Update 08
"Hmm, you must have had a bit of chocolate on your lip from earlier."
I could not believe what she had done so brazenly right in front of her own mother. This day was getting hotter and sexier than I could possibly have imagined.
She went and sat down, and as she did, she shifted her legs, and whether it was deliberate or not, I caught a very quick glimpse between her legs. She had apparently put on a new pair of panties while she was out of the room.
The tension that was there earlier had begun to melt. I was more turned on than I had ever been, but within myself, I was beginning to relax. Mum looked like she had gotten over her initial shock at seeing her mother and was beginning to relax a little more as well. We were settling into a regular conversation when there came a knock at the door, followed by the sound of the front door opening. A rich, deep, warm voice with a British accent that had more than just a hint of the West Indies floated into the room ahead of the intruder.
"Good evening, Liz. How are you feeling this... Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't realise you had company."
A tall man walked through the door into the room, and there was a moment of silence as we all registered each other's presence. He was tall, dark-skinned, and well-built. He had a large, friendly smile on his face, and I noticed that my grandmother was smiling warmly at him too.
"Chilton. I didn't realise it was that late already. This is my daughter Beth, and this is my grandson, Jeffery. Everyone, this is Chilton, my very handsome therapist."
She had a twinkle in her eye as she spoke, and it was clear that they got along very well. There was an ease with each other, and although she was just teasing when she called him very handsome, there was truth to it too. Despite the obvious age gap, she clearly found him very attractive.
He chuckled and waved a hand at her in a "stop it" sort of motion.
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
He said it with an exaggerated wink. He looked over at my mother, and I noticed his eyes take a long, slow tour of her body, and he smiled appreciatively. I watched as Mum blushed a little, then stood up. She held out her hand to shake his in greeting. He took her hand gently in his, and they shook once, but they seemed to linger momentarily before letting go. Mum was blushing even harder under his intense and obviously appreciative gaze. They clearly found each other attractive, and I was hit with a weird sensation of jealousy and excitement at the same time.
"Hello, Chilton. It's very nice to meet you."
"Oh, no. The pleasure is all mine."
There was a very slight emphasis on the word pleasure, and she, unbelievably, blushed even more. My grandma was chuckling to herself. I stood up from my chair, and he turned to face me. He extended his hand, and his warm smile never faltered once.
"Nice to meet you, Chilton."
"It's nice to meet you too, Jeffery. Have you finished your studies for the semester?"
I was taken aback. How on earth does he know I'm still at school? Do I look that young? I must have looked confused because his smile broadened even further.
"Sorry. Your grandmother speaks about you all so much that I feel like I know you all already."
He turned back to my mother.
"Although when she said you were pretty, I have to admit that I thought she was just doing what every mother does. If anything, she understated it. Although it's obvious where those good looks come from."
He said this as he turned back to my grandmother, who was now practically squirming with delight. She giggled most uncharacteristically and waved her hand as though shooing him away, but it was obvious she was loving every second of the banter.
"Chilton is such a smooth talker. I wouldn't mind betting he has bedded more than his fair share of fine young maidens with that smooth accent and the Casanova act."
Chilton laughed his rich, deep laugh and shook his head.
"It pains me to inform you that I have surprisingly little luck with the ladies, Liz. Oh, and it's no act, just my natural charm and charisma, not that it helps much."
Granny chuckled, and her face showed that she didn't believe a word of it. We spent the next half hour or so watching as Chilton expertly went through how she was feeling and worked out what she needed before she settled for the evening. Soon after, he went into the kitchen to prepare her meal for the night. He asked us to join him so we could see what was being done for her.
He went through the process of making her meals, which turned out to be a sort of vegetable smoothie. It looked disgusting, and when Mum asked why it had to be blended, he looked at her seriously for a moment.
"She hasn't told you all the details, I take it. She isn't capable of swallowing solid foods anymore. The tumours in her oesophagus have grown too big to allow much more than thin liquid past them now. She can drink water or a cup of tea, but anything thicker just gets stuck and backs up. She runs the risk of suffocating or drowning if she has anything like that now. We have changed her over to a feeding tube now. It's just a tube that goes directly into her stomach. We fill this large syringe with her food and inject it straight into her stomach. I will show you how to do it if I'm not here, but I will be here most of the time until the end now."
There was a long silence as we both took that on board. It was shocking and saddening at the same time. There was a real sense of finality to it all. Chilton watched us both closely as we absorbed the news. He gave us a few moments, then spoke again.
