“You can come in and see him now, dear.”

“Ma’s inside already?”

The old nurse nodded. She didn’t seem distressed, so I assumed it would be safe to bring Mikey. I grabbed his hand to pull him up and followed behind the nurse’s white stockinged legs to the room where they were keeping Dad.

“C’mon Mikey. They’ll be wanting us soon.”

Mikey grumbled with tired agreement, and I could hear his little footsteps pattering behind me all the way down the sterile hallway to the last door on the left. The door sent a whiff of hospital air up my nostrils as it swung open, and I smelt something like the gas my dentist makes me breathe to calm down. I imagined that drowsiness flowing over me in waves of artifice, and I was ready to step inside.

“Mama!”

Mikey rushed into our mother’s arms, climbing up her sturdy frame into the protection of her embrace.

“Shhhh, Michael. Toby, I think your father’s trying to get some rest. See? Look at his eyes closing.”

She outstretched a long finger, pointing to Dad. Today was one of those rare days that Ma was tender with him, almost gentle, though I would argue he didn’t deserve it. Maybe it was the heart attack or the thought of losing him, but I had witnessed their waxing and waning long enough to know I shouldn’t hope for anything more than a few moments of cordiality. Mikey didn’t get it yet. I knew he’d be disappointed in a day or two when it’d be back to him working late, her eating separately, and us alone. 

—

Our neighbor Mr. Francis gave us all a ride home from the hospital, and Ma filled the car with the scent of her day-old perfume, a bag of medicine, and advice from the doctor.

“You absolutely must take those pills. And no drinking while you’re on ‘em. The white one in the morning and again every four hours, but not more than six times a day. The big blue one? That’s for after meals. And the long, round pink one? You take that right before bed, ok? And the pale yellow one, that’s for pain ‘n nerves. The nurse said that one was the most important to take regularly, at least three times a day for a few months. And she gave you lots of extras so don’t go worrying about running out.”

It’d only been an hour since he was connected to tubes and under constant watch, but Dad still wasn’t happy being told what to do. In fact, he insisted that he wouldn’t be taking any of those pills. He was suspicious that the nurses were trying to sedate him, to keep him docile. I couldn’t understand why a nurse would want to make him all weak, but Ma explained that some of the pills are designed to “temporarily lower his activity level” so he has time to rest and recover. Dad scoffed and Mr. Francis laughed at Ma’s “naïve trust” in medicine. The tranquility we found in the hospital room was the calm before the storm that started in the car and erupted once I shut the door to our house.

I was barely past the doormat when Dad’s voice rang out in fury.

“Woman! What makes you think you got the right to order me around in front of my friend? Huh, Viki? Telling me ‘bout pills and activity! Like you a doctor?”

I grabbed Mikey’s hand and rushed him down the hall to his room, the last door on the left. I sat there with him, our backs against the closed door, and we played toy soldiers to the sounds of violence shaking the house. 

—

I found her lying on the cold tile floor of the upstairs bathroom. Mikey in bed already, Dad in the basement, me doing some arithmetic work at my desk, and her cooling down, tracing her fingers along the lines of grout, and holding a pack of frozen peas to her eye. I cracked open the door, and she startled at its squeak.

“Ma?”

She jumped a bit, but once she realized it was me, she released her muscles and slouched back down.

“Toby, shouldn’t you be off to bed soon?”

“Just came to check on you, Ma.”

I sat down next to her and reached for her homemade ice pack. She told me not to bother, but I needed to see if she was alright. The left side of her face was red and puffy from the cold, but the bruise forming around her eye wasn’t too big. If you squinted a bit she almost looked like the girls in my class trying eyeshadow and rouge for the middle school formal. I smiled at the thought, and Ma winked back at me with her good eye. The motion caused her a lot of pain, and she winced inside and out. 

“Oh Ma, what can I do for you?”

“Just sit here with me, will you?”

“‘Course.”

