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The receptionist took way too long to type in the name and search in her database. Almost, I was ready to believe that it had all been a mistake. Mom wasn’t really sick, she wasn’t here at all, it was a big misunderstanding, and I’d get to throttle Dad over it later.
“Here she is,” the receptionist said brightly. “In the outpatient ward, she’s scheduled for surgery in an hour, but right now she’s in room 207, one floor up, then turn right.”
I was already away from the desk and on the move toward the elevator. Ben said, “Thank you,” behind me.
The elevator moved too slowly. I wanted to growl at it. Ben and I stood together, side by side, arms touching. The touch calmed me a little. At the very least, it kept me from screaming.
One floor up, the elevator opened into a standard institutional corridor: off-white floor and walls, faintly humming fluorescent lights, doors and hallways branching off. I saw people moving, things happening, but only focused on the numbers above the doors. Turn right, 201, 203 . . .
The door to room 207 stood open. I had no idea what I’d find inside. I crept in, shoulders bunched up, so tense I thought I’d break.
Everybody was there—my whole immediate family. Mom, Dad, big sister Cheryl, her husband Mark, their two kids. Mom lay in bed, wearing a cloth hospital gown. The bed was cranked up so she was sitting up, and she had my sixteen-month-old nephew Jeffy in her lap, entertaining him with a stuffed tiger. Three-and-a-half-year-old Nicky was with her father, sitting in a chair in the back. She was red-eyed, face squished up, crying and unhappy, like she could sense that the grown-ups were upset but couldn’t understand why—only that something was wrong. Mark was trying to distract her. Cheryl sat in a chair next to the bed, hovering over Jeffy, and my father, Jim Norville, hovered over her.
“Hi.”
Everyone looked at me. For a moment, the smiles stopped being so forced.
“Kitty!” Mom said, laughing.
I practically fell on top of her in my rush to hug her, however awkwardly, with me leaning over her and her pushing off from the bed. “You’re here, you’re really here!” she mumbled into my hair.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You should have told me,” I muttered at her.
“That’s exactly what your sister said,” she answered.
“Mom!”
She shrugged, unapologetic.
Jeffy blinked at us, kind of blankly, and batted the tiger. We regarded each other. “Um, he’s gotten bigger, hasn’t he?” He was barely sitting up by himself the last time I saw him.
“Well, duh,” Cheryl said, grinning at me.
I had to hug everyone then, moving around the bed to get to my sister and Dad.
“Thanks for coming,” he whispered.
“Had to,” I said.
I waved at Mark and Nicky. Mark waved back, and Nicky stared. My arrival seemed to disrupt her
blubbering, and now she seemed as blankly fascinated by the new arrival as her brother. She hadn’t doubled in size like Jeffy had—I actually recognized her from our last visit. But she clearly didn’t remember me. I wasn’t enough a part of her life for her to remember.
Kids. Dammit. Those two were as close as I was ever going to get.
No tears, not here. I stood back and took a good look at my family. My first family. We looked like a family—all of us relatively athletic, fit, like some kind of country club advertisement. Mom and Dad met on their college tennis team and still played a couple times a week. Dad’s brown hair was going a rather distinguished gray. The girls all had the blond hair, though Mom’s had almost turned the color of ash.
For a moment, Mom didn’t look like Mom. She hadn’t put on makeup, her chin-length hair was straight, unstyled, and the hospital gown left her looking lumpy, untailored. Mom was an extremely put-together woman. This version of her was unmistakably ill. She had no overt symptoms. She smiled easily enough. But the anxiety was there, in the tension of her jaw and hands.
Dad saw Ben first. Ben had slipped in quietly and leaned against the wall by the door. Dad’s gaze drew everyone else’s attention.
Well, I hadn’t quite planned this to happen this way. Nothing to do but plunge ahead.
“This is Ben,” I said. I went to grab him and pull him forward, guiding him by the elbow. I pointed and introduced. “Ben, this is my mom and dad—Gail and Jim. Cheryl, married to Mark over there, and the rug rats are Jeffy and Nicky.”
“Hello, Ben,” Mom said with a rich smile and insufferable smugness. “It’s so good to finally meet you in person.”
Ben very politely shook hands with my parents. “Mrs. Norville, Mr. Norville.”