"Do you understand what palliative care is?"
We both nodded but didn't say anything.
"Do you understand that I am employed as a palliative care nurse for Liz?"
Again, we both nodded. It should have been obvious to us, and I guess we both knew, but it still came as an unpleasant surprise.
"Good. It's my job to make her as comfortable as possible as she goes through this process. That means I am taking pretty intimate care of her. I need to know if you understand what that entails. I help her with her physical health and well-being, and that includes things like bathing, and pretty soon it will mean toiletries as well. Probably within the next couple of weeks or so, judging by her current progression."
I was too shocked to say anything. It was a real task to wrap my head around it all. Poor Mum was looking completely shell-shocked. I have to give her credit, though. I watched as she took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and took on a look that said, "I can do this." She looked at Chilton with a steely gaze.
"I'm not going to lie; she is far further along than I knew. I suspect she has been keeping the truth from me because, frankly, I have had a spectacularly shit year, and she wanted to protect me in some way."
Chilton was nodding as Mum continued to speak.
"I am here to help, though, so whatever is needed, just let me know."
"I appreciate that, and there will be things you can help with, but I also want you to know that this isn't your job to do. You are emotionally invested in this in a way that I'm not. It's my job to care for her and to ease the burden, not to pass the burden on to you. I am trained to do this, and I take great pride in my job. The best thing you can do for your Mum and for yourselves is to be there as her daughter. Let me do the things I'm good at, and you be the daughter. Understand what I mean?"
In a lot of ways, it was a relief to hear him say that. As much as we both wanted to do what we could for her, it was good to know that we didn't have unfair expectations of us either.
He made sure that we each understood what that meant. Only once we had both agreed did he continue on.
"Now, I hope you understand that that means I am pretty much living here at the moment. I won't take up much space, and I will stay out of your way as best I can, but I will need my own time and space too."
There was a moment of confusion as we each thought about the logistics of this, and then, with a strange, awkward smile, Mum turned to me.
"I guess we are bunking in together, kiddo."
There was a long, awkward silence as we each took in what that meant. It was an embarrassing conversation to have in front of Chilton, especially considering how today had panned out already. I decided to save her the embarrassment.
"It's okay. I can sleep on the couch, I guess."
Both Chilton and Mum laughed at this one, and when I looked confused, they just laughed harder.
"I am just over five feet tall, and I don't fit on that couch. Do you, at over six feet tall, think you can sleep on that couch?"
I just shrugged because I didn't have a better idea.
"I could sleep on the floor, I suppose."
She gave me a serious look that said she wasn't playing now.
"Absolutely not. There is a perfectly good queen-sized bed in that room that both of us can fit in. We can both be the adults we are, suck it up, and be bunk buddies for the next three weeks before you go back to school. We'll be fine."
I wanted to tell her that I wasn't so sure that we would be fine because keeping my hands to myself had proven to be almost impossible, as it was just for today. Having her in such close proximity would surely be disastrous. The look on her face was telling me to shut up, though, so that's exactly what I did.
Once it seemed that we had come to terms with our new arrangements, Chilton nodded and turned back to the meal he was preparing. He got the syringe and filled it with the mostly cooled mixture now. He took it and a tube of saline into the lounge room, and we followed.
"Ready for your fine dining experience, Liz?"
She sighed as though it were a chore.
"Yeah, yeah. Get it over with."
He knelt down beside her and lifted her shirt up, exposing the fitting for the feeding tube. He showed us the procedure of removing the cap, cleaning the entry, attaching the syringe, and slowly pushing the contents into her stomach. The whole time, Granny was looking particularly sad. She looked up at Mum.
"This is the part I hate the most. I miss chewing food and tasting it. I'm not hungry, but there's no joy in a meal anymore."
"I'm sorry, Mum."
"There's nothing for you to be sorry for. You didn't do this to me. Just my body turning on itself."
There was a long silence as the last of the food went into her feeding tube, then Chilton showed us how to flush the tube with the saline, clean the end again, and replace the cap.
"Now that we have covered Liz's least favourite part of the day, it's time to address her favourite."
Granny giggled again and even blushed.
"You're saying that like it's some sordid thing."
"It's okay; I don't mind being your... What did you call it? Oh, yeah, your private massage parlour."
She was blushing like mad now, and we all had a chuckle.
