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“What?” she asks. “It does. It’s a compliment. You should take it, Mom.”
“I can’t,” says Nico. “It sounds amazing, but I’ve got to get going actually. Thanks for asking.”
“Sure. Another time maybe,” I say. I hang back in the kitchen, putting the last of the groceries away while Sienna walks her friend to the door and they say their goodbyes in the darkness of the living room. I don’t try and eavesdrop, but I notice how their voices become softened, inaudible from here, just hushed whispers and then a high-pitched squeal from Sienna that cuts through the quiet. Ah to be sixteen again.
“He seems nice,” I say to her after Nico is gone.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Does he live close by?”
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not a stalker, Mom.”
“No one said you’re a stalker, Sienna. I’m just trying to have a conversation with you. And hey, listen, I don’t know how I feel about you having boys over when I’m not home.”
She groans. “So you’re saying I can’t?”
“I’m saying I need to think about it.”
That thin hip juts out again. She puts her hand on it, pouting. “You’re such a helicopter parent.”
The L goes rattling by. I watch it through the window, slowing down for the curve before speeding up again. The tracks run adjacent to our apartment. From almost everywhere, we can see it snaking around the side of the building, an industrial, rusty-bottomed eyesore that keeps the rent below market value. About every five or ten minutes the train comes. It comes all night, twenty-four hours a day, though starting around two in the morning, it’s less frequent. Sienna and I have become accustomed to it. If anything, it’s white noise now. But when we first moved in, months ago, after Ben and I divorced and I moved out of our charming condo on Webster, it was a nightmare. I’d wake up in the middle of the night believing the Red Line was in my living room. Or the apartment would shake so badly, I’d think the old building was about to collapse. We’ve had to make accommodations like hanging pictures with extra screws so they didn’t keep falling and shattering against the wood floors, and stopping conversations midsentence so we’re not screaming over the sound of the passing train.
“While we’re on that subject,” I say, meaning the subject of helicopter parents, since Sienna brought it up, “I thought we talked about wearing a cardigan with that shirt.”
Sienna gripes, “It’s like a hundred degrees in our apartment. Do you want me to die from heat stroke?”
“Or just wear a different shirt,” I suggest.
It isn’t until later—after I’ve served dinner and we’ve eaten, sitting side by side on the sofa with our plates held beneath our chins to catch the falling beef and au jus, and Sienna has gone to finish homework in her room—that I pull out a chair and sit down at the desk that’s pressed up against the big window in the living room. Outside the street is quiet, peaceful. It’s dark out, though the streetlights and the reflection of snow help brighten the world. In the brief lull between passing trains, I hear the noise of the city in the distance, the invariable sound of sirens and traffic that is always there.
I open my laptop. I check my email first and then I go to Facebook, where the friend request still waits for me. I open it to see that it’s from Natalie Cohen Roche. Nat. I smile to myself, my heart swelling because I’m glad she found me on here. She wants to reconnect, to be friends again, which I’m so grateful for because it’s a time in my life when I could really use a friend.
I take a look at her profile photo. In it, she stands on the edge of what might be Niagara Falls, or maybe just some other massive waterfall, looking happy, and I wonder how she went from that to attending a divorce support group with me. What happened to her in the years since high school?
I don’t know, but I hope to find out.
Five
Mr. and Mrs. Beckett spend the first twenty-four or more hours in the hospital without interruption. When I come in the next day, they’re still there, draped limply over the arms of two of the waiting room’s spartan recliners with their eyes closed, though I can’t tell if they’re asleep or not. I stand on the other side of the room watching for a while, for the movement of their eyes to tell me if they’re conscious. They’re alone in the room. The TV is on, mounted in the corner, but it’s on mute, the only sound the gentle hum of the overhead lights, which never go off.
At first glance, Mrs. Beckett appears to be cold. She wears her cardigan wrapped tightly around her so that the plackets overlap, her arms knotted against her. I turn away, using my badge to unlock and pull open the door to the ICU, where I find a blanket and bring it back to the waiting room because I can’t stand to see her looking cold. After everything, it’s the least that I can do for her. I try not to wake her, but still, she stirs as I lay the blanket gently over her. Her eyes flutter open. She adjusts on the chair, centering herself, gazing up at me. Bit by bit she makes out my face, and first the recognition and then the panic take over. She thinks something has happened to Caitlin. That’s why I’m here, that’s why I’ve come: to tell her her daughter is dead, that she coded overnight and that, despite the doctors’ best efforts, she couldn’t be saved.
“What is it?” she breathes out, her hand going to her heart.
“Everything is fine,” I whisper. “I brought you a blanket, Mrs. Beckett. I thought it might make you more comfortable. You looked cold.”
It takes a second for my words to sink in. Only then does she glance down to see the white thermal blanket on her lap. She looks at it, taking it in, and then she lets her gaze go back to me, unconvinced. “Are you sure? Is everything okay with Caitlin?” she asks, and I feel guilty for making her feel like this.
“Yes. I’m so sorry. I just didn’t want you to be cold. I didn’t mean to wake you. Please,” I say, “try to get some sleep.”
I return to the ICU, where I get my assignments from the charge nurse, finding out I’m assigned to Caitlin again, which comes as no surprise, though I was hoping that Bridget would be, now that she’s back. I put my things in the break room and then sit on the bench to change my shoes. Again today, the nurses are talking about Caitlin Beckett. She’s still a hot topic.
I leave the break room, heading to her room, where I see the night nurse, Kathy, inside, waiting to give me the change of shift report. “How is she doing?” I ask, coming in, letting my eyes run over Caitlin. Even after almost twenty years working as an ICU nurse, the sight of her in bed takes me aback.
