Together Or Apart

54. What He Didn't Do

I lean forwards, gently removing the pin from my mother's curly hair and brushing the fine blonde hairs back off her face. I place the golden pin back in her hair and smile down at her. "Much better."

Despite being bed ridden in a hospital room, she still does her hair and puts on some auburn coloured lipstick each morning. She says that she feels disgusting enough being attached to machines and lying in a bed of her own dead skin cells. So that by pampering herself even the slightest, she feels a whole lot better. 

A nurse knocks on the door with a bouquet of gorgeous yellow sunflowers. "I'll just set them down here." She says with a kind smile before placing them on the small table filled with the other gorgeous flowers that Mum has received over the last week. The room smells like you have just walked into the garden centre, minus the slight manure scent. It smells fresh, floral and divine. "Here's the card." She hands it to Mum before exiting the room. 

"Thank you dear." Mum responds as she picks up the card and flips the silver piece of cardboard to reveal the side with the writing. "All of these flowers are lovely gestures, but I'm not dead yet. I am going to be in and out of hospital many times so I hope everyone doesn't feel obliged to send flowers every time I am in here for a long period of time."

"People care about you Mum. While you don't want them visiting you, they send flow-"

"Because I don't want them to see me like this. It is already sad enough seeing my family looking at me with sympathetic eyes. I don't need my friends looking at me either."

I place my hand on hers as she sets the card down on the table beside her bed. "It's because we feel helpless and wish there was something we could do to make you more comfortable."

"You do enough. You should be spending this time with your friends or even in the studio. I have heard you humming along to some sounds that I haven't heard before. I haven't heard that from you in a long time."

"There's been a couple of verses here and there. My mind is wild right now, so some lyrics have been coming to me."

"Have you been writing them down?"

"In the notes of my phone, yeah. But I'll end up deleting them most likely."

"What's next for you?"

"Mum, I am still filming the voice."

"In like what ... a months time that will be finished and then what? Before Harry dumped the move thing on you, I had started to see you finally happy again."

I nod my head, knowing that my Mum does have a point and I was really starting to feel like the old me again. Besides seeing my girls, I had something to wake up and be excited for each day. I had a bit of routine back. I missed working.

"I need to meet with lawyers and figure out this whole custody thing and what my daughter's futures are going to look like before I think of any other work opportunities."

"Are the lawyers really necessary? I thought that you and Harry could handle this maturely without that."

I let out an exaggerated sigh and rest my head on my hand while leaning on Mum's bed. "So did I, but I really don't know what to do when Harry will be living on the other side of the world. Even if I did fight for full custody and won, I would feel horrible about Harry not being able to see them. Like, the opportunity would be there, but he wouldn't want to continue flying to Australia every now and then to see them. He wants to be involved more. Then if Harry got custody, oh my gosh, I feel sick thinking about it."

"You should get more custody than him. You have been the stable parent throughout all of this. The lawyers will bring up the fact that he was away on tour while you were playing single-mum. However, Harry will have the best lawyers in town and paying big money for them. So they will always find a way to turn things around. Your post-natal depression that you went through after having Sydney..."