Sweet Little Lies
It began with the cups.
She would pick them up, hold them in her grip for a while, then for some reason or another, she would suddenly drop them, as if she lost hold of the handle, or if some mysterious force was wedging them out of her hands.
Either way, they always found their way to the ground, through the mysterious magic of cursed gravity.
This of course, resulted in mounds of glass shard debris, that a nearby maid would always clean up, and put aside.
My mother, the brave woman she was, would put on a cheery face, one that pretended that it would be alright, that she was just making these... mistakes a little more than usual.
If it wasn't for her traitorous eyes, belied with worry, that gave it away, I might have possibly believed that mom was simply suffering from a bad case of butterfingers.
"It's okay Shun, the cup was just slippery, that's all!" she would say.
But I knew better. Or, at least, I thought I perceived better. Something was wrong, but simply I hadn't the heart to bring it up.
I never thought anything much about the sudden freezing of her hands, anyway.
We left the clinic that day, my mother clearly unsettled by the news.
Out of genuine concern- for the first time- for her health, gramps had insisted she'd make a visit. A check-up, at the very least.
My mother was especially tense, after that. Another first.
I could tell, for every now and then, as we were driven home, I felt hands shiver. Her body posture was unusually rigid throughout the ride.
In an attempt to try and comfort her, I reached my hand out to find hers, clenched tightly on her lap. For an instance, I felt a flinch, and I nearly reeled back my hand, until hers responded to grip my hand in a vice-grip. I winced slightly in pain, and she loosened her grip a little, muttering a soft apology.
I turned up to look at my mother, catching her smiling at me, in a peculiar fashion that made me feel all warm and tingly inside. A special superpower of hers, I reckoned.
I nearly missed the muted whisper that escaped her lips, my eyes widening slightly upon hearing it.
"Thank you, Shun."
It was dark, by then. Mom quickly rushed me up to my room, but this time, she made a special effort to tuck me in- something that she hadn't done for a long time, under my immature pre-teen insistence that I was far too "grown up" to be tucked in.
Once all that was done, she did the final, almost-offensive, act of "overbearing motherly-ness" -she kissed my forehead. As much as it jabbed at my ego that my own mother still tucked me in, and to kiss my forehead for that matter- God forbid I lie- I found the sensations of her lips brushing against my forehead quite pleasant.
It made me feel safe comforted, and my stupid face couldn't help but to smile stupidly at the woman who ministered the affections.
Out of sheer curiosity, I had to ask. "Mom, why are you doing this?"
She gave a small giggle, and replied, "Can't a mom love her little boy every now and then?"
"Moooom! I'm NOT little anymore!"
"Of course you aren't." She ruffled my hair lightly before left the room. With a half-hearted smile, she bade me good night.
With a half-hearted smile, that is.
...
We were in a white-walled room, filled with various medical equipment and apparatuses and what-nots. A set of diagrams and figures were being presented to her, complicated looking numbers and letters that I hadn't the hope of fully understanding in my lifetime.
His name, I recalled, was Dr. Morris, as he introduced himself. He said some things. With a foreboding tone.
Things, that I thought, didn't sound right at all.
"I ran through the scan results, there seems to be some sort of anomaly in your muscular tissue. It seems... smaller, than usual." He'd said.
"What does it mean?" I turned my head to see my grandfather badgering the Dr. Morris with a tirade of questions. "What does it say about Shiori dropping everything she holds?"
"Oh for goodness sake, stop exaggerating, I don't drop everything!" My mom retorted, clearly offended by the passing remark.
Dr. Morris cleared his throat to get their attention, before he continued. "I don't understand why, exactly, but her muscles, particularly around her arm, haven't been receiving enough oxygen. They don't have all the energy they need to move properly... and despite this, there's an unusually low concentration of lactic acid around her muscles. Do you know what this means?"
My mother, being a nurse herself by profession, nodded her head.
"Sometimes things like this may be caused by an irregular concentration of minerals in the body," he continued, "They could cause muscles to be unable to receive oxygen, or may prevent anaerobic respiration."
A tense atmosphere was held before my grandfather broke in once more. "Is that it? Just Shiori having an improper diet?"
"Dad!"
Dr. Morris, ignoring the scowls mom was giving grandfather, nodded. He waved his hand and gave us clearance to leave the room, but motioned for mom to stay behind.
I stayed right outside the door, hoping to eavesdrop on what else Dr. Morris had to say with my heightened senses, and what else he was hiding from us.
He breathed in, and his facial expression held an air of suspense. The bad sort of suspense, where the said person was withholding information. Possibly damaging information. Something was wrong.
"Really, I hope it's just irregular minerals..."
He had lied.
That old man, Dr. Morris lied to us.
It couldn't have been irregular minerals, as the doctor had so simply put it.
Mere muscle spasms, or weakened muscles, for that matter, would never have caused that to happen.
We were in the house that day, when Mom came back from the clinic only a day ago. Ever since the first visit, she had to travel more frequently to the doctor's.
By then, I had already figured out that something had gone wrong. I only wished I knew what.
Mom was enjoying herself in a walk across the garden. The sky was clear, a gentle breeze was softly caressing the flowers that littered the place, and the weather seemed almost immaculate. Nothing gave away any hint at all that something disastrous would happen that day.
I had seen her walking about, so in my excitement, I ran up to her, asking impatiently, "Mom, do you still need to go to the Doctor's anymore?"
And for once, I saw her genuine smile again. "No, Shun. I don't need to see him for any longer." She quietly ruffled my hair, and brought me close to her in a gentle embrace.
In my naivety, I let myself truly believe that she was going to be okay.
And so for the first time- yet another one, she tried teaching me how to fold my own clothes- laundry included. She would drag me around the house just to show me how to pick up my own clothes from the dryer, and then try to get me to do what she did. Emphasis on TRY.
Of course, I did it eventually, under the condition that she'd let me have a piece of her addicting sesame cookies. However the hell she made the seeds so delicious when no one else could, I would never know.
Like I said, I really thought she was going to be okay.
...
...
I heard the resounding *thud* that came from the staircase shortly after the left my room.
I ran down the hallway, and down the stairs, only to find that my favorite heroine had fallen.
...
...
"I can't feel my left leg anymore..."
...
Not having to see the doctor had been a lie, too.
A/N: You guys must hate me. Seems I habitually portray Shun's family in the most saddest ways possible...
This little piece came up as an afterthought when I uploaded Epistles of Grief. That story is renamed now, by the way. It goes under the name of "To the grave, and thereafter". You might want to check that out after reading this.
About time I uploaded this anyway, it had been tucked away in the hard drive document archives for too long.
Read and review, please?