“Take her to the hospital!” I shouted to the bumbling attendant on the other side of the too-white desk. “She’s really sick. Just take her, for god’s sake. You sent her to the fucking ER when she fell out of her chair. A distance of, like, one and a half feet.”

“That’s policy, ma’am. We call in every fall…”

“That can hardly be counted as a fall,” I interrupted. “She scooted off her chair. Whatever, I don’t care about that right now. She’s really sick now. I can’t believe you haven’t sent her to the doctor. She doesn’t sound right. She can hardly breathe, she’s not eating. What is wrong with you? She’s coughing but it sounds like something is stuck in her chest. She is NOT OKAY! Take her to the hospital!”

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to calm down. If you feel as though she needs to go to the hospital, you can call 911. At your expense. Or, find a way to get her there yourself,” She said with steely eyes trained on my quivering lips. I could feel my pulse, my heart racing, my stomach turning. Why hadn’t I just borrowed a car? Why didn’t I ask my friend to wait while I checked on my mom before she drove off? I knew she wasn’t well. I should have come in to figure out what was going on before letting her drive off, leaving me–us, stranded.

“May I please use the phone?” I asked calmly. The attendant was whispering to another staff member. Why hadn’t we put her in a place with nurses and doctors? Why did we think she needed this make-believe, hotel-resort? It was a sham but it seemed like the right place at the time. All the nursing facilities were cold and too bright and too sterile. They smelled like shit and clorox. No character, no charm. This place looked like the Four Seasons. Fresh flowers, carpets, thick curtains and elevator music everywhere. Even a small, enclosed outdoor space where mom could get some sun, smell some flowers, look at the clouds. It seemed so perfect. It seemed so much better than the other places. It felt like the obvious, though regrettably most expensive, choice.

Now, it felt like a beautiful prison. A stupid, fucking facade filled with incompetent people doing whatever they were told. Nothing more. My mom was a body, a bed, a mouth, a dirty diaper. Nothing more.

“Hey, Rach? Can you come back?” I sniffled into the cream-colored phone, twisting the spiral cord between my fingers. “Yeah. I need you to take us to the hospital. My mom’s really sick and these assholes won’t take her.” The two women in white glared at me for a moment, then seemed to forget or lose interest and walk away.

My mom was frail by then. No more than ninety pounds. All five feet, nine inches of her reduced to nothing. She just looked at me. Pleading with her eyes. Sad, quiet. Spit pooling at her chin. She would cough and I’d tell her to keep coughing–pound her back, rub her chest–in the hopes that something meaningful would come out and the gasping would stop. It was just a long, never-ending string of spittle. I pulled at it and wiped at the creases of her mouth, holding the gooey drops in my palms. She was feverish and chilled and pale. Dark grey circles framed her giant, unblinking eyes. She looked like a skeleton. A shadow.

“Pneumonia,” the doctor had said after the chest x-ray. “It’s good you got her here when you did. It’s quite advanced. A lot of fluid in her lungs. And she’s dehydrated so we’ll start an iv immediately,” he explained. “Also, you’ll need to begin adding a thickening agent to her liquids if she’s going to be drinking on her own. It’s entirely possible she did this to herself, it looks like aspiration pneumonia.”

I pinched myself. Squeezed my fists until my fingernails drew blood from the soft skin of my bare palms. I felt the shame building in the back of my throat. Felt the tears pooling behind my lids. Fuck. I knew she was sick. I should have come yesterday. Or the day before, I thought. I should have been there. Why am I working these stupid shifts at the restaurant all day and the bar all night? What is it for? So I can pay rent for my shitty room in a shitty apartment in the middle of fucking nowhere? Meanwhile, my mom is dying sixty miles away. Why did I even move back? I wondered. What was the point. What good was I actually doing?

I laid down next to her in the stiff hospital bed. I pulled the white sheet up to our chins and played peek-a-boo. I fed her bites of hospital pizza and ate her rejected, drool-covered pieces. When was the last time I ate, I wondered. We turned on the television: daytime soaps and game shows. She smiled at me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I spooned small scoops of chocolate pudding onto her tongue. She licked at it, like a house cat and nodded in approval.

It took them five tries and three different nurses but they finally managed an iv. They only blew up her vein twice. Ballooned up and out into her skin, all blue and purple. I nearly fainted. I’ve seen a lot, I’ve been through a lot. But, I have never felt so immediately woozy. The fluids helped bring her back a bit. She let her eyelids fall, half closed. She rested her head on mine.

I am a terrible child, I thought. I let the tears slide, silently down my face. Let them gather and fall onto my chest. Let them pool and grow together. A salty pond to wade in, to remind me that I am not whole. I am nothing. I’m always a step behind, a moment too late. It’s never enough. It never will be.