We stayed like that for a long while, so long that my legs began to get numb from the chill of the tiles. There had to be a way I could help her. She’d been so good to me and Mikey, and she didn’t deserve a black eye for trying to keep Dad healthy. I stood up so fast I saw little stars in my eyes. Ma was worried, but she had no reason to be. I would make her better. I crept downstairs to the pantry where Ma had stashed the bag of medicine and tore it open. I dug around a bit before I found what I was searching for: the pale yellow pills for pain ‘n nerves.

—

When I came downstairs for breakfast the next morning, Ma looked almost all better. The black eye was looking more and more like eyeshadow and the swelling more and more like rouge. We ate together, mostly in silence, and then I retreated to Mikey’s room to get him ready for the day. While I was wrestling him out of bed, Mrs. Francis rang the doorbell for her usual Saturday morning visit, and Ma let her in. Once Mikey was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, I stood by his bedroom door to listen.

“How’s Douglas feeling? They kept him in that room awful long.”

“Doug’ll be just fine, if only he’d take his medicine. I married a stubborn man, and he’s got an iron will.”

That was one way to put it. Mrs. Francis let out a sigh of understanding, and I had the feeling she knew exactly what Ma meant.

“Well, Viki, you look good ‘n rested even after such a night!”

“Toby took care of me; he’s always my best help.”

I blushed a bit at Mrs. Francis’s appreciative cooing, but I had to leave my eavesdropping post to get Mikey dressed. Once he was sitting at his desk coloring, apparently uninterested in breakfast, I returned to the door just in time to hear Ma talk about the pale yellow pills.

“It was lovely, Cathy, really. Like all my woes and worries just floated up ‘n away.”

Mrs. Francis let out a muffled laugh. She didn’t believe a tiny pill could do all that. But I saw the pain fade away from Ma’s face once the medicine set in, and I had no choice but to believe. Ma offered Mrs. Francis a single yellow pill to prove her story. The sound of the powder tablets clinking in their brown glass bottle cut through the silence of a lapse in their conversation. I could hear Ma unscrew the top, rattle the pills around for dramatic effect, and presumably hand one to Mrs. Francis before closing it back up and stashing it back in the pantry.

—

I supposed Mrs. Francis enjoyed the pill because the very next morning she was back with a little brown paper bag to fill with two or three more. After Ma hosted a neighborhood luncheon, there seemed to be a trickling parade of ladies in through the back door, around to the kitchen, and then back out again carrying a brown bag. Mikey loved the visitors, and Dad never seemed to care, or maybe he was just too busy to notice. His workload was always especially hefty when he was upset with Ma; at this point he was only home a few hours a day. She didn’t seem to mind much, seeing as she was occupied with her friends. I wasn’t concerned about them, but Ma seemed a bit off. Sometimes when she was cooking, she’d drop utensils and such, but maybe she was just tired from the bustle in the house. Although, if I looked especially closely, I could almost see her fingers twitching. When she would pick up Mikey and set him on her hip, she looked exhausted from the effort, and I would usually take him myself in fear she might lose her grip. 

But Ma was always in good spirits those days. I never got an anxious lecture or a rude remark. She was her best self, and I didn’t regret giving her that first pill. I think sometimes she just needed some help, and sometimes that help came from a bottle. Not Dad’s liquor bottles, but that strange brown bottle of miracle pills. It was a bit unnerving to witness her transformation, but, for all her physical weaknesses, she was ten times stronger in her head. I figured it was a fair trade; I might have felt differently if I was the one swallowing my joy. My family lived in this precarious state for about a month, and I had a happy brother, a soothed mother, and a perfectly absent father; in other words, it was wonderful until it wasn’t.

—

I had just gotten out of school, picked up Mikey, walked home, and put my bag down when I heard Dap pull the car into the driveway. Ma had a friend coming to the kitchen, so she shooed her out the backdoor with many apologies and put the brown pill bottle away.  

