Page 24 of Unraveling with You

I pull my arms from her as fast as I can, but that’s easier said than done with how weak her core muscles have grown, unable to keep herself in place. I have to be careful not to carelessly roll her over, no matter if her bulging eyes zip from me, to the door, and back to me in pure panic.

But just as my hands slip out from under Mom, a voice appears behind me.

“What are you doing?”

I scour my mind for an acceptable answer, but Dad steps in front of me. I instinctively take hurried steps back, bumping into my old dresser and knocking over two of my collectible cat figurines.

Mom laughs. “No worries, honey. I just really need to pee and asked Lily to help.”

My heart feels like it’s been dropped in battery acid. Mom covered for me again.

“You should’ve just asked me to take you. I said I’d be right back.” Dad’s brisk tone remains sharp despite our efforts to pacify him. “Am I not doing something right, again?”

Mom gasps. “Joe, honey, stop. You’re doing wonderfully. Thank you for your help.”

Dad ditches Mom’s wheelchair, heading to the bathroom without it. There’s no reason to leave it behind, especially since it means Dad will have to lift Mom not only off the toilet, but also back to her bed, all while not allowing her muscles a chance to retain their strength.

But that’s exactly why he did it.

My internal switch shifts from fear to teeth-clenching anger. Without her chair, Mom can’t move around the house without Dad’s help. It took me a whole year to save for the chair - the only assistance I could afford for her, since I can’t afford a repeating payment for a caregiver after paying part of Mom and Dad’s rent. I’ll never forget how relieved Mom looked to roll herself forward a few feet. And how stern Dad looked, blaming it on the football game that day not going his way.

Dad never expected his life to go like this. To become Mom’s caregiver.

He hides his resentment from Mom, excusing his moods as fatigue or annoyance over minor problems they bicker through, but I know better: Dad expected to become more of Mom’s third child to clean up after, so no matter what we do to placate him, he feels like he’s been stolen from. For this destruction of their life plans to feel worth bearing, Dad needs to feel important - singularly vital to Mom’s survival. Whether it’s a wheelchair, extended relatives, or his daughters, Dad can’t handle our help.

But this wheelchair is Mom’s autonomy. If she has autonomy, Dad sees his efforts as wasted. Yes, he helps her night and day, expending every ounce of his focus and efforts to support her, but beneath the surface, I can’t help but feel it’s vile; he’d rather Mom have nothing if she doesn’t have him.

I’m not okay with that.

Lifting Mom’s wheelchair, I storm down the hall after Dad.

Mom laughs in the distance. “Besides, there’s so much to remember when it comes to me. You just forgot, so I reminded Lily, is all.”

Dad doesn’t respond.

He hears me coming behind him - I know it. But he won’t turn around, so the second he settles Mom on the toilet, I block the doorway with her wheelchair. “You forgot Mom’s chair.”

Dad’s neck tenses. “She doesn’t need it. I can carry her.”

“I bought it so you wouldn’t have to as often, and she could take herself around.”

Dad and I stare each other down. This is my cue to back down, but I refuse. The raging fire in my heart has grown too large to bear, and this has gone on for far too long. Not even Annabella, my estranged older sister, wants to talk to me anymore, thinking I side with Dad’s abusive outbursts by paying his rent. She always believed cutting Dad off was the only way to rescue herself, and therefore, anyone who associates with him has to go - no matter if I was the one person who truly understood what she went through.

But what the fuck else can I do? How else can I help Mom out of this imprisoning cycle, other than picking her up and running out the door?

Not even that will stop Dad from getting her back — he’s the only one who knows her caretaking routine, inside and out, and the only one of us who can lift her dozens of times per day. Mom is trapped here. Just like I was.

After looking back and forth between us from the toilet, Mom laughs, waving her hand at Dad to shut the door. “Oh, stop, you two. Let a poor old woman pee, won’t you?”

“You’re not old,” I mutter.

But Dad closes the door, bumping the wheelchair against my shins.

Without the bathroom light, the hallway dims. I can’t track Dad’s eyes.

But he simply points down the hall.

My heart beats so quickly that each pulse physically hurts. He’s about to snap.

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