Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [8]
“It was a great speech, Mom. I had to let the governor straddle the fence, no way around that, but I did have him say that he didn’t want guns forbidden, just didn’t want them in the hands of criminals. I did pros and cons on whether the proposed federal one-handgun-a-month law will work. You know, the NRA’s opinions, then the HCI’s—they’re Handgun Control, Inc.”
She kept talking, patting her mother’s hands, lightly stroking her fingers over her forearm, careful not to hit any of the IV lines.
“So many of your friends have been here. All of them are very worried. They all love you.”
Her mother was dying, she knew it as a god-awful fact, as something that couldn’t be changed, but she couldn’t accept it down deep inside her where her mother had always been from her earliest memories, always there for her, always. She thought of the years ahead without her, but she simply couldn’t see it at all. Tears stung her eyes and she sniffed them back. “Mom,” she said, and laid her cheek against her mother’s arm. “I don’t want you to die, but I know the cancer is bad and you couldn’t bear the pain if you stayed with me.” There, she’d said the words aloud. She slowly raised her head. “I love you, Mom. I love you more than you can imagine. If you can somehow hear me, somehow understand, please know that you have always been the most important person in my life. Thank you for being my mother.” She had no more words. She sat there another half hour, looking at her mother’s beloved face, so full of life just a few weeks ago, a face made for myriad expressions, each of which Becca knew. It was almost over, and there was simply nothing she could do. She said then, “I’ll be back soon, Mom. Please rest and don’t feel any pain. I love you.”
She knew that she should run, that this man, whoever he was, would end up killing her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. If she stayed here. Certainly the police weren’t going to do anything. But no, she wasn’t about to leave her mother.
She rose, leaned down, and kissed her mother’s soft, pale cheek. She lightly patted her mother’s hair, so very thin now, her scalp showing here and there. It was the drugs, a nurse had told her. It happened. Such a beautiful woman, her mother had been, tall and fair, her hair that unusual pale blond that had no other colors in it. Her mother was still beautiful, but she was so still now, almost as if she were already gone. No, Becca wouldn’t leave her. The guy would have to kill her to make her leave her mother.
She didn’t realize she was crying again until a nurse pressed a Kleenex into her hand. “Thank you,” she said, not looking away from her mother.
“Go home and get some sleep, Becca,” the nurse said, her voice quiet and calm. “I’ll keep watch. Go get some sleep.”
There’s no one else in the world for me, Becca thought, as she walked away from Lenox Hill Hospital. I’ll be alone when Mom dies.
Her mother died that night. She just drifted away, the doctor told her, no pain, no awareness of death. An easy passing. Ten minutes after the call, the phone rang again.
This time she didn’t pick it up. She put her mother’s apartment on the market the following day, spent the night in a hotel under an assumed name, and made all the funeral arrangements from there. She called her mother’s friends to invite them to the small, private service.
A day and a half later, Becca threw the first clot of rich, dark earth over her mother’s coffin. She watched as the black dirt mixed with the deep red roses on top of the coffin. She didn’t cry, but all of her mother’s friends were quietly weeping. She accepted a hug from each of them. It was still very hot in New York, too