Blood Factor - Chapter 2

I walk into the empty cobalt blue house on Granite Road. Ten years ago I had picked the cobalt blue color for it was my favorite at the time. This summer we were going to redo the siding of the house in a sandy brown vinyl with chestnut brown shutters and coral window boxes. I’m into shades of brown right now and have been for a couple of years now. I found comfort in earth tones and found it soothing to listen to the sounds of nature. My mother and father always knew how to make me feel important and like I had a say in every facet of their life. I loved them for not treating me like a child even when I was growing up. I lock the door behind me, out of habit, and look around the dark living room. I half expect to find my mother dozing in her favorite wing chair, pretending to be waiting up for me, to see how my day was. I walk over to the Celtic lamp and twist the knob for light to shine through the room.
I look at my mother’s empty chair and feel the tears well up behind my eyes. I will myself to be strong, that she is in a better place, and she isn’t in anymore distress. As a paramedic I would be telling people the same exact thing, but as I discovered five years ago, these words don’t help. Neither does chin up, time heals all wounds, or my favorite ‘sorry for your loss’. The majority of people mean well, it just doesn’t help, and some how we have to fight our own way out of this mess. I just can’t find a reason or something to hold onto nor can I find a happy thought to laugh at. My heart is aching and I wish I could curl up in bed and have someone deal with all of this for me. I know this isn’t possible and I muster up the strength as the heat and pain of my tears flow from my eyes. None of this is fair or just and grief engulfs my entire body.
I muster up the courage and the strength to walk over to the table beside my mother’s wing chair. She may be my adoptive mother but she is the only mother I know and I will always refer to Allison Parker as mother. She was kind, gentle, and would rather go without if you were in need of her help. She would give you the shirt off of her back if she thought that would help. I glance down at the answering machine and press the play button. A mechanical male voice reports no messages and I am relieved. I don’t have to talk to anyone tonight. I will start my calls first thing in the morning, I can’t even grasp the thought of making a call to someone at ten thirty at night and tell them that mom passed away, I need to eat and get some rest. The thought of food twists my stomach into knots and for a moment I thought I might throw up. The urge of getting sick to my stomach is so strong that it makes me double over and cover my mouth.
The wave of nausea passes within moments as I enter my room. I don’t bother closing my door, I never fully closed my door even when my parents were around, and I always found it comforting to hear them moving about. I strip down and pull a light weight pink nightgown over my head. I will skip the food tonight, I’m not heavy or overweight or anything like that, I am athletic and slender. But skipping a meal isn’t going to kill me and for a moment I can’t remember the last time I had something to eat. Then I remember the egg and cheese sandwich I got at the hospital café while my mother was trying to get some sort of medicated sleep. That was in the wee hours of the morning yet I still had something in my system and I realize that it really doesn't really matter at the moment. All I do know is I need to rest so I can have the strength to get through the phone calls I must make in the morning. I sit on the edge of my bed and pull on a pair of socks. For some off the wall reason, my feet always get cold during the night, and it’s easier if I rectify the problem now. I pull down the covers of my bed and turn out the lights. I crawl into bed and remember the Celtic lamp in the living room is on. That’s fine, a tribute to my mother, it was her favorite lamp.
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I wake up slowly and think to myself that I just had one of my many disturbing nightmares. Having frequent nightmares has been a reoccurring ordeal for me and it has been happening for ten years now. I have been to countless neurologists to diagnosis the problem and none of them can identify it. I have had multiple M.R.I.s and they all show that I have a normal, active brain, no damage to make them think that I have some defective gene. Yet this nightmare had seemed all too real, like it really happened, then it all comes crashing back to me in an odd mix of memories.
Life isn’t always just. Whatever happens in life isn’t always what they seem or are they always fair. I was abandoned as an infant only to be separated from a twin brother and adopted into a loving home. For seventeen years I was cherished by a pair of parents that would have done anything for me. Even though I wasn’t their true flesh and blood, they loved me, and I adored them. When my father died, it was hard on both my mother and I, but I think it hit harder for my mother. Their love was so strong, it reminded me of a fairy tale, and without my father things were never the same. Now my mother passed away and I have lost the only family I knew.
