Sincerely, Solo

Silence amidst the wind and walking pedestrian passing by the hospital — it quickly breaks when a quadruplet of tyres screech against the concrete floor belonging to the parking lot; the friction of fastening engine leaves prints. Hurriedly, out of his car, the driver sloppily locks the vehicle and doesn’t bother to check the moment he dashes towards the doors. He squeezes through a crowd to find himself running for the Emergency Room. His heart paces quickly with each beeline movement.

The whole floor smells like a disinfectant product, that had been used to clean, and beds occupied by emergency patients with their family by their side, praying for a speedy recovery. This didn’t bother him at all when he looks around hastily for a doctor or a nurse that can tell him something to quench his curious and raging mind. Nonetheless ignored, he runs to the reception table, where he meets an emergency nurse, who’s supervising the junior nurses.

“Can I help you?” The supervisory nurse doesn’t bother to look up at him. She noticed his presence first by the sudden smell of a strong cologne, and since that bothers her, she looks up. Her breath hitches at the beauty of a man — a man so tall (six-foot, in her opinion) with tanned skin, as if he’s recently returned from some sort of business trip; his jet black hair pushed back into a pompadour and his brown eyes glimmer nothing of happiness (seeing his eyes defeated her moment of idle emotions).

“Juliette Cameron… where is she? Is she okay?” He asks rapidly, like a bullet train with no stops.

The nurse hums, pursing her pale lips while studying the man’s demeanour. He appears to be in distress, regardless of his ‘good’ looks, and the lower lids of his eyes cup the tears waiting to fall against his soft cheeks. “Are you family?” She asks, gesturing for the junior nurses to lend her his seat; she takes it and fixates her position for a focus in front of the hospital computer. She types the name out in the search engine, which results in nada. “Sorry, sir, no Juliet Cameron in our emergency system.”

“What…?” He whispers in utter disbelief. Then, he has a eureka moment. “Wait, spell J-U-L-I-E-T-T-E,”

The nurse does so, following his words. Her eyes squint and her hand moves the mouse of the computer to one patient that had come up in the engine. “According to our system, she has been transferred to the ICU,” She informs, and the man in question thanks her but she holds his hand unintentionally to stop him. “Only two members of the patient’s family can enter at the same time,”

“Seriously?” He exhales in despair, letting go of the nurse’s hand.

His eyes travel everywhere on the emergency floor. From beds to beds, curtains to curtains, and doctors to doctors, he can’t find the way to the ICU. He panics at the realisation of his ignorance to ask the nurse where he should go and agrees that he’s overwhelming himself. He stops by a pillar, back hunched with his hands against his knees. He can have a panic attack at any given moment, however, he uses the method of ‘breathing in through the nose and exhale through the mouth’ to give himself some thought about the whole situation. He should be glad that his mother has been warded into the ICU, nevertheless that it sounds severe, but how can he not shake off a bad feeling that leaves a bitter taste on his tongue?

Before arriving at the hospital in a jiffy, he received a digital message from his darling father, which then alerted him. ’Get to Saint Babylon Hospital. NOW.’ The sternness in his father’s text caught him off guard from his high-end job and he left his house right away. He thanked the deities of the world for allowing him to go through smooth traffic to arrive at the hospital.

His tears shed like a waterfall in heavy rain. He feels like giving up and never visit his mother, but something in his heart stings. He quickly stands and wipes away the tears, sobbing once before walking out of the emergency floor towards the elevator. There’s an enquiry chart that tells which floor he’s on and a wave of relief washes over his oceanic heart when he notices the ‘ICU’ in red, bold letters. He presses the arrow button that leads to the desired floor and he waits for other people to exit the vehicle before entering.

He sniffles, seeing his reflection from the shut doors of the elevator. His eyes are swollen red and his face looks paler than usual. Minutes ago, looking like a nonchalant hunk, he, now, looks like a man of insanity — his fingers shuffled the strands of his jet-black feathers out of place and his nose flares with each breath taken in accord of his swelling, beating organ. He’s a mess, a wreck to be more wrecked than before once he sees the condition of his mother.

