All the way to Mom’s house, my hands shook on the steering wheel. I imagined some scammer, some stranger, someone taking advantage of a lonely old woman who couldn’t even get out of bed.
But nothing prepared me for what I saw when I opened her bedroom door.
The Man Beside Her Bed…A huge man sat beside my mother’s bed, holding a spoonful of chicken soup.
He wore a black leather vest over a gray shirt. His beard reached his chest. Tattoos crawled up his neck, over both hands, and disappeared under his sleeves. A silver chain hung from his belt. His boots looked like they could crush stones.
And my mother?
She was smiling at him like he had hung the moon.
“Just one more spoonful, Miss Margaret,” he said gently.
Mom opened her mouth obediently.
I stood frozen in the doorway.
“Mom,” I said slowly. “Can I talk to you? Alone?”
The man didn’t look offended. He didn’t even look surprised.
He set the bowl down, wiped Mom’s chin with a napkin, and stood.
“I’ll be in the garden, Miss Margaret.”
“Thank you, Louis,” Mom said warmly.
Louis.
The second he left, I shut the door and turned to her.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Mom’s smile faded.
“Anna.”
“No, Mom. Don’t ‘Anna’ me. You fired Brenda? Brenda? The woman who has cared for you for years? And replaced her with some biker you barely know?”
My mother’s eyes hardened in that familiar way. Even bedridden, she could still make me feel twelve years old.
“He is staying,” she said. “No matter what. I want Louis to be the one taking care of me.”
“Why?”
Her lips pressed together.
“Because I trust him.”
“You trust him? Mom, you don’t even know him.”
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