"I will help her with her shower, then give her a massage before putting her to bed. She's usually pretty tired after that and will sleep through until the morning, usually."
"Well, you do seem to enjoy getting me naked, wearing me out, and putting me to bed relaxed."
I couldn't believe she said that, and we all burst into laughter. Clearly, she wasn't going to be teased and not teased back. Once we had all stopped laughing, Mum turned to Chilton.
"I'm guessing this would be an appropriate time for us to go for a walk in the evening then."
He nodded and seemed grateful for her understanding.
"I'm guessing you haven't eaten yet, so perhaps go get yourself something and give us, oh, say, an hour and a half."
"Excellent idea. Let me just go move my stuff into the other room, and then we'll be out of your hair."
She walked off, and Chilton picked up everything from the meal and headed to the kitchen. He asked me to follow him under the premise of showing me what to do with the bits and pieces, but he clearly had different motives.
"Are you and your mum going to be okay with all of this? I know it's a shock to walk into this situation."
I took a moment to think about it.
"In all honesty, I don't know. We had no idea it had progressed to this. We didn't even know about you. Don't get me wrong; we really appreciate you being here and everything you are doing. We just didn't know."
He nodded in understanding.
"If it all gets too much for either of you, just let me know, okay? I mean, you don't have to tough this out if you can't. There's no shame in that."
"Thank you."
"There is just one other thing. Every afternoon, unless things are looking bad, I take a few hours to myself. It's pretty important that I get that time to recharge, okay? I would appreciate it if you understood that I need my privacy in this too."
"Of course."
"Can you make sure your Mum understands that too? Some families can be a bit demanding when they are stressed, and they don't understand how taxing it can be."
"Not a problem. I will talk to her about it when we go out for dinner."
"I appreciate it. It really is a pleasure to meet you, man."
He held out his hand to shake mine.
"Thanks. You too."
I walked back out to say goodnight to Granny and that we would see her in the morning.
"I will see you in the morning, Jeff. Thanks for being here for your Mum. She really needs you at the moment. More than she will tell you and in more ways than she will say."
There was something cryptic in what she was saying, but she offered me a warm smile, and we hugged. Mum came into the room and said goodnight to her as well.
''Enjoy your walk, you two. It's a lovely evening for a stroll on the beach."
I could not believe what she had done so brazenly right in front of her own mother. This day was getting hotter and sexier than I could possibly have imagined.
She went and sat down, and as she did, she shifted her legs, and whether it was deliberate or not, I caught a very quick glimpse between her legs. She had apparently put on a new pair of panties while she was out of the room.
The tension that was there earlier had begun to melt. I was more turned on than I had ever been, but within myself, I was beginning to relax. Mum looked like she had gotten over her initial shock at seeing her mother and was beginning to relax a little more as well. We were settling into a regular conversation when there came a knock at the door, followed by the sound of the front door opening. A rich, deep, warm voice with a British accent that had more than just a hint of the West Indies floated into the room ahead of the intruder.
"Good evening, Liz. How are you feeling this... Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't realise you had company."
A tall man walked through the door into the room, and there was a moment of silence as we all registered each other's presence. He was tall, dark-skinned, and well-built. He had a large, friendly smile on his face, and I noticed that my grandmother was smiling warmly at him too.
"Chilton. I didn't realise it was that late already. This is my daughter Beth, and this is my grandson, Jeffery. Everyone, this is Chilton, my very handsome therapist."
She had a twinkle in her eye as she spoke, and it was clear that they got along very well. There was an ease with each other, and although she was just teasing when she called him very handsome, there was truth to it too. Despite the obvious age gap, she clearly found him very attractive.
He chuckled and waved a hand at her in a "stop it" sort of motion.
"Flattery will get you everywhere."
He said it with an exaggerated wink. He looked over at my mother, and I noticed his eyes take a long, slow tour of her body, and he smiled appreciatively. I watched as Mum blushed a little, then stood up. She held out her hand to shake his in greeting. He took her hand gently in his, and they shook once, but they seemed to linger momentarily before letting go. Mum was blushing even harder under his intense and obviously appreciative gaze. They clearly found each other attractive, and I was hit with a weird sensation of jealousy and excitement at the same time.
"Hello, Chilton. It's very nice to meet you."
"Oh, no. The pleasure is all mine."
There was a very slight emphasis on the word pleasure, and she, unbelievably, blushed even more. My grandma was chuckling to herself. I stood up from my chair, and he turned to face me. He extended his hand, and his warm smile never faltered once.
