Tears push down my face before I can stop them, hot and fast, tracking along my jaw and dripping onto the front of my shirt.
She’s alive.
After everything—after the fall, the ambulance ride, the endless hours of not knowing—I still have her. The thought takes me apart. I press my palms to my face, trying to block the flood, but it pours through anyway.
I sink onto one of the plastic chairs. My breath comes uneven, shallow. I bend forward, elbows on my knees, letting the kind of tears fall that I never allow anyone else to see.
Tears I’ve swallowed for years. Tears I’ve forced myself to bury every time her illness worsened, every time a doctor told me she’d need more help, every time I felt the ground shifting beneath us and tried to pretend I could keep everything from collapsing.
She’s alive.
I repeat it silently until the storm inside me settles enough to let air in again.
A few minutes pass. Maybe more. I sit there until the trembling in my hands slows, until my lungs stop clawing for control. Then I pull myself upright, drag my palms down my face, and force the tears to stop.
I need to be strong when they let me see her. Not shattered. Not shaking.
I push up from the chair and walk to the small window near the nurses’ station. Outside, dawn is creeping over the parking lot in long bands of pink and orange.
Cars move in and out of the drop-off zone. Nurses change shifts. A couple argues near the curb. Life keeps going.
I check my phone again.
Still nothing from Norah.
I tilt my head back against the wall and stare at the tiles overhead. I don’t blame her. She owes me nothing.
But her silence lands in the same place my loneliness does—in the empty spot that expands every time I remember how many nights I sat with my mother through muscle spasms, choking spells, memory lapses.
Nights when I held her hand and told her I was there, even when she didn’t always recognize me right away.
I rub the bridge of my nose. My eyes sting from exhaustion. My shirt smells like hospital sheets and stress. The button at my collar digs into my throat.
I wish Norah were here.
The thought hits me out of nowhere, but it’s true. She would have soothed the jagged edges inside me.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe I’m imagining that. But the idea stays.
A nurse in pale-blue scrubs approaches, her expression warm but brisk. “You’re Margaret’s son?”
I straighten. “Yes.”
“You can see her now. She’s groggy, but she’s awake.”
The breath I let out feels like a release valve being pulled.
I follow the nurse down the corridor. Machines beep in distant rooms. A stretcher rolls past, pushed by two orderlies. My shoes tap against the linoleum in a steady rhythm that almost calms me.
We reach her room. The nurse pushes the door open.
Mom rests on the bed, head propped slightly, hair flattened on one side. Her skin looks pale, but her eyes open when she hears me. A soft, tired smile curves her lips.
“Dorian,” she whispers.
I move to her bedside, pulling the chair close. “Hey, Mom.”
I take her hand. It feels smaller than it used to. Her fingers curl around mine with the faintest pressure.