Ting! The doors open on his floor. He stands in the same position, fingers twitching beside him as if he’s typing a message with one hand, and as the door’s about to close, he holds it aside. His foot neurologically takes a step front despite his lack of strength to move it. He trembles a sigh, looking aside where he meets a figure that’s oh-so-familiar to him. Her skin’s as tan as his and she has jet-black hair, but she had bleached it to appear brunette as a distinctive fact from her family. Her body frame is like an hourglass, with each step she takes towards him, it’s like a strut down a catwalk.

Their arms intertwine to their backs; the man tightens the embrace. She can only reach him to his shoulder as their heights don’t meet eye-to-eye. They sob into each other’s figures for a solid minute, allowing people to empathise their situation regardless that they don’t know what’s going on in their lives. The man digs his fingers into her leather jacket, not wanting to let go of the warmth his sister comforts him with.

“River…” He whispers to his sister. “Mama…”

“Oh my God, Solo…” River’s whisper cracks. “She… oh my God, we lost her, Solo,” She says, crying into his shoulder more. His eyes stop shedding tears and instead, it widens into saucers at what his sister had said. His arms are about to lose strength but for the sake of his sister, he clutches onto her. “I can’t bear to look at her again, Solo… she’s… gone,”

Solo swallows a hard lump collected at the entrance of his throat. “Is she… is she in a coma?” He asks, thinking the worst of the worst for this situation.

Momentary silence.

“No,” She sniffles, pulling away and grazing her pinkie beneath her lower lids to rid of the running mascara. “She’s… not the same anymore, Solo. Everything that we’ve been together with her… it followed her,” River sighs, cupping her face. “Y-You can go in. Dad’s the only one with her; she’s in room twenty-seven.”

“Okay…” Solo’s hands make weird gestures or maybe saddened ones, as he doesn’t know what to do to fathom the current situation. They land on her face and he brings his lips closer to his younger sister’s crown of the head before hugging her tightly. He proceeds to give his identification card to the security guard at the entrance of the ICU, and once his granted entry, the guard swipes his pass card into the reader. The doors open and Solo clips on the guest tag. He stands at the threshold of the doors, hands clenching into fists before walking further into the ICU.

He can hear multiple people coughing and vomiting, and the sounds of the heart rate monitor reading people’s heartbeats and their weak breathing through masks. He can’t bear himself to look at the other patients or it will worsen his imagination to think about the unthinkable concerning his mother. Solo’s fingers twitch heavily with every step he takes down the hall, and he only looks up when he needs to see the room number. Solo’s feet automatically stops when he notices the numerals that match his sister’s description.

Solo turns his body and sees his father’s greying hair, almost immediately, with his head against the bed railing of the patient’s. Solo’s lips tremble with fear as he slightly pushes the navy blue curtain for a peek. He sees his mother on the bed, hand holding his father’s while her eyes are locked onto the ceiling. She wears a mask for oxygen and when she hears a tiny sob, she looks down. She weakly squeezes his father’s hand for his attention.

“Hello,” His mother says while his father is sitting up, comprehending the world around him through the blurriness of his eyes. “Are you the doctor?”

Solo’s heart stops for a beat.

His father’s head whips when he hears the words his mother had asked. He stands and recognises Solo’s presence. “Son…” He breathes and advises him to step out. “We need to talk…”

“No, I need to see mama,” He says, tears breaking their roles and down his cheeks, as he goes up to his mother’s bed to scandalise her personal space. His mother panics a little, wanting to get away from his close up. “Mama… I am your son,” He holds her hand, the one without the IV drip poked into her vein. “Please, mama…” His tears fall and sucked into the material of his mother’s blanket, while she tries her best to remember him. “It’s me… Solo…”

His mother’s demeanour changes from being frightened to calm.

