Two weeks ago my 67 year old mom went into the hospital for COVID like symptoms (yay 2020). Turns out that she just had pneumonia, but along the way, her blood pressure spiked and she had a mini-stroke.

The first three days she had no idea where she was. She would call me in a panic, terrified. Then she called, paranoid that she was being locked up in a phone booth (she would pull her IVs out). Finally she would call me and ask for me to get her out. Only she thought it was 1999. So that was a bit of a problem still. My dad was no help because he was just having a mental breakdown that the woman he'd been married to for 40 years might finally be gone. I'm not sure which of those calls were worse; my mom's been a raging bitch and proud of it her whole life, so to see her frightened was... well, it was something.

Eventually she recovered enough to be released, but she was still... not well. She was having symptoms of kidney failure and congestive heart failure on top of not having all her faculties back from the stroke, but hey, gotta love the US medical system. Didn't help that she's been a lifelong smoker and the first thing she did when getting home was light up a cigarette.

But I tried. I'm attending Zoom University this semester, so I guess that's the one silver lining of all this, I can do the cooking and help out with whatever my dad couldn't do and hope she could get better. Play the dutiful son and finally, maybe just finally for the first time ever, win her approval. That's how it works, right?

Yeah, right.

She kept retaining fluid, a sign the kidneys were still failing, my ex who worked in a doctor's office told me. Her feet would swell and I would massage them and she would say how she couldn't do this without me and I was the best son a mother could ever have. She'd never said that before in my 39 years of life. I'd take it, though. Better late than never.

Two days ago she woke up wheezing again, unable to breathe. We'd try another hospital this time; I knew a nurse there, a friend of my ex, so hopefully she could give us the DL when we couldn't get through to her or the nurse's station. It seemed to put both my mom and dad's minds at ease.

Yesterday there wasn't any word from her, but my gal on the inside said she was doing mostly ok, they were worried about her blood pressure again but everything else looked to be doing better. So far so good.

Today, she gets the phone. I have to talk to her, because my dad breaks down crying when he hears how weak she is, but he hovers over me the way I imagine I used to hover over them when they would make important phone calls when I was a kid. Time is a flat circle and all that.

I fake too much brightness in my voice. "How you doing mom?"

She is a sullen child. "Terrible. Why'd you bring me here? This place is worse than the last hospital."

In theater, there is what is called taking a beat, and this one is very long. "I'm sorry mom. What's wrong?"

If she weren't elderly and ill her tone would be comical. "Everything. No one helps me."

I do not sigh. "Isn't the nurse in the room right now?"

The nurse is holding the phone to her ear. "Yeah but she isn't helping me."

Time to change the subject. "Ok, well, if you work with them you can get home sooner."

The fangs come out as I knew they would. "You shouldn't have brought me here. You should just check me out now. I want to come home so I can die."

As I have lived around her for all 39 years of my life, I have learned the very delicate art of navigating the fury of her storm. "We don't want you to die. We do want you home, though. So you have to work with the doctors."

Maybe this is the last time she'll get to attack me, so I suppose she wants to make this one count, and so she aims straight for the heart. "Why? You don't care. You just brought me here to get rid of me."

In theater, there is taking a beat, and there is also what is called dying on stage.

She fills in the silence. "When do I get to come home."

"soon mom. very soon."

She goes through the motions. "Ok. Get me home soon."

"ok. love you mom."

And because she wants to be sure to finish the job, she lands the coup de grace. "Love you too, but I hate you bringing me here."

She hangs up.

Postscript: I submit this to the 'wrong' subreddit and get banned and spend the next 20 minutes seething extra hard. Fun!