Since then, she gets a little confused, sometimes. Isn’t fully sure of where she is, or... who she is. My voice helps her stay calm, so...” She clears her throat. “I always answer when she calls.”
“That’s really sweet,” I say. “That you do that for her, I mean.”
“Yeah, it’s...” Her lip trembles. “It’s the least I can do. It’s my fault she’s even...”
A tear tumbles down her cheek and she goes quiet again.
I kneel on the floor in front of her. “What?” I ask.
She shakes her head, freeing another tear. “Nothing,” she says, her voice breaking.
I place my hands on her knees, a silent urge for her to tell me more. To let me in. To trust me.
After a moment, she looks up at me with dark, heartbreaking eyes. “She’s in a care facility because I’m not home enough to take care of her,” she says slowly. “And I’m not home enough to take care of her... because I don’t want to take care of her.”
“Paige, you don’t have to feel guilty about that,” I say. “Your mom probably needs help twenty-four hours a day. No one could ever expect one person to do all of that. Especially if they aren’t trained to perform that kind of care.”
“No, I...” She sniffs. “I don’t feel guilty about that. I’ve given her... everything. The best home with the best doctors and the best nurses. I live in a studio apartment in a questionable neighborhood just so I can afford to give her the best life possible... because it’s my fault she’s there. I look at her... and I feel so horrible.”
