Short Story: Pain Like A Heart Beat

My Mom's day through my eyes...

It was rainy outside; reminiscent of a beach day. The greens and browns outside where enriched by the thick, straddling blanket of cloud. She slammed the car door shut behind her. Slippery, wet moss teased her shoes as she made her way to the front door, and the flowers that always attempted to grow were poking their air-starved heads out of the ground. They always died before they had a chance to bloom; yes, they always died. She knocked on the dingy red door. Tears were still in the back of her eyes and pounding on the back of her head, all jammed up inside where tears are kept. She had cried more often this year. She remembered when she stopped crying; when the lady who was her father’s wife couldn’t sleep because of the noise. Her father told her not to cry anymore. So she didn’t.
She knocked on the door again. Her hands were small folds of thin skin and bones. Once upon a time she had strong, sturdy little hands; hands that could throw a ball as good as any boy. Once upon a time she was thick and full enough to fill out a pair of jeans. But that was a long time ago, ten years ago, a decade ago. Three children came bounding up to the door. It was locked. The house door was almost never locked, but the children had been home alone. She came inside and opened the half-broken door to the hall closet and took off her clogs. Instantly she lost three inches and became much shorter than her oldest daughter. She looked like a sickly pixie with tired eyes. She came into the house. Her attitude was sloped and limp like her shoulders. The house was messy, again. Had she come in but three minutes earlier she would have been pleased. But either she was too late or the mess came too early. At any rate, the timing was off. Just like the timing of this wretched disease. Just like the timing of her life. She came and sat down on the discolored furniture. Her toes got stuck in the thick, ugly line that split the living room carpet down the middle. Her skin burned. Her head ached. Her nose throbbed. She hurt. She hurt. Everything was falling apart and everything hurt.
They told her to go to yet another doctor. How many doctors would she go to before it was all over? They sent you off from one to another when they couldn’t tell you what was wrong with you, and then they looked down on you like you were some kind of hypochondriac when they learned how many doctors you’d seen. She curled up on the blotchy couch that matched her blotchy skin. When her husband came home, she almost cried again. She felt apathetic tears begin to water slowly in her eyes. Her body was fighting apathetically. Her fevers were apathetic in their rage. Her skin was apathetic in its healing. Her husband just held her hand. What could anyone do? There was nothing to be done. If only she could have cancer so that she could cut something off and be done with this pain. But no, she was subject to a dull, eroding ache.