The Crying Room by Gretchen Shirm

Author:Gretchen Shirm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transit Lounge Publishing
Published: 2023-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

10. After the Fact

BERNIE’S NEW KNEE was made of titanium. That was what the surgeon told Susie after the operation.

‘Susie?’ Bernie said when she saw her, still groggy from the morphine. ‘Oh, my daughter.’ She drew Susie towards her and kissed her on the lips, a queasily intimate gesture.

Then Bernie tipped her head over the stainless-steel pan beside her bed and vomited. The doctor left the room and allowed the nurse to clean up the mess. Susie found a face washer and wiped around her mother’s mouth. The smell of vomit was pungent and sweet.

When Susie drew her hand away, Bernie reached up and held it, closing her eyes. Susie wondered if the operation had made her mother regress; she’d heard of this happening.

The nurse asked Bernie to rate her pain on a scale of one to ten.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ Bernie said happily, and Susie understood her mother was high from the drugs and that her real mother would return soon. She didn’t even feel disappointment, just the sense that it was inevitable.

When the nurse cleaned the wound, Susie saw that the scar on Bernie’s leg was a long parabolic curve; the raw edges of it joined in a seam.

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