Mikey protested that he hadn’t taken naps in years, but I led him down the hall anyway. It took some time to get him settled, but once his door was closed I went straight back. The living room was almost silent. I was more confused than worried. I entered the room to the terrible picture of Ma, holding an empty glass of scotch, standing over Dad, lying motionless on the floor. And then it started. His whole body was shaking from the inside out, his eyes moving back and forth faster than I knew was possible. I ran to them, took the glass from Ma, and we both dropped to the floor on our knees. Dad’s lips were turning a horrid shade of blue, and his chest movements were slowing down. I turned to Ma for answers, but all she could say was, “angry… I put a pill in the drink… calm him down… but… confused ‘n falling down and… I… I couldn’t help.” I held her for a moment to steady her breathing before turning my attention back to Dad. I had learned how to test someone’s pulse in health class, but I couldn’t seem to find the right spot. He was drooling and shaking and choking on his own tongue, and we tried to sit him up, but then it all stopped. His body went limp, and his chest ceased moving at all. He looked almost jaundice, with his fingernails blue to match his lips and the whites of his eyes pale yellow to match the pill. As soon as he stilled I jumped up to call a neighbor, or a doctor, or the police. But then Ma put one hand on my shin, the other on the right spot under Dad’s jaw, and told me not to bother.

I did get a doctor to come by, and he pronounced him dead. His cause of death was mixing a depressant with alcohol, which slowed his body down to the point where he couldn’t breathe and therefore couldn’t get oxygen to his brain. The explanation sounded like something I’d hear in life science class. It wasn’t a pretty death, but there were no charges or suspicions given that the yellow pills were prescribed to him in the first place. It was ruled as an unfortunate accident. Ma didn’t see it that way. As fast as his eyes went left to right, she went from guilt to satisfaction and back again. She was safe from his fiery words and vicious slaps, but she had also killed a man, and not just any man. He was her husband and the father of her children, and even though he didn’t do either job well, he still held a place of importance in Ma’s heart. In all of our hearts.

—

Mikey took it the hardest. Not only was he too young to understand Dad’s faults, he was also missing the attention from Ma’s ladies, who had called off their strolls through the house once they heard about Dad. I was doing better than I thought I would be, but the juice Ma gave us in the mornings looked a little cloudy. I didn’t mention it, but I also didn’t drink more than half. I tried to tell Mikey that half was enough, considering how small he was, but he didn’t get it. I knew I had to talk to Ma at some point, but I figured I’d wait until after the funeral.

The morning of the funeral I walked downstairs, got Mikey ready, and then caught a glimpse of Ma and her brown bottle in the kitchen. She shook the small handful of pills that were left, downed four and crushed one to split between my juice glass and Mikey’s. Her hands shook as she gave me the cold glasses, spilling a few drops on the counter before I steadied her.

“Y’alright Ma?”

“Of course, dear. Is Mikey ready”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Toby. You’re always so good to me.”

I did know. But it was different to hear it from her; it was comforting. Those words of affection were still ringing in my ears as we loaded into the car, a family of three for the first time in years.

The funeral was relatively uneventful. I recognized some of the ladies as Ma’s visitors, and I spoke briefly with Mr. and Mrs. Francis. Beyond that, I was surrounded by strangers: Dad’s coworkers, Dad’s high school friends, Dad’s extended family, and the members of Dad’s short lived Rockabilly band. I hadn’t expressly told any of my classmates, but gossip runs like water in towns like ours. I knew I would be too busy with Mikey to accept condolences, so I chose not to invite anyone. Besides, a few kids showed up unprompted, and I wasn’t too broken up about any of it. Yes, I was grieving, but not for the father I lost. I think I was grieving for the father I never had. I kept a bit of hope with me that he might change into who we needed him to be; that hope became the ache I felt sitting on the cool, wooden pew next to Ma, legs going numb from the chill, and holding Mikey’s hand in my practiced, comforting stance. I soothed myself with the thought that maybe we wouldn’t have to assume these positions so regularly anymore.