"Nice to meet you, Chilton."
"It's nice to meet you too, Jeffery. Have you finished your studies for the semester?"
I was taken aback. How on earth does he know I'm still at school? Do I look that young? I must have looked confused because his smile broadened even further.
"Sorry. Your grandmother speaks about you all so much that I feel like I know you all already."
He turned back to my mother.
"Although when she said you were pretty, I have to admit that I thought she was just doing what every mother does. If anything, she understated it. Although it's obvious where those good looks come from."
He said this as he turned back to my grandmother, who was now practically squirming with delight. She giggled most uncharacteristically and waved her hand as though shooing him away, but it was obvious she was loving every second of the banter.
"Chilton is such a smooth talker. I wouldn't mind betting he has bedded more than his fair share of fine young maidens with that smooth accent and the Casanova act."
Chilton laughed his rich, deep laugh and shook his head.
"It pains me to inform you that I have surprisingly little luck with the ladies, Liz. Oh, and it's no act, just my natural charm and charisma, not that it helps much."
Granny chuckled, and her face showed that she didn't believe a word of it. We spent the next half hour or so watching as Chilton expertly went through how she was feeling and worked out what she needed before she settled for the evening. Soon after, he went into the kitchen to prepare her meal for the night. He asked us to join him so we could see what was being done for her.
He went through the process of making her meals, which turned out to be a sort of vegetable smoothie. It looked disgusting, and when Mum asked why it had to be blended, he looked at her seriously for a moment.
"She hasn't told you all the details, I take it. She isn't capable of swallowing solid foods anymore. The tumours in her oesophagus have grown too big to allow much more than thin liquid past them now. She can drink water or a cup of tea, but anything thicker just gets stuck and backs up. She runs the risk of suffocating or drowning if she has anything like that now. We have changed her over to a feeding tube now. It's just a tube that goes directly into her stomach. We fill this large syringe with her food and inject it straight into her stomach. I will show you how to do it if I'm not here, but I will be here most of the time until the end now."
There was a long silence as we both took that on board. It was shocking and saddening at the same time. There was a real sense of finality to it all. Chilton watched us both closely as we absorbed the news. He gave us a few moments, then spoke again.
"Do you understand what palliative care is?"
We both nodded but didn't say anything.
"Do you understand that I am employed as a palliative care nurse for Liz?"
Again, we both nodded. It should have been obvious to us, and I guess we both knew, but it still came as an unpleasant surprise.
"Good. It's my job to make her as comfortable as possible as she goes through this process. That means I am taking pretty intimate care of her. I need to know if you understand what that entails. I help her with her physical health and well-being, and that includes things like bathing, and pretty soon it will mean toiletries as well. Probably within the next couple of weeks or so, judging by her current progression."
I was too shocked to say anything. It was a real task to wrap my head around it all. Poor Mum was looking completely shell-shocked. I have to give her credit, though. I watched as she took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and took on a look that said, "I can do this." She looked at Chilton with a steely gaze.
"I'm not going to lie; she is far further along than I knew. I suspect she has been keeping the truth from me because, frankly, I have had a spectacularly shit year, and she wanted to protect me in some way."
Chilton was nodding as Mum continued to speak.
"I am here to help, though, so whatever is needed, just let me know."
"I appreciate that, and there will be things you can help with, but I also want you to know that this isn't your job to do. You are emotionally invested in this in a way that I'm not. It's my job to care for her and to ease the burden, not to pass the burden on to you. I am trained to do this, and I take great pride in my job. The best thing you can do for your Mum and for yourselves is to be there as her daughter. Let me do the things I'm good at, and you be the daughter. Understand what I mean?"
In a lot of ways, it was a relief to hear him say that. As much as we both wanted to do what we could for her, it was good to know that we didn't have unfair expectations of us either.
He made sure that we each understood what that meant. Only once we had both agreed did he continue on.
"Now, I hope you understand that that means I am pretty much living here at the moment. I won't take up much space, and I will stay out of your way as best I can, but I will need my own time and space too."
There was a moment of confusion as we each thought about the logistics of this, and then, with a strange, awkward smile, Mum turned to me.
"I guess we are bunking in together, kiddo."
There was a long, awkward silence as we each took in what that meant. It was an embarrassing conversation to have in front of Chilton, especially considering how today had panned out already. I decided to save her the embarrassment.
