by Gemma Jakes

Created on: July 17, 2009   Last Updated: May 21, 2011

The doctor's voice created a soft drone in the background, beneath the beeping of the machines. Everything was so bright, so white; it was hard to tell it was past midnight.

Jake stood against the doorway, inconspicuous behind his brother.

Fluid around her lungs... 24 hours... so sorry.

The steady beep-beep, beep-beep drowned out the man's voice, filling Jake's head; everything was suddenly so sharp. The rush of the curtain pulled around a bed, the monitors, the lights and their reflection off the polished floor. He covered his eyes and a moment later there was a hand on his hair - Nick's. He leaned slightly against his older brother, wishing everything back to safety, darkness and quiet.

"We just have to wait," he heard his father murmur, his voice dead.

Wait.

He knew what was happening, but didn't know where it had come from. Twelve years reduced to 24 hours. It was the end of his life, too.

They had to wait in the hall while the doctors made her comfortable. Jake stepped around, toes on the lines between the floor tiles, trying to fight the anxiety crawling up the back of his neck. Not even his father and brother were fighting now. Both were deathly quiet, Nick watching as a nurse spread another blanket over the hospital bed, his father staring blankly at the wall.

Nick was the first to go in when the nurse stepped out, somberly holding the door open for them.

Jake didn't want to go in, didn't want to have to face the machines and the noise and the acceptance, but when Nick looked at him he finally followed. The jarring click of the shutting door brought the horrible reality down hard on his small shoulders. His once vibrant mother lay connected to monitors and machines, pale and drawn, almost lost beneath the white blankets. The beeping and the feeble jump of the heart monitor as good as counted away what was left to her life and his world. Jake immediately felt ill.

How could they possibly go home to somewhere she wouldn't be? How would he live somewhere filled with all her things, yet so obviously empty of her life? He stared at that damn monitor, watching it jump, hearing it beep, and absolutely terrified of seeing it falter.

He couldn't wrap his mind around the finality of everything, staring at that digital green line. He didn't want to. He couldn't breathe, thinking he would never hear her say such simple things as his name again and wouldn't eat the pastries she loved to bake. Maybe if he didn't take his eyes off the monitor that green line would never stop jumping. Distantly he was aware of his father speaking softly to her, and Nick sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed. Her movement caught his eye, so slow and deliberate that he had to look at her. She had stretched out her thin hand, quietly asking him to come closer.

He crossed to the bed, barely aware he was even walking. A moment later he found himself curling up on the edge of the small bed at her side, her hand on his head.

There would be no one waking him with a kiss in the morning anymore. No one at the piano beside him, no one comforting him when he had a nightmare. No one telling him not to worry. He wouldn't hear her sing in French, wouldn't watch her paint, wouldn't feel her fingers smooth his messy hair.

He breathed in deeply, shaking. And they waited.

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