My seventy-year-old mother, three weeks into chemotherapy, was asleep on it.
Her medication bottles were beside her on the floor.
What made the sight downstairs worse was that every detail of the guest room had been chosen for a reason. The bathroom was steps away because Mom sometimes had only seconds of warning when nausea hit. The bed was high enough that she could stand without struggling. The chair by the window gave her somewhere to sit on days when lying down made her feel trapped.
The basement erased all of that.
To reach a bathroom, she had to climb stairs. To stand from the air mattress, she had to push herself up from nearly floor level.
Gabriel had not simply exchanged one sleeping place for another.
He had removed every small accommodation that made her treatment more manageable.
I stood there feeling something inside me go cold.
Mom stirred and opened her eyes.
