She looked smaller than Jack remembered, paler even than him, than Avery, but she lounged on the hospital bed like a queen. She waved the nurse who brought vitamins away. "Toss those out, won't you, darling?"
"Take the fucking pill." Jack isn't looking at her, his fists are clenched and he's concentrating on a tree branch out the window. He can't see his mother, but imagines her expression go from surprised to wounded, and sees a slender hand in the corner of his eye reach for the tray. The ceiling hums electric, harsh. It makes everyone look sick, not just Jack's mother who is dying of a poison in her liver, a poison she nurtured for years. Did she know all along?
When Jack sits in the hall, all the nurses stare. The visitors. They're trying not to, but he can tell they're curious. What must it look like, a slight boy (though technically a man) with bruised eyes, shaking visibly and makeup smeared? He wants to scream that he's fine, he's fine, he isn't the one who's been tainting his blood. He isn't diseased, especially not with what they all assume. He hasn't been putting anything impure into his bloodstream, his lifeline. Jack isn't dying.
She is.
Dying, she's dying, and Jack hates hospitals. He leaves and buys juice, and he hates the pulp but drinks it anyway in the weak London sun. It makes him feel healthy, and he feels much better.
Annabelle doesn't want to go, and Jack doesn't want to bring her. It's Claire, in the end, who suggests the time limit, and Annabelle picks a flower. When Mrs. Dickon ("There was never a divorce, dear,") touches her, Jack wants to snatch her back. She isn't yours. But Annabelle allows the white fingers in her hair, returns the smile politely. Annabelle can recognize the woman she lived with, but the woman doesn't register as Mummy. Never Mum. Jack is still looking out the window and sees the Bentley in the lot. He touches Annabelle's back and she scrambles out the door, waving goodbye. Jack turns to follow her, but
"Wait."
Jack turns, and it's true that she must have been very beautiful once. "What."
Her voice, for the first time, is nervous. Jack softens his gaze. "Wasn't--wasn't I a good mother?"
No, is what Jack wants to say, because he's bitter still. No, you bitch, how could you do this to us. It he squints he can see Annabelle out the window now, plowing into Avery. Her hair is shines and she's laughing, though Jack can't see why. What if Annabelle had only ever been a sister? What if he'd stayed at the public school, never left Wales? Would it really be a lie, to tell her what she so needed to hear? "Yeah," is what he says. He picks up his coat, making himself look at her. "You weren't bad."
When Jack walks into the sunlight, he knows he'll never see her alive again. It's almost enough to make him turn around and at least look at the hospital, but Annabelle is waiting, playing pattycake with Jake in the car, and Avery is waiting too.