“Solo…” She whispers, and he nods, relieved that his mother remembers him. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful man, but I think you’re mistaken, son,” Solo’s heart shatters. “I am not your mother. I’ve never had kids before. You can ask my husband,” She weakly points at the man standing behind Solo, who is his father.

“I… I am your son and your daughter, River… she’s outside!” He cries, eyes aching.

“Solo…” His father pulls him out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Solo doesn’t dare to look into his father’s eyes. “Look at me, son,” His father tells him and Solo hesitates to do so, yet did. Solo notices the bags under his eyes and the darkening circles from all the nights he had missed to slumber in. His wrinkles are more noticeable up close and dying freckles on his cheeks and his nose.

“This is a dream…” Solo’s voice cracks as he starts to speak. “This… it’s not possible, dad. PLEASE, TELL ME,” Solo withers into his father’s arms, crying into the shoulder ready for anything to be supporting. His father, Madden, rubs his back in order of comfort. “This is not fair… she… she can’t just forget about me,”

“Honestly?” Madden asks, although to the thought of the situation. “I don’t know what to say, son… everything’s happening too fast. Your mother… she was smiling and cheerful about work, about her garden and how she wants to travel back home after decades. The next thing I knew… she fainted. I brought her to the emergency as fast as I could and she woke up, she couldn’t recall who I was. The emergency doctors ran some tests on her a few hours ago, and it turned out that she had another episode.”

Solo blinks.

“Another episode? Dad… what do you mean?”

Madden sniffles, restricting himself from crying, but it’s too hard for him. He cries along with his son, who’s yet to understand his statement. “She had a stroke and when they scanned her brain, it had traces of past strokes that affected her neurology. The stroke she had at home severely affected her memory, which means… it depleted her ability to remember.” Madden scoffs now that he’s hearing the doctor’s words spoken to himself. “Do you know how hard it is to go through this and make a smile to your mother, pretending that she’s okay? That she’s in the hospital for checkups? She barely remembered me, Solo — me!” His father cries, sobbing into his hands.

Solo doesn’t hesitate to wrap his father with his arms. “Dad… don’t blame this on yourself. No one saw this coming, not even you,”

“Your mother is such a healthy person. I know I couldn’t have expected any of this to happen to her, but… I can’t help but blame me because I’m the one who has vowed to protect her from any illnesses or danger,” He sniffles, hugging his son back. “The doctor told me something else, Solo, but you may want to sit down for this,”

Solo takes a seat and looks up at his father, the scenic vision reminisces the times he had to look up at his father due to his height. Inside him, the thought melts his heart but it hardens right away when he remembers about his mother’s condition. His father’s mouth runs smoothly and at a pace, he can understand. However, Solo’s mind stops comprehending anything after his father speaks of deathly prediction about his mother, Juliette.

“How can… it’s not possible to predict when someone dies from a stroke, they just can’t!” Solo cries, surprised.

“According to the rate of her strokes, we can’t do anything about it, Solo…” His father frowns. “God knows when it’s her time, but the doctor said she won’t be able to cope with the strokes far too long. Her body will eventually give in, and when that time comes, we have to stay strong. That’s all your mama had wanted from us, isn’t it? To stay strong, regardless that she’s gone from this world,”

In anger, he kicks himself off the seat and storms out of the ICU. He roughly pulls the tag from his shirt, leaving a small tear that he can’t care less about. He slams the tag onto the security guard’s desk and he notices River’s depressed complexion. She tries to approach him for comfort, but nothing can help him in this state of mind. His eyes are occupied by tears for his mother and nowhere else is suitable for him to breakdown but the male’s washroom. He walks into the washroom and slams the door shut.

He screams on top of his lung and punches the mirror.

Through the reflection of the mirror, he fixes his black jacket and doesn’t bother with the cuffs. He sniffles, rubbing his worn-out eyes after a night of sobbing and crying into the arms of a woman, and he couldn’t let go of her. Solo looks at the mirror blankly. His expression compiles the artefact of a broken man, and he is fine with that. He’s been broken before, mended once and now, he’s broken again.

