“You go home to your children,” I told her.
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“I can stay,” Jo said.
“Momma?” Meg asked.
As if they were children again, arguing over who got to sit in the front seat or eat the last piece of pie. I wanted to send them to their rooms. But I knew that they needed to be here. “I...”
“Go home,” Ash said. “I’ll stay with your mother.”
The girls looked at me.
“It’s all right,” I assured them.
“You’ll call us,” Meg said.
I nodded.
“If there’s any change,” Ash said.
They looked at him, surprised. Resentful. As if he’d taken something from them. Maybe he had.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jo said.
“Dear heart.” Eric touched her shoulder. “Let your parents be with Beth tonight. She will need you in the morning, yeah?”
Jo stood and flung herself into his arms.
We shared kisses and hugs before they left, Jo crying silently, Meg with her head on John’s shoulder.
I sat in Jo’s vacated recliner and took Beth’s hand. I’d always been glad she’d inherited her hands from her father, beautiful hands, musician’s hands, lean and long and elegant. I should have noticed how skinny they were. Now they were cold and unresponsive.
Hours went by, measured by her breath and the beep of the machines. I was only dimly aware of Ash, upright in the room’s only other chair, a quiet, familiar presence.
The hospital staff came and went. To take her vitals, to check the equipment, to bring a dinner tray.
“Why?” I said to Ash. “She’s not eating.”Starving herself, I thought with a catch in my throat. “She’s not even awake.”
“I ordered it for you,” Ash said.
“I’m not hungry.”
He raised his eyebrows, very slightly. I flushed and ate, though I couldn’t have told you what it was. Hospital food.
She woke once. “Momma.”
“I’m here, baby.”
Her eyes met mine and flooded with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Ssh.”
“I’m scared.”
“It’s all right. You’re going to be all right,” I said. An impossible promise.
“I’ll make you better,” Jo had said.
