Chapter 21: Visiting Hours

Shanna's POV

I woke to a ceiling I didn't know and a pain across my middle like a plank.

Someone was holding my hand.

"Don't sit up," Cal said. "You have drains."

"Maisie."

"Hold on."

"Cal."

"She's alive. Her liver started at four this morning. They didn't wake you."

I shut my eyes, and the tears ran sideways into my hair.

"Say it again."

"It started at four. Bile, good numbers, and the surgeon came out and swore in the hallway."

He was grinning, and his eyes were red.

"You've been in that chair all night," I said.

"I bribed the charge nurse."

"With what?"

"A casserole from forty road crew men."

I laughed, and it hurt so much I swore, and he held a cup of ice chips to my mouth.

It took three days to stand.

On the fourth day, a nurse pushed me down the hall in a wheelchair with a pillow strapped to my stomach.

Maisie lay propped in her bed with her hair damp and a drain bottle at her hip.

Her eyes were white.

I stared at them.

Clear white, no yellow anywhere, for the first time since the spring.

"Your face," I said.

"I know." She put her hand to it. "I looked in the bathroom mirror and I cried for ten minutes. A nurse thought I'd died."

"It's good."

"It's so good."

She reached out and I took her hand, and the nurse tactfully left.

"Mom and Dad asked to visit," Maisie said.

"I know. They've been in the hall since seven."

"I think I'll let them."

"Maisie."

"Ten minutes. Door open. You in the room, and Cal by the door."

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