“Either she wasn’t a patient there, or they’ve lost her record,” I say, biting my lip.I need to do something. But what?“I’m going back to the hospital,” I say.
“Ma’am, if you don’t calm down, I can’t help you,” the receptionist at the hospital front desk says. “I’m going to give you a form to fill in—”
“No.” The backs of my eyelids burn with unshed tears. “I’m not filling in another form and waiting another month. I want to speak to someone about my mother. Now.” I unclench my fists and blood rushes back into my fingers.
“I can see you’re upset. I’m going to give you the email for our complaints department. Send them an—”
I scrunch my eyes shut, blocking out the low-grade hum of people ambling past and the squeaking of wheelchairs. A barista froths milk at the busy coffee cart to our right, hospital chairs scrape against vinyl, and a woman scolds her children for misbehaving. “You’re not helping me,” I snap.
The woman leans back in her chair, taking me in. “I’m trying to help you,” she says. “You’ll receive a case number via email when the complaints department receives your ticket.” The woman pushes a business card through the rectangular gap at the bottom of the glass.
I snatch it up and storm past the desk, my feet carrying me along the hospital’s bare labyrinth-like walls. It’s been ten years since I walked these corridors, but my legs complete each step from memory. Ahead of me, a nurse opens a pairof security doors and I slip in behind her, marching toward a desk in the middle of the ward.
“Can I help you?” asks a blonde, middle-aged nurse in navy scrubs.
“I want information on Evelyn Adams. She was a patient here ten years ago, but the records department lost her chart.” My palm hits the counter with a smack, and I slide the letter toward her. “I need to know what happened to her,” I say between heaving breaths. “I was told she killed herself here.”
The nurse picks up the paper, and I scrutinize her face as she scans the letter. Am I imagining the perspiration on her brow? The slight dilatation of her pupils? Did this woman know my mother? She passes the letter back to me. “Even if we had her file, I can’t give out confidential information, sweetie.”
The tears I’ve been holding back spill onto my cheeks. “Please,” I beg, splaying my hands on the desk. “I’m her daughter. Please just look her up and tell me how and when she died. Please?”
“You said ten years ago?” she asks, and I nod. “Even if I wanted to help you, we didn’t have electronic records back then. I’m not even sure the hard files of deceased patients are kept on the premises. You’ll need to check again with the records department on level four.”
“The medical records department won’t help me.” The level of my voice has crept up, my words rebounding off the walls.
“Calm down,” the nurse says in a soft voice.
“Don’t tell me to calm down when the hospitallostmy mother’s record,” I yell.
“I understand you’re upset, but you’re disturbing our patients.”
I follow the nurse’s gaze to a number of patients in hospital gowns, watching from their open doorways. I catch an elderly nurse with silver hair staring, and she averts her eyes.
I tug at the front of my sweater, the scratchy fabric sticking to my skin. “Never mind,” I say, storming away from the desk.
Rectangles of fluorescent light reflect off the hospital floor, and I count them instead of meeting each patient’s unapologetic stare. Arms clutching my chest, I follow the signs back to the foyer and duck into a small public washroom. I hurl open the door, and a strangled sob escapes me.I wish my mom was here. Or Anna. Or Parker.Silas’s name flitters through my mind and my stomach shrivels. Tears gush down my cheeks as I enter the first cubicle and shut the door.
“You don’t need me anymore.”
I grit my teeth.No. I don’t.
I drop onto the toilet and stifle my cries in my knees. I’ve dreamed of my mother every night for weeks. She was well. Healthy. She wanted to come home. To take care of me. She wouldn’t have killed herself.
Behind my wet eyes, I see the memory of my mother, peering through her bedroom curtain. Was she in danger? Is that why she sent me to boarding school? To keep me safe?
I wipe the tears from my face.I need to see her death certificate.I’ll go down to the records department andforcethem to find it and show it to me. I fumble with the cubicle lock and hurl the door open, catching my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are red and puffy, trails of black eyeliner bleeding through patches of lingering foundation from lastnight. I lower my face toward the sink and splash handfuls of freezing water over my skin, scrubbing at the makeup until my cheeks feel raw.
I’m smothering my face with a paper towel, palms pressing into my eye sockets, when a shiver races down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. My head whips from the three empty cubicles in the mirror’s reflection, to the closed bathroom door. “No one’s watching you,” I mutter at my reflection with the vigor of a mother scolding her child.
I storm out the door and almost collide with the elderly nurse I caught staring in the mental health ward.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” she says in a deep, croaky voice. Her wrinkled face breaks into a knowing grin. “You look like her.”
My breath catches in my throat. “You knew my mother.”
She extends a weathered arm toward me. “Walk with an old lady during her tea break?”
I link my arm through hers, and she urges me toward the main foyer, limping with every second step. We exit the hospital in silence, and part of me wonders if this is a ploy to move me away from the hospital doors.
