Bundt Cake by Mireille Sillander

Author:Mireille Sillander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: asexual, lgbtq, lgbtqia, portal fantasy, portal adventure, postapocalyptic, apocaluptic, dystopia, utopia, fantasy apocalypse, young adult adventure, douglas adams, finnish mythology
Publisher: Mireille Sillander
Published: 2020-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

10.

THERE WAS A LUMP ON the bed.

The bedroom was the largest in the house. Janet had treated herself when she finally could afford it after the divorce and gotten a king-size bed, which ate into the bedroom space, but not too much to make it claustrophobic.

That bed was gone. There was a bed, but it wasn’t... right. It was smaller. It was smaller and one end was propped up like a hospital bed’s.

It was a hospital bed. The beige wheels poked out from under a curtain of bedding hanging over the side of the mattress.

“Mom, is that you?” Cake whispered to the dark.

The lump didn’t move. He pushed the door open all the way and followed the torch’s light as it cut through the dim air hanging from the ceiling and walls. The window was mostly covered, with a flicker of the sky seeping through, but the rest of the room was just shapes, hard to identify as anything. A few steps in from the door, the carpet softly sucking in all sound, and he was standing next to the bed. The lump stayed still.

“Mom?” Cake swallowed.

The shadows on the walls shifted. Wind had picked up and rustled the trees outside.

He looked back down on the bed, his heart stuck in his throat.

“Mom?”

Cake reached for the lump to wake her up. Wake up mom, is everything ok?

His hand landed on soft folds and through to the mattress as the lump deflated under his touch.

It was just a pile of blankets in a human form, nothing human between them and the sheets.

His mom wasn’t there.

Cake’s heart skipped and he let out a breath. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting but somehow an absence was better than finding something right now.

He flashed the torch around the room steadying himself. What was going on here? When illuminated, the shapes that didn’t look like anything started to make sense: There was a drip holder next to the bed and an electric lift. For what? So much machinery, things that didn’t belong here at all. The en suite door stood open and vacant. Who slept here? This wasn’t his mom’s. She didn’t need all this.

Cake glanced around the room to find something, anything. The side table was the one he’d helped carry upstairs. The lamp on it was familiar, as was the picture frame under it with the boys as boys, some twenty years ago. Brutus had a toothy grin he’d grow out of. Little Cake looked worried under his blond pudding bowl cut that didn’t quite reach his ears. That picture had always been there. The cane leaning to the table was new. It wasn’t hers. Cake reached out to pull open the drawers of a nightstand. They were full of bright orange pill bottles. None of these should’ve been there. She only took medication for her hay fever. But all the bottles were labeled with her name. Xeloda, Tramadol, empty vials of Eloxatin and Camptosar, medicinal lotions and cream tubes. Mostly empty or half empty.

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