Chapter 4: The Waiting Room

The surgeon drove my mother to Portland himself, and I followed in my car.

He did not say a word to me about the chart.

He signed her in, ordered scans, and told the nurse at the desk that the patient was his responsibility.

By two in the afternoon Janet was on the third floor in a gown with her feet up, complaining about the pudding.

I went down to the lobby for coffee and found three of the men waiting for me.

The race car driver sat on the edge of a sofa with his knee going.

The architect stood by the window with his arms crossed.

The pianist was leaning on a grand piano nobody had asked him to touch.

"Hello, June," said the architect.

"How did you find me?" I said.

"The surgeon," said the driver. "We've all shared locations since college. He's been parked outside a Maine hospital for two hours."

"We came to ask him why," said the pianist. "Then we saw you walk in behind him with a coffee cup."

"My mother's sick. I asked him to look at her."

"In Maine?" said the architect.

"She lives in Maine."

"You told me she lived in Ohio," said the driver.

"I told you she was from Ohio."

"No," he said slowly. "You said you'd moved her out of Ohio last spring and never said where."

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