Chapter 13: Three Christmases

Don's POV

The Rockland hospital smelled of floor wax and burnt coffee.

I had walked into boardrooms with a hundred million dollars at stake, and I had never been this afraid of a hallway.

Betsy was ahead of me, asking a nurse questions in a voice that shook only on the last word.

"Room fourteen," the nurse said. "She's been giving orders since she came in."

A small woman in a black wool coat stood outside room fourteen with her arms folded.

Silver streaks in her hair, pearl earrings, my father's stubborn chin.

"Mamma?" I said.

"Donato."

She did not hug me.

She looked at me the way she had looked at me at fourteen, when I broke the church window.

"What are you doing in Maine?"

"I came to meet my daughter-in-law's grandmother," my mother said. "Since nobody else in this family ever did."

She had found the town from the wedding guest list and driven up the day before.

She had been about to knock on Bea's door when the photographer came running out of the bushes.

She had ridden in the ambulance.

"Your wife has more sense than you do," she said, and kissed Betsy on both cheeks.

Betsy let herself be held for a second and then went through the door.

I stood in the hall with my hands in my pockets.

Through the doorway I heard Bea's voice, hoarse and furious. "Get that blanket off me, I'm not dead."

Then Betsy's, soft. "You fell on the ice, Grandma."

"I fell on a rude man's camera strap. It's different."

A doctor came out, glanced at my face and gave me the short version.

A badly bruised hip. A sprained wrist. Overnight observation because of her age.

"She's lucky," the doctor said. "A few inches over and it would have been the bone."

Ten minutes later Betsy came out with her eyes red.

"She wants to see you," she said. "Alone."

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