Page 19 of Welcome Home

Each word sounded like it fought through her exhaustion to get to my ears. She pushed the door closed, then I heard the chain come off. When the door opened, she had already walked away toward the kitchen. Her steps were stiff and deliberate as she walked closer to the wall than normal. That could only mean that her joints were inflamed.

I sat on a barstool at the kitchen island as she busied herself with her teapot. There was nothing for me to say yet. I wanted to put eyes on her before I did.

Once she was done with her tea, she turned to face me. There it is. From one cheek across the bridge of her nose to the other spread a rash. She tried to cover it with foundation, from what I could tell, but the rash won. It looked irritated, and she looked frustrated.

My eyes shot down to her hand that gripped her teacup. Well, tried to grip the teacup. Her fingers were swollen around the knuckles, which I could tell made it hard for her to grip the cup like she wanted. The skin over her knuckles looked tight and stretched.

These were all the signs of her flare that I needed. Another was the fact that she didn’t curse me out when she opened the door for screaming in her house. My mother was feisty. She said what she wanted to say and dared you to think that she wouldn’t.

“So, how long since all this?” I asked in a quiet tone.

Her eyes squinted, and her head tilted. “Good morning to you as well, Falcon.” She paused for dramatic effect and time for her eyes to roll. “Yesterday.”

She picked her cup up as tightly as she could, then slowly made her way to a seat in the breakfast nook that was in the bay window of the kitchen. She huffed after she sat down and was as comfortable as she could get.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator before I took my seat across from her. We stared at each other while I took a drink from the bottle. “How bad is the pain, Ma?”

She took a sip from her teacup. My mother made her own tea and had for years. She used to sell them but found it more trouble than it was worth. Now she gifted them to friends. “It’s manageable.”

My head shook. That wasn’t good enough, and she should have known that. “Ma, on a scale of one to ten, where is your pain?”

“Falcon, you’re not going to get on my nerves this morning. I already answered all these questions with your worrisome daddy. Now here you come,” she fussed.

I chuckled at the notion that she thought I cared if she answered these questions with him. “Ma, if you did answer these questions with him, you probably lied. I know you. You stayed your ass in the bed this morning so that he wouldn’t see you move around. If he saw you walk the way I just did, his ass wouldn’t have gone anywhere today. Again, on a scale of one to ten?”

She scoffed because she knew I was right. There was no way that my father would have left this house if he knew his wife was in any kind of pain. She sighed with closed eyes. “A six when I’m relaxed and not moving. An eight when I move around.”

It was my turn to scoff. “Ma! That is not manageable. Are you serious right now?”

She chuckled. “Falcon, it’s not an emergency either. This, too, shall pass.”

Technically, she wasn’t wrong. As I looked her over a little more, I took in the full picture. She hadn’t complained of chest pains when she inhaled, and her breathing was even. She was oriented, alert, and showed signs that I was on her nerves. That counted as a good neurological assessment in my opinion. Her eyes weren’t puffy underneath, and her ankles didn’t appear to be swollen. She didn’t mention a headache, a temperature, or anything like that.

“You have a fever or anything?” I asked. She probably didn’t mention it because I didn’t ask. Yes, her lupus was moderate, but that didn’t mean it was harmless.

All the moderate term meant was that her ability to function was interfered by the lupus that was just active enough to do so. It wasn’t aggressive enough to create an immediate threat to any of her major organs. At least that was what those people told us.

I leaned up from my seat, then stretched my hand across the table toward her head. She swiftly smacked my hand down. Her beautiful face screwed up. “Boy, I know how to check my own temperature. I used to check yours.”

I chuckled as I sat back down. “Alright, then what was it? I want to know what it was last night and this morning, ma’am.”

“Let me cover all this so we can move the hell on. Last night it was one hundred point four, and this morning, it was one hundred point one when I checked a little over an hour ago. I’m not coughing, my throat doesn’t hurt, and I’m not congested. Oh, and most importantly, but none of your business, it doesn’t burn when I pee. Yes, I have one mouth sore inside my cheek. Is there anything else, Dr. St. Claire?” Oh, she was really annoyed now.

With a stone expression, I responded, “Actually, yes, there is. Are you having any hair shedding, shortness of breath, or chest pains? Are you having headaches?”

She plopped back in her seat, then crossed her arms over her chest. With tight eyes, she responded. “My hair is shedding more than usual. No, I’m not having shortness or pain when I breathe, and yes, I have a headache because you are on my last nerve.”

If I had to get on her nerves to make sure she was alright, then that was what I would do. “Did you take all your medication? All of it, Mama?”

“Boy, you act like I was diagnosed yesterday. I’ve been taking these meds since before your lil peen worked.” She sat up and leaned her forearms on the table. “Stop playing with me.”

My top lip twitched. “You’re doing way too much, Ma. You didn’t have to say all that.”

At that second, I realized that I didn’t see any food on the counter, pots on the stove, or dishes in the sink. “Ma, when’s the last time you ate?”

“I ate dinner last night around seven,” she confirmed. Before I could say anything else, she held her finger up. “I already sent rheumatology a message this morning in the portal. You don’t have to play doctor. I have plenty.”

My arm lifted so I could see the time on my watch. “It’s almost noon. No one responded yet?”