Free Butterfly Dreams by A. Meredith Walters Page A

I would have wasted those last moments with her.
    My mom was dying.
    The tears clogged my throat and burned my eyes. They wouldn’t stop. I didn’t think they ever would.
    My father stood in the doorway to their bedroom, his grief so plain on his face, mirroring my own.
    “When will Tam get here?” my mother asked. She could barely keep her eyes open. She slept more and more these days. She was also pretty looped out on the morphine that the doctors had prescribed to reduce her pain. There were times when she was so high she couldn’t string coherent words together.
    She was lucid at the moment, having just woken up from a four-hour nap. But I noticed the way she winced as she tried to sit up in bed.
    And I clung to her hand, never wanting to let go.
    “She should be here soon. She just left school and it’s a three-hour drive,” Dad told her.
    Mom nodded, trying to lift her arm to reach for the glass of water on the bedside table. Her hand hung limply in the air for a moment before falling back to her side.
    Dad hurried over as I carefully lifted her up so he could place the glass to her lips. She dribbled some water onto her shirt.
    I tried not to look at my mother for too long. I hated seeing her gray, ashy skin and bald head from the intensive rounds of chemotherapy. She didn’t look anything like the woman she had once been.
    Looking at her for too long made me feel sick to my stomach, and I hated myself for feeling that way.
    After she was finished with her water and Dad wiped her chin, I pressed back into her side, touching my mother but purposefully not looking at her. I could close my eyes and remember her as she used to be. Not as she was
now.
    I stayed like that for days. Even after Tamsin came home to see our mother, I wouldn’t leave.
    I remained in that bed until the final moments.
    Holding her hand as the tears drowned me.
    Touching her but unable to look at her face.
    The face of the dying woman I loved more than anything.
    I hated myself for my childish weakness.
    It was a hate that would burn a hole through my gut and never really go away.
    —
    “Corin, your tests have all come back normal. I’m not sure your symptoms have anything to do with your heart. There are other things that can mimic heart problems,” Dr. Harrison said, and I felt the familiar crippling disappointment.
    “Are you sure? Because my chest pains have been really severe,” I argued, rubbing at the sore spot I had become used to.
    Dr. Harrison looked at my file and frowned as he flipped the pages and pages of results.
    Deep down, I had known this was going to happen. But it didn’t change the horrible sense of dread that felt like a ball of lead in my stomach.
    Dr. Harrison was younger than Dr. Graham. He couldn’t be more than five years out of medical school. He was attractive in a brainy sort of way and I appreciated how much he smiled. He had nice teeth, which was extremely important in my opinion. Straight, white teeth said, “Hey, you can trust me because I believe in stringent dental hygiene.”
    But his inability to solve my ongoing medical mystery was going to put a serious crimp in our patient/doctor relationship.
    Dr. Harrison scratched at his temple, his brow scrunched in concentration. “You’re still having chest pains?” he asked, and I hoped like hell that wasn’t incredulity in his tone.
    I nodded. “All the time,” I told him emphatically.
    Dr. Harrison seemed confused. “Do they come and go? Because that could be gas pains or indigestion—”
    “It’s all. The. Time,” I said through clenched teeth. Slow. With emphasis.
    Dr. Harrison closed my file and put it down on the desk. “Let me have a listen to your heart,” he said, fitting the tips of his stethoscope into his ears.
    I slumped a bit, feeling disheartened and frustrated. I tried not to flinch at the feel of cold metal against bare skin and took deep breaths when instructed.
    A few minutes later Dr. Harrison put the stethoscope