TEN YEARS AGO
JUNE
I remember thecall like it was yesterday. It was my senior year of college at Portland State University, finals week. I was almost done. Just one more test and I’d graduate the next week. Then a new life in Baltimore beckoned... and Rory. The future felt bright and full of promise.
My phone rang. Dad. I hesitated, almost letting it go to voice mail. I was studying after all. But Dad almost never called, he just chimed in from the background on Mom’s calls to me. I picked up on the last ring.
“Lolly.” His voice, strained and thin on the other end of the line. In an instant I knew something terrible had happened. “It’s your mother. There’s been an accident.”
Mom had been struck by a car while crossing the street after mailing a letter at the post office. Dad had seen it happen through the front window of the Eatery. A distracted delivery driver from a local restaurant was going too fast and blew the stop sign, roared through the crosswalk, and flung her across the hood of his white Prius. Theparamedics had transported her to the hospital in an ambulance. She was conscious but complaining of significant pain.
I drove the three and a half hours from Portland to Seattle on autopilot, a cold dread lying slick in the pit of my stomach.
“The doctors say she’s got internal bleeding,” Dad reported when he called me on the road with an update. “She’s in surgery now.”
“What’s her prognosis?” I asked, feeling sick with apprehension as I stared ahead at the long stretch of highway, nothing but evergreens as far as the eye could see. I had to pee but was flying by every rest stop. Each minute seemed too precious to waste.
“I don’t know. They’re hoping the surgery will stop the bleeding. I guess it’s pretty bad.” His voice trembled. That scared me more than anything. I’d never, ever seen my dad so much as tear up except at the national anthem during baseball games.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I pushed Florence’s accelerator to the floor.
Mom was out of surgery when I arrived at the hospital. She’d survived, but her vitals were unstable. The doctors were not optimistic. It was touch and go as to whether she would pull through. She’d sustained significant internal damage. She was only fifty-four.
At her bedside at last, I found her alone, pale and worn-looking, her usually high color ashen. Dad had gone to pick up Daphne from school and break the news to her as gently as possible.
Mom lay on the single hospital bed like some Viking queen, her thick blond hair unpinned and spread out on the pillow, eyes closed. When she heard me approach, her eyes opened and her mouth curved into a small, satisfied smile.
“Lolly.” She reached out a hand and cupped my cheek, and I clasped her palm to my skin. It was cool to the touch, almost clammy. Her voice was a low rumble. If I closed my eyes she almost sounded normal.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like a garbage truck ran over me at least twice.” She grinned wryly. “But it was only a delivery driver with an order of Indian food.”
“You’ll be okay.” I choked on the words, tears clogging my throat. She had to be okay.
“I don’t think so, Lolly,” she said matter-of-factly. “What a way to go. I always thought I’d die in my bed at a hundred like my grandmother. Longevity runs in our family. How’s that for irony?”
Just then Dad arrived with Daphne, who launched herself toward the bed with a strangled cry as soon as she saw Mom. Dad grabbed her just in time and settled her in a chair, where she clung to Mom’s hand, worriedly eyeing the monitors and wires crisscrossing Mom’s chest. She glanced at each of our faces, trying to gauge how she should respond to the situation. She was so young, her eyes wide and lost beneath wispy bangs.
“Your mom’s got good doctors,” Dad assured her. “She’ll be right as rain.” I hoped to high heaven he was right. No one seemed convinced.
After a few minutes Daphne forgot to be afraid and chattered happily about the school play—The Lion King—and her role as Zazu the hornbill. For a moment, if we could ignore the antiseptic smell and the beeping and the fact that Mom was lying in a hospital bed in a thin cotton gown, bleeding beneath her skin, it could almost have passed for a normal family conversation.
“Okay, let’s go, pumpkin. I’ll take you to Charlotte’s house,” Dad said after about ten minutes. He had arranged for Daphne to spend the night at her best friend’s house so he and I could stay the night at the hospital. We’d both agreed it was best. “We’ll come see your mom tomorrow morning before school.”
Daphne kissed Mom, then buried her small face in the shoulder of the hospital gown, holding on fiercely. Mom cradled her with one arm,stroking her hair with the other and murmuring things to her, too low for us to hear. When Daphne finally lifted her face, the shoulder of Mom’s blue hospital gown was dappled with tears. Mom winced with pain but did not let go of Daphne’s small frame. There was a resignation in her eyes that gave me a prickle of alarm. This looked an awful lot like a goodbye.
“Dad, I can take Daphne to Charlotte’s so you can stay here with Mom.”
“No.” Mom’s voice was surprisingly strong.
Dad looked torn. “Irene?” he said, but she waved him off.
“I need to talk to Lollyalone.”
She waited until they left, until they were completely out of sight down the hall, then beckoned me over. She didn’t look small in the bed. She looked too large, as though she had no business being there at all, as though it could not contain her force of will. She flicked a wire away in irritation.
“Lolly, I’m dying,” she said bluntly.
