I woke to a telephone ringing.
My eyes opened, but the room did not.
White light pressed through my eyelids. Something pinched the back of my hand. A machine counted steadily beside me, each electronic note separating one moment from the next.
The ringing continued.
Soft.
Delicate.
An old music-box melody playing one note at a time.
I tried to sit up.
Pain tore through my ribs.
A hand pressed gently against my shoulder.
“Easy.”
The voice belonged to my mother.
I opened my eyes.
Her face appeared in pieces.
Brown eyes swollen from crying.
Light brown hair falling loose from the knot she had worn that morning.
Pale blue scrubs beneath a dark coat someone must have brought her.
She looked wrong.
Mom did not cry in front of us. She cried in bathrooms with the water running or
