Diana's mother looked semi-conscious, her eyes half-open, the blankets tucked underneath her armpits as though she were imprisoned in the bed. The curtain had been pulled between the two halves of the room, blocking Diana's view of her mom's roommate, Mrs. Platcher, eighty-eight years old and convinced that she had to catch a school bus every morning, prone to wander out of the building in her nightgown looking for the ride that never came.
The TV played low. A cable newscaster droned on and on, even though Mrs. Platcher was asleep as well. Diana looked out the window. There was nothing to see. It was full dark now, and the window reflected back the pale light of the bedside lamp, the reflection of Diana's face an isolated oval in the black pane. Visiting hours were almost over, and at any moment, Diana expected an efficient-looking nurse to come by and shoo her away. Diana wasn't even sure why she had stayed since her mom was out of it and she still had the long drive back to New Cambridge. Guilt again, she supposed, but there was more to it than that. She actually wanted to talk to her mother, who now stirred a little, muttered something in her sleep.
Diana leaned forward. "Mom?" She waited. "Mom, are you awake?"
Her mom muttered again, turned her head a little. "Diana?"
"Yeah, Mom."
Her eyes came open more. She licked her lips. "Is that you, honey?"
"It's me, Mom. Diana."
"How long have you been here?"
"Not long." Diana knew her mom would have no memory of the incident at the art show, no awareness that they had had a very public dust-up. It was all gone, lost in the shadows. "I want to ask you something."
"Tired..."
"I know. You can go to sleep in a minute. Do you know a woman named Kay Todd?"
Her mom remained silent for a long moment, and Diana thought she had drifted away, but then her mother opened her cracked lips. "Who?"
"Kay Todd. Do you know her?"
"I don't know anyone by that name, honey." She closed her eyes all the way. "You should go home. It's late...go home."
Music swelled on the newscast, the cue for the audience that either something dramatic was happening or an important commercial was about to play. Diana turned to the window and looked at the darkness. Thoughts of the long drive home and the return to the empty apartment didn't appeal to Diana. Something about the hospital room, the rhythmic breathing of her mother, and even the TV's strange voices brought Diana a sense of comfort, a return to childhood nights huddled against her mother, the rest of the world temporarily held at bay.
She leaned back against her chair, closed her eyes, blocked out the day's events, and tried to convince herself, really convince herself, that just for those moments and in that place she was as safe as she could be.
*
Diana woke in the half-light. She felt cold, and wrapped her arms tighter against her body, hoping to generate warmth. But the movement only aggravated the pain in her neck, the result of spending hours in the uncomfortable chair beside her mother's bed.
Diana groaned and stretched. She had to pee.
"I was just about to get you a blanket."
It took a moment to locate the source of the voice. The sun wasn't fully up, and the light in the room was still hazy and indistinct. Diana's eyes finally settled on the nurse standing on the opposite side of her mother's bed, a tall black woman who was writing something in her mother's chart.
Diana sat up. "I must have fallen asleep."
"It's okay," the nurse said. "We're not supposed to have sleepover guests, but I figured it's not hurting anything to let someone stay close to their mom all night."
"Thank you." Diana worked her neck one way and then the other, trying to get the kinks out. "Is she okay? Did she have a good night?"
"She always has a good night," the nurse said. "The stuff they give them sends them off to Never-land."
"I brought her candy bars," Diana said.
The nurse smiled. "I found them, honey. I put them in the drawer at the nurse's station. She'll be happy to have them when she wakes up."
Diana stood up and moved to her mother's bed. She rubbed her mother's exposed forearm and squeezed her hand. "I'll be on my way."
"How did you sleep?" the nurse said.
"Pretty well for being in a chair." The nurse raised her eyebrows, and only then did the images from her dreams come back in tatters and fragments. Rachel's face...Rachel trying to speak...Kay Todd and her cigarettes. "Why do you ask?"
The nurse raised her eyebrows again. "You call that thrashing and moaning 'pretty well'," she said. "I call it having more trouble than just sleeping in a chair."
*