“Oh.” I don’t remember anything about that, but I remember something else, something about another hospital a long time ago.
I’m nine years old, and my mother is in the hospital. I don’t know what’s wrong and children aren’t allowed in patients’ rooms. All I know is that Mama hasn’t been herself lately—she lies down a lot and hasn’t played with me in a while—and Papa’s eyes are sad. Papa’s sister, Aunt Kathy, and her husband, Uncle Floyd, have come to help Papa take care of me and my little sister. They all whisper whenever they talk about Mama.
Everyone but Uncle Floyd. He has a loud voice, and I hear him sayexploratory surgerywhile he’s talking on the telephone. I wander into the hallway where he’s sitting on the gossip bench, but he doesn’t notice me. “The doctors cut her open and took a look,” he says to whoever’s on the other end of the line, “then they just closed her up again.”
A panicky feeling jumps in my stomach, like channel mullet in Lake Pontchartrain. I tug on his jacket. “Are you talking about Mama?”
He looks at me, surprised. Aunt Kathy comes in the hall and whacks him on the shoulder. “I told you not to talk about certain subjects in front of certain little somebodies.”
He holds his hand over the telephone mouthpiece. “I didn’t know she was there!”
“Miss Margaret?” A familiar voice jerks me back to the present. I find myself gazing into a young woman’s concerned hazel eyes. “It’s Quinn.”
“Yes, I know, dear,” I say, although I couldn’t have come up with her name for love or money.
“Are you feeling better?”
“They say I am, but everything’s fuzzy.” My mind feels like a ball of yarn, and thinking is like trying to knit a sweater. Only thing is, I never learned to knit.
“That’s the pain meds,” the nurse says. She looks down at mefrom the other side of the bed. “You were given an extra-large dose before they took you to X-ray to check your lungs.”
“Are they worried about pneumonia?” Quinn asks.
“That, and congestive heart failure,” the nurse says.
I know about pneumonia—my aunt Kathy died of that. And heart failure... well, my father passed of a heart attack. “Am I dying?” I ask.
“No. You’re getting better,” the nurse says.
They won’t tell you truth. The worse off you are, the more likely it is they’ll lie about it. There are matters I need to settle. Now, if I can just remember what they are...
I pull my brows together and try to focus. Quinn is Brooke’s friend. Brooke is gone. “You’re caring for Lily,” I say, remembering. “And I found her father, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Has Lily met him?”
“Yes. We went for ice cream and then to the zoo together.”
“Good, good. How did Lily react to meeting him?”
“She—uh, I didn’t tell her he’s her father. She thinks he’s just a friend of mine.”
I frown.
Quinn continues on in a rush. “My friend Sarah is a psychologist—you met Sarah after Brooke died, remember? She was a close friend of Brooke’s, as well. Anyway, I talked to Sarah about this, and she thinks we should wait.”
The memory of seeing all my deceased family members fills my mind. “But she needs to know she has a blood relative. I may not have much time.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” Quinn’s voice is full of distress.
“I’m old, dear.” I pause. I’m trying to remember a conversation I had with a man in a white coat—my doctor. Was it just this morning? I believe it was. A sense of urgency rises inside me. I need to tell her this. “I asked my doctor when I would be well enough to care for Lily, and he said...” My throat grows thick, and it’s hardto force the next words out. I make myself do it. “He said I’ll probably never be strong enough for that. He said I should make alter... alternate plans.”
Quinn’s eyes are suddenly full of tears. She squeezes my hand. “I love Lily. I’ll care for her as if she were my very own.”
“I know, dear, but things can happen. I know all too well how...” The past is a swamp, and I feel like I’m sinking in it. “Lily needs to know her father.”
My thoughts are as muddy as marsh water. I need to be clearheaded to have this talk. I see the nurse writing something on the whiteboard across from my bed. “How long until this medicine wears off?” I call to her.
