Chapter 13: The Glass

On the second night I was strong enough to sit up and look out of the window.

The ICU was on the fourth floor, and it looked down on the east entrance of the hospital.

There was a bench under the lamp by the doors.

A woman in a black dress sat on it with her hands folded in her lap.

I knew the set of her shoulders before I knew anything else.

"How long has she been there?" I asked.

Ciro was changing the tape on my drip, because he had told the nurses he would and nobody had argued.

He didn't need to look out to know.

"Since the morning after," he said. "She goes home at dawn to wash and comes back at dusk."

"Why does she sit there?"

"She asked to see you. The surgeon told her your body had been released to an undertaker."

"Did he lie well?"

"He said it the way he tells people about the liver. She believed him."

I watched my mother sit under the lamp.

A security guard came out and spoke to her, and she shook her head without looking up.

"Has anyone brought her a coat?" I said.

"Carlo brought one on the first night."

"And?"

"She put it over her knees and didn't wear it."

My throat hurt, and it wasn't from the tube.

"Tell me the rest," I said. "All of it. I won't break."

Ciro finished with the tape and sat on the edge of the bed.

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