Read Online The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) by Alison Caiola - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alison Caiola
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adamantly.
This was not going well. I should have waited a few hours and called my friend Emma instead. My mother was on a mission and she was taking no prisoners.
“Jesus Christ, Mom. I’m not like you; I don’t dump men because they screw up once.”
“What? How dare you say that to me?” she yelled. “I’m trying to help you!”
“Mom.” I tried to keep my voice low and calm. “I don’t need you to help me. I just needed to vent, that’s all.”
“And then what, Lily?” she asked. “What happens after the venting is through? Are you going to take him back with open arms? So maybe next time you can give him the chance to punch you in the face instead of punching the wall? So that they’ll find you sprawled out dead, like Nicole Simpson?”
Now she was going overboard. “Mom, it’s not like that. Jamie’s not like that!” I couldn’t believe I was defending him. “It was
my
fault. I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have let it be and talked about it with him another time.”
My mothered lowered her voice and said, “Lily, I have told you time and again, we teach people how to treat us. Over and over again, you are teaching him to treat you with disrespect. You have to move on. He’s no good. I know you; you’re going to pine away for him. You’re going to cry every day. Meanwhile he’s going to be shacking up with that tramp for the next month and a half and not giving you a second thought. You have got to break up with him. You have no choice.”
“Mom, slow down. Stop telling me what to do.” I was screaming by this time. “I do have a choice! I’m a grown woman, Mom. Stop trying to control me.”
“Lily, you are better than this. You don’t have to compromise. You can have anything in the world and do anything you want —”
I cut her off. “Stop saying that; I hate when you say that!”
“Lily, listen to me.”
“No, I don’t have to listen to you. I’m so sick of all your controlling shit and everything you tell me. I’m sick to death of you!” I slammed the phone down hard.
That was the last time I spoke to my mother.
A knock at the conference room door almost causes me to jump out of my chair. The door opens and a group of doctors, clad in white coats and holding an assortment of clipboards and files, file into the room.
I stand up. The oldest man in the group introduces himself as Dr. Niptau. He is a tall, overweight, has oily skin, and sports a comb-over hairdo. He has a slight Indian accent and does not make eye contact with me.
He tells me that he’s a neurosurgeon and that the team of twelve is made up of various residents and interns. He takes a seat at the table opposite me and looks through his files. Following his cue, the rest of the team members either sit around the table or stand against the wall behind him. It is clear Niptau is going to be doing all the talking.
This might as well be a scene from an episode of
St. Joe’s
. When everything is back to normal, when Mom is back to normal, I’m going to sit down with the writers and describe everything I’m seeing here, so they can use my experience as material.
Dr. Niptau looks up at me and says, “Miss Lockwood, I don’t know how much you have been told about your mother’s condition.”
“Not much,” I reply. “I flew in late last night from LA. The nurses told me that my mother had had a terrible accident, had hit her head on the windshield, and was now unconscious. Oh, and that she’d had some tests done. That’s all. They said I had to wait for you to find out the rest.”
He shakes his head and says, “When your mother was first brought into the hospital, she had what we call a closed head injury. She was unconscious. Our teams worked quickly and effectively to stabilize her.”
One of the interns taps her pen on the table. Niptau shoots her a look. The tapping stops.
He continues. “There is a method used to diagnose the symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury (aka, TBI)
This was not going well. I should have waited a few hours and called my friend Emma instead. My mother was on a mission and she was taking no prisoners.
“Jesus Christ, Mom. I’m not like you; I don’t dump men because they screw up once.”
“What? How dare you say that to me?” she yelled. “I’m trying to help you!”
“Mom.” I tried to keep my voice low and calm. “I don’t need you to help me. I just needed to vent, that’s all.”
“And then what, Lily?” she asked. “What happens after the venting is through? Are you going to take him back with open arms? So maybe next time you can give him the chance to punch you in the face instead of punching the wall? So that they’ll find you sprawled out dead, like Nicole Simpson?”
Now she was going overboard. “Mom, it’s not like that. Jamie’s not like that!” I couldn’t believe I was defending him. “It was
my
fault. I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have let it be and talked about it with him another time.”
My mothered lowered her voice and said, “Lily, I have told you time and again, we teach people how to treat us. Over and over again, you are teaching him to treat you with disrespect. You have to move on. He’s no good. I know you; you’re going to pine away for him. You’re going to cry every day. Meanwhile he’s going to be shacking up with that tramp for the next month and a half and not giving you a second thought. You have got to break up with him. You have no choice.”
“Mom, slow down. Stop telling me what to do.” I was screaming by this time. “I do have a choice! I’m a grown woman, Mom. Stop trying to control me.”
“Lily, you are better than this. You don’t have to compromise. You can have anything in the world and do anything you want —”
I cut her off. “Stop saying that; I hate when you say that!”
“Lily, listen to me.”
“No, I don’t have to listen to you. I’m so sick of all your controlling shit and everything you tell me. I’m sick to death of you!” I slammed the phone down hard.
That was the last time I spoke to my mother.
A knock at the conference room door almost causes me to jump out of my chair. The door opens and a group of doctors, clad in white coats and holding an assortment of clipboards and files, file into the room.
I stand up. The oldest man in the group introduces himself as Dr. Niptau. He is a tall, overweight, has oily skin, and sports a comb-over hairdo. He has a slight Indian accent and does not make eye contact with me.
He tells me that he’s a neurosurgeon and that the team of twelve is made up of various residents and interns. He takes a seat at the table opposite me and looks through his files. Following his cue, the rest of the team members either sit around the table or stand against the wall behind him. It is clear Niptau is going to be doing all the talking.
This might as well be a scene from an episode of
St. Joe’s
. When everything is back to normal, when Mom is back to normal, I’m going to sit down with the writers and describe everything I’m seeing here, so they can use my experience as material.
Dr. Niptau looks up at me and says, “Miss Lockwood, I don’t know how much you have been told about your mother’s condition.”
“Not much,” I reply. “I flew in late last night from LA. The nurses told me that my mother had had a terrible accident, had hit her head on the windshield, and was now unconscious. Oh, and that she’d had some tests done. That’s all. They said I had to wait for you to find out the rest.”
He shakes his head and says, “When your mother was first brought into the hospital, she had what we call a closed head injury. She was unconscious. Our teams worked quickly and effectively to stabilize her.”
One of the interns taps her pen on the table. Niptau shoots her a look. The tapping stops.
He continues. “There is a method used to diagnose the symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury (aka, TBI)
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