Mikey, on the other hand, wasn’t processing the events of the past few days properly; he went from entirely cheery to utterly inconsolable within a matter of minutes. He was acting like Ma on her worst days, the days she started with a handful of pills and finished with a bowlful of tears. As soon as we stepped through the doorway, before she even kicked off her black, patent leather flats, Ma was reaching for the brown bottle. I started to ease a weeping Mikey down the hall, but she hailed us to the kitchen.

“Michael! Come here and take this for me, would you? It’ll help with the pain ‘n nerves, dear.”

Mikey went trotting obediently back to her, his tiny palms open and ready for the gifts she would offer: two pale yellow pills for Mikey, a big gulp of water, two pills for Ma, a small sip, and one more for Mikey, dry. I wasn’t sure a kid so small should be taking so many, but what did I know about pharmaceuticals? I reminded myself of what Ma’d explained: those pale yellow pills were for the pain and nerves. They were the most important to take regularly, at least three times a day, but our pain was on the inside and we were running out of extras. The brown bottle made a pathetic attempt at its usually shaking and clunking in Ma’s quivering hands, not full enough to make any real noise. In fact, there was no real noise anywhere in the house until Mikey slammed into the television and it rattled on its four flimsy legs.

—

I lay down next to him on the floor where he fell.

“You ok, little man?”

He mumbled an indistinct response without turning to look in my eyes. My heart started pounding. I rose into a kneeling position beside him and gave him the best doctor’s visit I could muster. I couldn’t find a pulse under his jaw, but I could feel it on his wrist, beating too slowly. I lowered his arm and caught a glimpse of the nails on his shaking fingers, tinted blue. His palms and cheeks were pink, but the rest of his skin was a pale yellow. I looked at Ma, standing behind the kitchen counter in shock; I asked her if it was happening again, but this time, she couldn’t form a single word. She knew there were no words she could say that would ever make me forgive her, much less forgive myself.

I sat there with him for nearly an hour, holding him tight and helping however I could. Between a hot towel on his forehead and a cool glass of water, Ma ran next door to get Mr. Francis, and I saw her leaving in his car, presumably to find a doctor. She didn’t come back. I retold the story we had made with our toy soldiers, and he got the hiccups. I rubbed his back in big, slow circles, and his eyes started moving on their own. I said we should take a nap right here, on the floor, and he lowered his eyelids and saw nothing. It was there, lying by his side, my hand in his, that I realized I couldn’t hear his labored breathing anymore.

—

Mrs. Francis found us there. She had brought a police man to examine Mikey, but I didn’t let him. I told them I wouldn’t leave him until he was in the ground. They said this was a criminal investigation, and any resistance may be interpreted as guilt. I couldn’t help but weep as he lifted my brother’s little body onto a crisp, taut white stretcher. He was so small that the police man carried him out without any help. I told Mrs. Francis that I didn’t think anyone that small should be carried out, and she sat down, waiting wordlessly for something that never came. I slept in her house that night. Mr. Francis had come back with a doctor we didn’t need and without Ma. He said that he got her safely settled into a motel room and would check on her in the morning, but that she wasn’t coming back to the house. According to Mrs. Francis, however, a taxi dropped someone at my house that night, and the next morning, there were cop cars surrounding the home and reporters surrounding the cop cars. 

I slept in the Francis house for a full week before Dad’s older sister drove down with her husband to take me to stay with them. I wouldn’t finish the end of this semester, but my Uncle said that they’d let me start the year over again at my new school. I very much enjoyed the idea of starting the year over, but I knew that wasn’t really possible. I ate a lunch with my two sets of temporary parents before Mr. Francis said it was time to drive me back to the house.

When I stepped inside the only home I’d ever known, I was in tears to be packing my things instead of moving back in with my family. Out of morbid curiosity, I headed to the kitchen. Every bottle in the cabinet was empty, every bag torn open and thrown astray. Every bottle except the brown one, which still had one pale yellow pill left in it. I threw it back without any water and went down the hall to Mikey’s room to stand in front of the closed door. I knew that once I turned the knob, broke that threshold, once I gathered up his tiny clothes and our tin toy soldiers, only then would he be gone. But right now, he was alive and well, waiting for me on the other side of the door.