I laugh—half at his honesty, half at the absurdity of having this conversation. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to sitting at the grown-ups’ table. Half of me is delighted; half of me is terrified that my easy childhood days are already gone. Did I even appreciate them?
My dad wraps an arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him. “I need to ask you something, Bird.”
“Okay . . .”
“Will it be okay with you if . . . if your mom wants to see Grace? If Grace is willing to come here. Just in case your mom . . .” Dies. He can’t say it. Neither can I, and I hate my traitorous brain for thinking it.
“Elena. Her parents named her Elena,” I tell him. “And yeah, it’s okay. Bizarre but okay. I mean . . . I’d like to meet her too, of course.”
“You’re the best kid in the world, you know that? To take all this in stride.”
“I feel like I know Mom better,” I say. “That’s a good thing.”
“It is,” he agrees. “Never fails to amaze me. All the good things that spring from the difficult things.”
I pull back so I can look at him. “You writing a sermon or . . .”
He rolls his eyes. “Stinker.”
Who would call me Bird? I wondered at the beginning of the summer. He would. And it wouldn’t be the same, but we would have each other.
“She’s going to be okay,” I whisper. “Right?”
He considers his answer for a moment, lips pressed together. “I believe that, yes.”
But that’s not exactly a real yes, is it? Maybe it never has been. My whole life, my dad has been a font of answers. Of truths. Right at this moment—beneath fluorescent hospital lights and the fog of doubt—I wonder if I imagined it. If every kid sees their parents as certain. When really, we’re all just trying our best. We’re all just slowly deciding what we believe.
We sit there for a few minutes in the quiet, until a nurse stops outside the door. “How we doing? Have you guys gotten some coffee?”
“Someone went to find tea, yes. Thank you.”
“Can you explain what’s going on?” I blurt out. “I know it’s an infection. But what does that mean?”
My dad turns to me, opening his mouth to say . . . I don’t know. That the nurse is busy. That I might not want to hear the response. “Luce, she—”
“No, it’s okay,” the nurse says to him. “A number of things, including your mom’s organ function, need to be monitored, which is why nurses keep coming in and out. She’s on antibiotics, and we’ll see how she responds. We may try other kinds.”
“So, it could get much worse,” I say, “or much better.”
She nods, somehow portraying empathy in even this. “Like most things.”
My dad says something else, thanking her. I stare at everything, at nothing, watching the hospital staff move around us in scrubs. Bright blue. Patterns. A few in this deep red-pink color. What would Payton call them? Dark mauve. Muted pomegranate. Dusky rose.
I remember my mom’s scrubs so vividly. When she worked at the hospital, sometimes she’d be leaving for an overnight shift right as I went to bed. She’d tell me a story, lying on my twin bed beside me in her scrubs. A falling-leaves print in October, ice cream cones in the summer. I remember especially loving her Mickey Mouse scrubs. I thought that kids must like her best, out of all the nurses.
The instinct to pray comes like a pull in my chest. Insistent tugging.
“I’m gonna go find the chapel,” I tell my dad, and he starts to stand. “No, I’m okay solo. Really.”
He studies my face. “All right. It’s through the waiting room, then down the hallway to the right.”
All the late nights my mom and I stayed home, watching movies. Sometimes he was here. Sometimes he was sitting by bedsides, clasping hands, offering prayer. Offering people peace as they slowly left this world.
“What?” he asks, since I’m still standing there. Taking him in. Understanding a little bit better.
“Nothing. Come get me if there’s any news?”
“Of course.”
The waiting room is full, which I didn’t notice when I entered the hospital. Elderly people with age-spotted hands clasped patiently, a flushed-face toddler in his mother’s arms, and—from somewhere in the sea of people—a persistent, hacking cough.
And a few feet before me, a handsome young man with his elbows propped on his knees, fingers laced together in front of him.
“Henry?”
He jumps up. “Hey! Are you— Is she— Is everything okay?”
“For now. It’s an infection. It’s a wait-and-see kind of thing.” I’m blinking up at him in the too-harsh light. “How did you—”
“Rhea.”
Right. Of course. Henry holds his arms out to me, palms up—offering comfort if I want it. And I do. I step inside and let myself be held.
“What can I do?” he asks, his voice a rumble against my chest.
“Um. I’m okay. Although . . . I don’t know when my dad ate last. Maybe I should go find something to—”
Before I can finish that sentence, a familiar voice catches my ear. “. . . and if Lucy doesn’t want the Boston cream, I’m eating it.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Anna almost drops the box of donuts when she spots me. “Luce! Hey. How’s the moms?”
I’m stunned at the sight of them—Anna with her hair in a chunky braid, Mohan in an Alexander Hamilton T-shirt.
A fever of stingrays, a bouquet of pheasants, a charm of hummingbirds.
What is a group of friends? A relief, a scaffolding, a safety net?
“You’re here,” I say, bewildered.
“Durr,” Anna says. “And Keely’s around here somewhere.”
I can’t quite get out the words “She is?” but Henry catches my eye, nodding.
“And you brought donuts,” I add.
“When in doubt!” Mohan chirps. “Donuts never hurt, you know? I wanted to write on the box: DONUT PANIC, LUCY; IT WILL BE OKAY, but someone thought that was insensitive.”
Anna, unperturbed, says, “I have no problem admitting someone was me.”
“You want one?” Mohan asks. “Sprinkle, maybe? Cinnamon sugar?”
“Yeah, when I get back. I need to . . . make a stop.”
“You want company?” Henry asks.
I glance down the hallway, where the sign is directing me with a simple cross. I frown at it, thinking of the many other symbols hanging in Daybreak’s meeting hall. “No, thanks. I just need a few minutes.”
The hospital chapel is empty but for one person in the front. She’s staring up at the brass altar cross, arms crossed. Washed in low lighting, Keely looks almost heaven-sent. She’d snort at the thought.
“Hey,” I say, sitting beside her.
“Hey.”
She doesn’t ask if I’m okay. Of course I’m not. But she sits here—in a hospital, in a chapel—like it is no big deal to her.
“Any news?” she asks gently.
“Not really. It’s wait and see.”
My friend nods slowly, considering this.
“Okay,” she says simply. “Then we’re waiting.”
It’s only then that the tears come. I came to barter for my mom’s life, and maybe God knew I needed Keely. Someone to wait with me. She reaches to hold my hand on the seat between us.