Chapter Ten
Once inside, I’m greeted by a partially drawn hospital curtain. Rather than proceed, I peek around it.
The smell permeating the medium-sized room is not as strong or offensive as in the hallway, for which I’m grateful. Plenty of natural light spills through the one and only window and onto the bed right beside it. Several beeping machines and an IV stand are connected via tubes or wires to the bed’s occupant, who turns her eyes to face me as I fully step around the curtain.
For the first time in almost two years, I’m face-to-face with my mother.
I barely recognize her.
What remains of her long, black hair—which must have been shaved off for her surgery—is short and uneven. Her cheeks, no longer splotched an unhealthy red, are now pale and sunken. Her body, visible through