I walk down the dark, quiet hallway and I begin to brew a pot of coffee. It didn’t dawn on me that I was brewing a full twelve cups until it was halfway finished brewing. How stupid of me. I will never drink twelve cups but it was more out of habit than anything else. My mother and I could easily polish off a pot in the morning especially when the two of us had the day off and we were gabbing away about everything under the sun. I take the cordless phone, the phone book, a pen and note pad, and bring them out onto the back porch. It’s the beginning of a beautiful day and the sun is shinning brightly. I return to the kitchen and retrieve a cup of coffee. Before I know it, I am on the back porch again, and I am talking to someone in the office letting them know that my mother passed away.
From everyone I speak with, I get the standard apology, by the time I finally hang up the phone I want to scream. Everyone is oh so sorry for my loss and it is a shame that I have lost my mother a mere five years after loosing my father. I want to throw the phone on the ground and smash it. I want to shatter the phone into a million pieces and maybe I might feel a little better about this situation. I doubt it will make things all right but at least it will help me release the tension that I have been building up. As I stand up, the phone rings, it startles me for I am not expecting a call from anyone. I look at the caller id and read the display. Its Oak Falls Research Laboratories, where my mother worked as a chemist, damn it to the shadows. I forgot to call them and let them know what has happened, it is probably Victoria Wendell, to check in on my mom and see if she might need anything. Three months ago my mother was forced onto workman’s compensation when the cancer made it impossible for her to work.
Oak Falls Research Labs offered Allison the workman’s compensation as a benefit for a while until all the lab work proved that it was impossible for her to contract the particular cancer from their facility. Allison didn’t plan on forfeiting her position for she thought she would go into remission. When the lab reports came in, they revealed that she did receive the cancer from one of the experiments that she was working on, a strain that was highly contagious. The laboratory is responsible for not providing that important information to Allison and her staff. My mother was planning on taking action against the laboratory and suing them but now I doubt that anything will happen. I don’t know if it would be worth pursuing, it might be, but that would be something I can talk about when I meet up with my mother’s attorney later this afternoon. The phone belches its high pitched tone again and I pick up.
“Hello?”
“May I speak with Allison Parker?”
“Who’s calling?” I ask.
“Victoria Wendell.”
“Miss. Wendell, this is Casey Parker, I’m Allison’s daughter. I am sorry to inform you but my mother passed away yesterday afternoon.”
“My deepest apologies and regrets Casey. Thank you for telling me. I need you to have the death certificate faxed to my office as soon as you possibly can. Are you ready for the fax number?”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
I am stunned for a moment. Is this lady for real? I just told her that my mother died yesterday and she heartlessly asks for the death certificate to be faxed to her office! Is this woman really that unconcerned and that callous?
“I need to have the death certificate.”
“I will fax you a copy at my earliest convenience. I am overwhelmed and my father has passed away years ago. I am dealing with this situation the best I can.”
“Are you refusing to provide proof of your mother’s death?” Victoria asks me.
“No ma’am I’m not. What I am refusing to do is drop everything and providing you with proof until after the wake and funeral.” I coldly reply.
“Of course, I understand your difficulty, and will look forward to receiving that fax by the end of the week.”
“Miss. Wendell, tomorrow is Friday, the medical examiner will not have that ready for another week. When I receive it, I will be happy to fax it to you, but I will do no such thing until then.” I say.
“Of course, thank you, and again I am sorry for your loss.”
I press the off button on my cordless phone, rage pulsates through my veins, I wonder how some people can be so freaking heartless. I suppose those callous people have never really felt the loss of somebody close to them and in a strange way I envy the stony interior they posses. I wish I could just stop the pain my body is feeling. If it was a physical wound, I am trained for that, I could see it so I could take care of it. It’s not physical, it’s emotional, and there isn’t anything that I can do about it. I can’t protect my heart from this anguish, the tearing and breaking makes a sound so gut wrenching, and I’m afraid that I will not be able to pull though this.