“I’m hoping to free a lot of those poor souls in purgatory before I go,” she said.
“Is there anything you want?” I asked. “Anything I can do?”
“There is,” she said. “There’s an old friend down the hall. She’s dying, Sam, poor thing. She’s in a lot of pain. She asked to see you if you came.”
“Of course I’d come, Mom.” I was struggling to breathe, holding on. “She asked to see me? Who is it?”
“She’s just down the hall. Two doors. Go see her, Sam. She needs to see you now.” My mother closed her eyes.
5
I entered the room two doors down the hall to the sound of the television. The woman in the bed, propped up on pillows, had thinning white hair and the same sallow skin as my mother, but she was unfamiliar to me. I thought for a moment that my mother, in her drug-induced state, was mistaken, that she had hallucinated this friend. But as I turned to leave, the woman stirred and opened her eyes. I recognized her only when she put on the thick, black-framed glasses.
“Who are you?” she asked. The cancer had stolen her voice. What came out was harsh and raw.
“I’m Sam, Sister Beatrice,” I said. “I’m Sam Hill, Maddy and Max’s son.”
She smiled, and it looked odd, because I could not recall ever seeing her smile. “Your mother said you would come. I wasn’t so sure.”
I didn’t bother to tell Sister Beatrice that my mother had avoided telling me the identity of the “old friend” in the room down the hall, and that if she had, I might not have obliged her.
“She visits me every day,” Sister Beatrice said. “Even though she’s sick, she still comes, your mother.”
“She’s a good person,” I said.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t, Sam.” I started to wave off the apology, but she wouldn’t have it. “I had a problem. You knew that. But you never said anything to anyone, did you?”
“I never did, Sister.”
“I was teased as a child, made fun of for my lisp and my buck teeth. I found comfort in the bottle when I got older. It isn’t an excuse for the way I treated you, Sam. It isn’t an excuse for my acts of unkindness.”
A part of me wanted to not accept her apology. A part of me wanted her to know the pain she’d caused, but I was beyond that. The ordeal with David Bateman and Trina Crouch had made me realize that holding grudges only caused more pain. “We all do our best in life, Sister. We all do our best with what we’re given. You had a disease. I don’t blame you for that.”
She reached out her hand. I hesitated. Even though the woman I had likened to the Wicked Witch of the West had become a frail, little old lady, a part of me still feared her. I allowed her to take my hand. Like my mother’s, hers was cold to the touch, and I felt every bone and knuckle.
“I’m an alcoholic,” she said, “since I was sixteen. I stopped drinking when they sent me for treatment. Do you remember?”
“I still have the Bible,” I said.
She seemed amazed. Tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m so glad you have something decent to remember me by. It’s been a lifelong struggle, Sam. I stopped drinking, but I’ve never stopped being an alcoholic. I came to your mother’s home looking for you. I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, Sam. I wanted to tell you that not a day goes by that I don’t think of how I mistreated you, how wrong it was, how un-Christian. I’m hoping you’ll forgive me, Sam. I’m hoping that you’ll find it in your heart.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Sister. I know it was the alcohol.”
She smiled and squeezed my hand. “You are your mother’s son,” she said.