Mother

Ray came back quite quickly with my rosewater. Mike propped me up with a few pillows that he got from the side of the bed so I could drink. It was chilled too, so it felt very good on my throat. "Does your throat feel any better?" Asked Ray. Mike quickly added, "Don't talk or nod, you got dizzy enough when I was helping you sit up, just squeeze my hand once for yes and twice for no." He then took my hand in his so I could reply. I squeezed his hand once. The rosewater had really helped.

"Do you think you can speak a little now try just saying one word. Ah, but let's ask you a question first that way, even if your throat is still too raw this won't be for nothing, but what to ask." Pondered Ray.

"Oh I know what we should ask!"

"It has to a yes or no question Mike."

"Yeah, yeah I know."

"Okay so what is it?"

"Are you in any pain?"

"Well I guess that's something we really should know, so Sue are you in any pain? Just take your time and don't hurt yourself"

"Yes" I replied and although my voice still sounded awful it wasn't as bad as before nor did it hurt as much. I smiled, satisfied with the result of this experiment.

My brother's faces looked bittersweet. They looked glad that I seem to be able to talk with far less discomfort, but they seem saddened by my response. Before they could really ask me anything else, someone shot past them, pushing them out of the way and embraced me in a bear hug.

I wish I could say the tears in my eyes were from happiness, but this time they were from pain. She was hugging me far too tight and I felt like I might die from the pain it was causing me.

"Mother stop your hurting her!" my brothers screamed at the same time. My mother jumped back in shock. "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" I just smiled at her hoping that the others would explain. "She can't really talk right now mother her throat is not in very good shape," Ray said saving me from any misunderstandings. "Oh I have just thing for that! I'll be right back." She then hurried back out of my room passing Ben who had just managed to catch up to her. "Did I miss something?" He asked. The other two started laughing and I just sat in bed with a grin on my face. It had taken over a year, but things seemed to be taking a turn for the better.

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I had now been awake for a week now and things finally seem to be getting somewhat better. I could talk again and was eating well. I discovered when woke up that I was little more than a skeleton. Ray told me that it was very hard to get me to eat anything after about the fifth month of me being unconscious. I had been unconscious for one year, one month, one week, and three days according to Ben. I was flabbergasted when he told me that, but the state of my body told me that it was true. I couldn't even feed myself currently. The weight of the spoon was too much for me to lift. It truly was going to be quite the road to recovery.

Mother and Ben already came up with a daily regimen to help me get back in shape and feeling better. we still didn't know exactly what happened, but the goal was to treat the symptoms since we didn't yet know the cause. My brothers were worried I would pass out again and not wake up for a long time if I overexerted myself, but my mother seemed certain that that wasn't a possibility. I didn't know why she felt that way.

Something about mother seemed a bit different to me. She seemed a bit more withdrawn in a way she was out of the house almost all day long and when she got home, she would eat if she needed to, and then go to her room after briefly talking with us, my brother told me that this had become the new normal while I was asleep they had taken over all the chores that she did around the house and she the chores that used to do out in the woods. That made me feel a little Bit better but I was still confused. Wouldn't it have been easier to ask one of my brothers to take over the chores I used to do they were out in the woods more than she was and why have my brothers learn a whole new set of chores? They had helped me before so they knew what to do, but they were never keen for housework so it would've Been a new beast for them to tackle. Maybe that's why she did it. She wanted them to be more occupied learning something new to help with the stress of everything? But that didn't feel quite right either.

Mother was also than she used to be and she always seems somewhat tired. Whenever I saw her, she seemed to have a Sad looking in her eyes she didn't look sad, but there was just something in her eyes that made me feel that there is something going on with her that the rest of us didn't know. I was worried about her, but I didn't want to stress my brothers anymore than they already were with me so I kept it to myself for now. I'm sure if something was really wrong with her my brother would've told me. My best guess was that it had something to do with father being gone. mother and father truly loved one another as far as I could tell, and they had never spent this much time apart as long as I had been around at least I didn't know about before that.

Today Ray told me that he had a surprise for me and that he would show me after I had eaten lunch. I was very much looking forward to it. My days were quite boring, sitting in bed, laying in bed, eating, sleeping, and doing some light exercises with my arms and legs to try to build back some muscle. There was a lot going on, but it still was quite boring since I was unable to go out of my room.

After Ben was done helping me eat lunch Ray came in with the surprise just like he told me he would. He was pushing a wheelchair! "Do you like it? I made it myself. You can't use it quite yet, but once you become a bit more healthy you can use it to get around and even go outside!" Ray said excitedly.

"Really! Thank you so much Ray! I love it!" I wasn't just saying that either. I was truly so excited and grateful for this. Before this incident I spent every second I could outside, so the prospects of being confined to the house, let alone one room, for a long time was not pleasant to me at all.

All three of us were grinning ear to ear, it was truly a happy moment. "When can I start using it?" I asked. "Slow your horses," said Ben, "you're still not in very good condition yet. It'll be a couple weeks still, but then we can use it to let you get out of the room and in about a weeks more time after that, you can get out of the house with it."

I was a little sad that I couldn't use it right away, but knowing that I would soon be able to leave my room and then the house lit up my world. It made me forget all my aches, pains, and worries for a little while. I think that's why Ray showed it to me even though I couldn't use it yet, Having a goal would be great motivation for me to get better and for me that goal was getting outside. He had made it much more possible with this wheelchair. Instead of only being able to imagine myself going outside on crutches, after months of struggle, it would only be about three weeks. Bringing the finish line closer to me gave me all the more motivation. It was a clever move on his part. I'm sure it took some convincing for mother to let him show me right now.

After all of this, the last thing she would want was for me to be able to venture out on my own. I had a feeling I would be heavily supervised for quite some time yet. That was fine with me though, I was still feeling a bit nervous about my brothers eventually leaving, so any reason to spend more time with them was okay with me.