Their mother hadn\u2019t wanted to go to the hospital, and no one made her. She had gone in a number of times, bad outcomes all. Before Christmas she\u2019d coughed up some and, embarrassed, spent a few days in her bedroom getting well. Her room was on the second floor, at the end of a long hallway with creaky planks that shined here and there from sunlight streaking through the windows.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s she doing?\u201d Ray asked. Ray was home from Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould be better,\u201d Willa, their baby sister, told him. Willa was twenty. And then there was James Jr., the eldest. Jr. was thirty-nine and looked like Sr. Sr. was dead. Cancer. Agent Orange maybe.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sleeping?\u201d Ray asked.<\/p>\n
Willa shrugged.<\/p>\n
It was quiet and just after dinner. They listened without saying they were listening. They heard mother coughing something fierce.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe eat?\u201d Ray said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI brought her soup,\u201d Willa said.<\/p>\n
James sat out back smoking cigarettes, his bad leg up on the three-legged table.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo on up,\u201d Willa said.<\/p>\n
Ray took his patrol cap off, his coat. They were covered in snow when he walked in but the snow melted. It was dark where the snow had been. Ray sat down at the kitchen table. Willa leaned against the sink.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gonna go up?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYea.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to take her tea?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll go up in a minute,\u201d Ray said.<\/p>\n
A dog barked out back and they looked and saw Jr. lighting a cigarette in the dark. Willa turned the back porch light on.<\/p>\n
\u201cCut that shit,\u201d James said. He said it without looking back, and just as Willa cut the light, mother coughed again and for a bit seemed like she wouldn\u2019t stop coughing. Then it was quiet again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only got a week,\u201d Ray said. \u201cThen I gotta go back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou scared over there?\u201d Willa said.<\/p>\n
Ray looked at Willa, thought she had his mother\u2019s eyes, her smile. \u201cI\u2019ll be all right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYea, but are you scared?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d he said. \u201cSure I am. You\u2019d have to be crazy to not be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRay,\u201d Jr. said. \u201cGo up and see Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going,\u201d said Ray. \u201cGive me a goddamned second.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGo on up, Hero,\u201d Jr. said. \u201cYou\u2019ll break her heart, she hears you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray got up and walked to the refrigerator and got a Budweiser and popped the cap.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gonna go on up now?\u201d Willa said. \u201cTake Ma up something to eat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYea,\u201d said Ray. But Ray sat back down and drank the beer and watched Jr. smoke his cigarettes until he slid his foot off the stool and stood up and walked off into the garage and away from the lights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Their mother hadn\u2019t wanted to go to the hospital, and no one made her. She had gone in a number of times, bad outcomes all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[282,672,670,671],"class_list":["post-10094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-cancer","tag-christmas","tag-iraq","tag-war","writer-cully-perlman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17528,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094\/revisions\/17528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}