You might choose some of the rooms you occupy, but how many? They appear; you walk through them; they disappear, soon or eventually. The strangest ones you rarely choose—say, a motel room near a donut shop. Or the hospital waiting room where Sara found herself with Josie after her father’s heart attack. From the beige-and-white corridor, she left phone messages for Katy and Delia, Theo, Nora. Light fell in pale blocks onto the linoleum; Josie paced; they found two reading chairs, passed a crossword back and forth. From green cans, they drank ginger ale.
Sara had been on a bus, en route to the pool. Beside her, a girl read a book with a sexy vampire on the cover. A preschool-age boy kicked the seat ahead of him; his mother asked, “Are you a goat?” Josie called; Sara found the T. She arrived at the waiting room with her swim gear. Already he was in surgery.
She did not ask Josie, Are you sure? though it seemed germane; on Saturday, Sara and James had visited farm stands together. She’d bought apples: in her gym bag now, she carried one of them. He’d looked good; or she’d thought he looked good. She’d asked him—as she often asked him—How are you? His energy? His routine tests? Their walks had shortened; of late she’d been meeting him for lunch and a harborside stroll, or at his house with Josie. But there seemed no route from A to B: Saturday, a visit to farm stands. Tuesday a heart attack, bypass surgery.
Tuesday. Josie offered few details: what was Tuesday? Less energy that morning? An impulse to stay home? Discomfort in his arm? And on the road? His chest? His breathing? He pulled over. He was alone in the car; he fussed with his phone, reached a hand out the window toward the passing traffic. A man stopped.
Crucial, that stopping man.
Tuesday: Her father waved. The man stopped. An ambulance arrived.
Now she and Josie waited. Katy appeared. Delia appeared. With or without them, Sara found herself caught in the elision between now and always. Monday evening she’d spoken to James by phone—no one could deny Monday evening. Surely a speaking breathing father was lasting proof of a speaking breathing father.
Later, in the ICU, James’s legs were made vulnerable by, it seemed, the hospital gown. They’d lost muscle tone, appeared in that ICU to be partly bleached, miniature landscapes of scars and spots, burst capillaries and heavy blue veins. Diminished overnight? Sara had paid attention; she’d thought she’d paid attention. For years, he’d worn the same sort of khaki trousers. But she’d seen his legs, hadn’t she? When had she last seen his legs?
The ICU. The hospital’s parallel insomniac universe: his room, nurses’ station, cafeteria, waiting room, a slow addled relay with her family. Say you’ve fallen into that world: there will be blankets. Hot and cool liquids, bells, screens—occasional TVs. Other families, also blinking and in limbo. What happened to Saturday? If you took the right elevator, could you find it again? Let’s get out of here—but what might it mean to leave? No one can tell you. No one knows. Perhaps after a stranger has coded, you think, Let’s please stay indefinitely. May we move to a general-care floor; may I drink this bad coffee forever.