He hears multiple click-clacks of footsteps belonging to heels, followed by men who wear shoes that go along with suits. An arm wraps itself around his body and he instantly recognises the perfume used, belonging to his lover, Sierra. Sierra apologises for something he didn’t catch and he hums, receiving a kiss on the cheek before Sierra joins her family in the room where the woman of the day is. Solo looks at the corner of the room, seeing a table with a book and a pen and it being huddled by many of his father’s friends and family, but none of his mother’s.

“Solo,” His father calls. “It’s time,”

An hour passed in his life, and now he bears the weight of something regrettable on his shoulder. He marches along with the men carrying the casket as they make way down the dirt road and slowly allow the casket to cling onto the mechanism that allows it to slowly descend to the ground. Solo steps back, watching as his entire life flashing by his eyes and the happy memories he was forced to have with his ‘mother’ had deleted themselves.

He can’t bear to watch the erasure of his mother.

A man begins to pile high dug dirt onto the casket for the burial ceremony to end, but he takes a long time due to his inability of strengthening himself. Solo walks up to him and offers help, pulling the shovel from the man’s hands. He begins to push the shovel into the dirt and aligns it onto the ground.

’Goodbye, mama,’

At the Camerons’ estate, Solo has been consoled for his loss by his family members, and he pours himself a cup of neat whiskey and sipping the beverage to down his sorrows. Solo, from across the living room, sees a distressed man with his own drink in hand. Solo makes a beeline towards the man on the couch and he sits down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Today’s bound to happen,” Solo starts, lashes lowering. “We did everything we could to make her happy until it is what it is, and we did it, dad. We made her happy,”

“I-I…” His father sighs, staring into his clear drink and sips it. Madden feels empty and hollow in his vessel, and he grips Solo’s hand before shutting his eyes to take a breather. “I just want her back, do you understand me?” His father’s eyes are filled to the brim with tears when they look at each other. “I would give up my heart if it meant to bring her back.”

“Wouldn’t River and I do the same? What we’ve always been wanting was to see you and mama happy until death does you apart,” Solo says, sipping his drink. “But there’s nothing we can do now. We have to face the fact that mama is not suffering anymore because if she had gone through the pain further down the days, she will go insane, dad. I can’t imagine how the pain is for patients like her, but I bet my life that shit is something we can’t imagine,”

His father sniffles, looking at his son.

“I love you, son. I want you to remember that,”

“I know that,” They hug.

His father pulls away, pushing away the tears and sighs. “I have something to give you,” He says, pulling along a wooden box with carvings that is precise to the bone. “This is a box of letters that your mother wrote for you, even before you were born. Your sister has her own, and I promised your mother that I’d give this to you in case she passes.”

Solo pulls the box onto her lap, putting aside the drink. He unveils the hook and pops open the top, folded letters in different shaded papers lay idle in the box. At random, he pulls out a letter and reads it for him, and him, only.

For my son,

Who looked at the world differently than the people he has surrounded himself.

Who looked at me, the moment he was welcomed into the world, and recognised his truest ability to give back to this world.

Destined to make a change in this world, along with your sister.

I can’t be as happy as I was when I first had you; holding you in my arms, kissing you goodbye every time they whisked you back into the nursery; and more. Those were the happiest moments I had when I became a mother.

But…

I’m at my happiest now that you’ve grown into a man.

You with your first football practice, and your first soccer goal. Those are the flags of happiness in my life, including your dad’s. We were so happy that you won the best things in the world yet felt so humble to credit those who dared to challenge you.

You and your kind heart.

Neither your dad and I know where you’ve got that from, but I guarantee you that if you keep up with that kind of ambition and attitude, you’ll live this life at the best moments, regardless that some times, you’ll have a bad day.

I’m writing this letter as you’re getting ready for your prom.

Your date is here, remember her? I hope when you’re reading this, she is your wife or fiancée, and that you guys will have four kids, as you’ve discussed with me so openly.

Sincerely,

Mama.