Flat-Lines

Flat-Lines

The droning sound of the heart monitor’s flat-line momentarily holds Blossom captive. She does not immediately comprehend the significance of the noise. All she knows is that her mother is deathly ill. Confusion reigns within her mind. Never before has she been faced with such ambivalence. On the one hand, she wants her to survive. On the other hand, she knows that her death would give her the freedom she so desperately wants. Guilt torments her aching heart. Then amidst the ensuing confusion with doctors and nurses running in and out of the room, she slumps down on to a chair.

“You’re going to have to leave the room. Miss?” A nurse taps her arm.

“Huh?” Blossom looks dazed.

“You must leave.”

Alarm bells sound menacingly inside Blossom’s head as she is quickly ushered out of the intensive-care unit and brought to a quiet room down the hall from her mother. She has so many questions, but the nurse quickly disappears. Alone in the room, she takes her cell-phone from her purse and, with trembling hands, dials her sister Crystal’s number.

“Hello?" Crystal’s voice is calm and gentle as always.

“Can you come to the hospital right away?”

“Why? Has something happened to mom?”

“Just come, okay? I’ll explain when you get here.” Blossom’s tears run down her face as soon as she closes her cellphone. She tries to remain calm. As the minutes tick away, she constantly glances over to the large black and white clock on the wall to her right. It seems to tease by slowing down its timely march, dragging the past hour into forever.

“Where is she? She should be here by now,” she mutters under her breath. Crystal is late. Blossom paces the floor endlessly, fidgeting and wringing her hands as she struggles with her predicament. Her mother will continue to suffer if she survives this latest heart attack. The responsibility for her care will continue to be Blossom’s, as it has always been. None of her five brothers and sisters like to help, not even Crystal, the seeming kind and gentle soul. On the other hand, if she dies, Blossom will be free from her mother’s power over her, free to do what she has always wanted to do.

“Blossom? How's mom? And how are you?" Breathless, Crystal flings her arms around her sister. “Sorry for taking so long to get here. I had a hard time finding someone to sit with the girls. Auntie Marie was out.”

“Are you Margaret George’s daughters?” A doctor asks as he walks into the room.

“Is she...?” Blossom presses her hands against her mouth. For a few moments, she cannot breathe. Crystal grabs her and clings on to her.

“No. We’ve managed to resuscitate her. She's stabilized for now. You may go in and see her for a few minutes. Remember, though, she needs her rest,” replies the doctor.

Both sisters rush toward their mother’s room. She is sleeping soundly. Beads of sweat glisten upon her pasty forehead. Her long greying hair lays limply to one side of the pillow. Each taking a weather-beaten hand, Blossom and Crystal caress their mother's hands soothingly and whisper words of love. One hour passes. A nurse walks into the room and ushers them out.

“Would you like me to come and spend the night with you?” Crystal rubs her sister’s back lovingly. She realizes that Blossom has been with their mother the whole day and must be exhausted. A twinge of guilt punctures her heart for not offering to help.

“Thanks, but I want to be alone tonight. I’ll pick up the girls and go straight home. I just want to sleep.”

Sleep, however, plays an elusive game as numberless trains of thoughts keep marching across her mind’s eye. She tosses and turns the whole night through, and her mind keeps going back to the day it all began.

Five long years have gone since the day Blossom and her two daughters, six-year-old Jewel and eight-year-old Charity, got off the train to briefly visit her mother Margaret. After enduring two difficult years of her husband Claude’s alcoholism, she had decided to leave him for a while. She no longer wanted to subject their girls to such ugliness. Memories of her own father’s alcoholism and violent outbursts were never far from her mind. Consequently, she resolved to do everything in her power to protect her own family from experiencing a similar fate.

“Perhaps the separation will trigger his senses to return,” Crystal had told her when she made a frantic late-night call to her one long-ago night.

Sadly, Blossom’s short visit home had turned into many long years. Claude’s drinking had only escalated from the day his family left. She knew this because of her contact with her best friend Susan in Winnipeg. Living so far away, in Windsor, Ontario, left her feeling helpless. She was too far to have any kind of positive influence over him. Over the years, she had regretted taking their children from him. She could not help but wonder if this had contributed to his downward spiral into deeper alcoholism. Never far from her thoughts, she often wondered about him and what might have been.

What hurt Blossom the most was that she had never stopped loving her husband. Did he feel the same way? It appeared to be so every time she took the girls to Winnipeg for a visit. For a few days, life was beautiful as she had hoped it would be. Then around the fifth day, he would start to drink and become a rude and cold person, someone she could not stand to be around, and someone whom the girls feared. It was then that she always returned to her mother in Windsor.