"It's okay. I can sleep on the couch, I guess."
Both Chilton and Mum laughed at this one, and when I looked confused, they just laughed harder.
"I am just over five feet tall, and I don't fit on that couch. Do you, at over six feet tall, think you can sleep on that couch?"
I just shrugged because I didn't have a better idea.
"I could sleep on the floor, I suppose."
She gave me a serious look that said she wasn't playing now.
"Absolutely not. There is a perfectly good queen-sized bed in that room that both of us can fit in. We can both be the adults we are, suck it up, and be bunk buddies for the next three weeks before you go back to school. We'll be fine."
I wanted to tell her that I wasn't so sure that we would be fine because keeping my hands to myself had proven to be almost impossible, as it was just for today. Having her in such close proximity would surely be disastrous. The look on her face was telling me to shut up, though, so that's exactly what I did.
Once it seemed that we had come to terms with our new arrangements, Chilton nodded and turned back to the meal he was preparing. He got the syringe and filled it with the mostly cooled mixture now. He took it and a tube of saline into the lounge room, and we followed.
"Ready for your fine dining experience, Liz?"
She sighed as though it were a chore.
"Yeah, yeah. Get it over with."
He knelt down beside her and lifted her shirt up, exposing the fitting for the feeding tube. He showed us the procedure of removing the cap, cleaning the entry, attaching the syringe, and slowly pushing the contents into her stomach. The whole time, Granny was looking particularly sad. She looked up at Mum.
"This is the part I hate the most. I miss chewing food and tasting it. I'm not hungry, but there's no joy in a meal anymore."
"I'm sorry, Mum."
"There's nothing for you to be sorry for. You didn't do this to me. Just my body turning on itself."
There was a long silence as the last of the food went into her feeding tube, then Chilton showed us how to flush the tube with the saline, clean the end again, and replace the cap.
"Now that we have covered Liz's least favourite part of the day, it's time to address her favourite."
Granny giggled again and even blushed.
"You're saying that like it's some sordid thing."
"It's okay; I don't mind being your... What did you call it? Oh, yeah, your private massage parlour."
She was blushing like mad now, and we all had a chuckle.
"I will help her with her shower, then give her a massage before putting her to bed. She's usually pretty tired after that and will sleep through until the morning, usually."
"Well, you do seem to enjoy getting me naked, wearing me out, and putting me to bed relaxed."
I couldn't believe she said that, and we all burst into laughter. Clearly, she wasn't going to be teased and not teased back. Once we had all stopped laughing, Mum turned to Chilton.
"I'm guessing this would be an appropriate time for us to go for a walk in the evening then."
He nodded and seemed grateful for her understanding.
"I'm guessing you haven't eaten yet, so perhaps go get yourself something and give us, oh, say, an hour and a half."
"Excellent idea. Let me just go move my stuff into the other room, and then we'll be out of your hair."
She walked off, and Chilton picked up everything from the meal and headed to the kitchen. He asked me to follow him under the premise of showing me what to do with the bits and pieces, but he clearly had different motives.
"Are you and your mum going to be okay with all of this? I know it's a shock to walk into this situation."
I took a moment to think about it.
"In all honesty, I don't know. We had no idea it had progressed to this. We didn't even know about you. Don't get me wrong; we really appreciate you being here and everything you are doing. We just didn't know."
He nodded in understanding.
"If it all gets too much for either of you, just let me know, okay? I mean, you don't have to tough this out if you can't. There's no shame in that."
"Thank you."
"There is just one other thing. Every afternoon, unless things are looking bad, I take a few hours to myself. It's pretty important that I get that time to recharge, okay? I would appreciate it if you understood that I need my privacy in this too."
"Of course."
"Can you make sure your Mum understands that too? Some families can be a bit demanding when they are stressed, and they don't understand how taxing it can be."
"Not a problem. I will talk to her about it when we go out for dinner."
"I appreciate it. It really is a pleasure to meet you, man."
He held out his hand to shake mine.
"Thanks. You too."
I walked back out to say goodnight to Granny and that we would see her in the morning.
"I will see you in the morning, Jeff. Thanks for being here for your Mum. She really needs you at the moment. More than she will tell you and in more ways than she will say."
There was something cryptic in what she was saying, but she offered me a warm smile, and we hugged. Mum came into the room and said goodnight to her as well.
''Enjoy your walk, you two. It's a lovely evening for a stroll on the beach."