“I told you, he's no good for you and the girls,” Margaret’s words never wavered, “Stay away from him.”

Though Blossom hated hearing those words, she knew them to be true. Nevertheless, she loved Claude. She never gave up on the hope that one day, he would awaken from his slumberous stupor, realize what he was doing, and turn his life around. Family meant everything to her. She would forever hold on to her dream of one day reuniting with the man whose essence lived in her soul. No matter how long it took, or whoever tried to keep them apart, she would wait. But how long would that be? It seemed that only her mother’s release of her would give her the freedom to pursue the happiness she so desperately craved. Then she remembers another of Margaret’s constant reminders: “If you go back to him, it’ll kill me. You know that.”

When Blossom first came to visit, she had learned of her widowed mother's serious heart condition. With no one living at home, the task of care-giver had promptly fell into her lap. Wrestling with her conflicting emotions had become almost too much to bear at times. Her sense of obligation to care for her mother had consumed her, but she had also felt enslaved and burdened.

Now that it seems as if she might be relieved of her burdens, she wonders how she will cope should Margaret die. Will she be wracked with guilt? Or will she feel only relief? Relieved to return to her beloved husband.

It was only three months ago that Claude had called her, wanting to talk. He had told her that because of his undying love for her and their children, he no longer drank. He promised her that if she was willing to return to him, he would remain sober and seek treatment for his addiction. His call was the melody she had longed to hear for so long. Finally, her dream was coming true, except for one thing. When Blossom told her mother of Claude’s call and promise, she had become almost hysterical.

“Don’t believe him. Don’t trust him. He'll never change. Stay here with me. I need you.” The shrill of her mother’s voice that evening still grates on her nerves. She had quickly run out of the room and gone for a long walk along the beautiful riverbank of the Detroit River. With the glitter of the Detroit skyline shimmering lazily on the river, the warm evening had been perfect for an extended walk. With so many things to ponder and consider, it had become quite dark when she finally made her way home.

“Mom, I've reached a decision. I'm going to take the girls to visit their dad. I need to do this for myself as well.” Then before her mother could protest over who would care for her, Blossom added, “I'll ask your sister Marie to look after you while I'm gone. It'll be only for a couple of weeks.”

The two weeks with Claude were magical. He was loving and considerate. He never touched a drop of alcohol. They went on several family excursions to the zoo, the museum and The Forks on the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Jewel and Charity were ecstatic to have their ‘poppy’ back. Blossom was the happiest she had ever been. Maybe the time for their precious family to reunite had come. The thought made her face glow with obvious joy. How she wished that her husband would stay sober forever! The man she loved and adored was back. She could hardly wait for the day when they would move in together.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Jewel’s cheerful voice disrupts Blossom’s thoughts. She looks at the clock and sees that it is seven o’clock. She hasn’t slept at all!

“How’s Granny?”

“She was okay last night,” answers Blossom, brushing Jewel’s hair from her face. “She'll proba....” The phone rings. It is the hospital.

“Blossom Tremblay? This is Dr. Wong. Your mother took a turn for the worse during the night. You should come down right away.”

In a state of panic, she immediately calls her family to meet her at the hospital. She takes her daughters to Karen, her next-door neighbor and rushes off to the hospital.

A few family members are in the room when Blossom enters. She looks toward her mother and then at the monitor. It registers an erratic reading as her mother struggles to breathe. An overwhelming sense of guilt grips her own heart. Crystal suddenly runs to her and embraces her tenderly. She is only too aware of the guilt Blossom must be feeling at the moment.

“Don’t be harsh on yourself. You were thrown into very awkward circumstances when you first came to visit mom.” Crystal whispers soothingly into Blossom’s ear, “We're the ones who should be feeling guilty, not you. We're the ones who left the whole burden of Mother’s care in your hands. I'm so sorry.”

Helen, an older sister, walks over to Blossom and makes her a promise: “If Mother makes it through this crisis, the rest of us'll take over her care. Blossom, you've endured enough. You're free to go and live the life you want, with your own family.”

Suddenly, Blossom feels completely unburdened. And more than ever, she wants her mother to survive. As she looks around the room at her family, the door bursts open. To her utter joy, her husband enters. She runs into the warmth of his embrace, weeping. She hears only her sobs and the sound of his strong beating heart. Slowly, another sound captures her attention: the wail of the monitor’s flat-line.