Mother’s eyes are open when Nell goes to her shortly after midnight. At first Nell worries that she might have died, but then she sees her blink, sees the gentle rise of breath beneath the sheet. She stands at the bedside, looking down at the woman—her head nearly lost in the pillow, her white hair feathering around her rawboned face, and her eyes blue, clear, open, staring. Nell wonders what Mother sees. She wonders if Mother even knows that she is there.
After a minute, Nell turns to leave, but something stops her—the same mysterious impulse that drove her to come there in the first place; she doesn’t ordinarily pay a midnight visit to the room. But tonight, she was compelled to by something in her bones, just as now she feels compelled to stay, and so she pulls a chair to the bedside and sits down in the darkness. She gazes at her mother-in-law’s profile, the fine, sloped nose bone, the broad forehead, the deep plunge of the open eye. She wonders at this wakefulness, wonders how many hours at night the woman spends awake, and alone, trapped in her ravaged body. She hopes tonight is an aberration; perhaps, she thinks, Mother is aware of more than they realize. Perhaps she is awake for the same reason Nell is.
“Mother,” she begins, and she takes the woman’s hand in her own. “Mother, I don’t know if you can hear me, but the thing’s been done.” She pauses, takes a breath. “It’s after midnight, now, so the thing’s been done, and a boy’s been put to death.” She feels a wave of emotion come over her, a sharp ache in her throat. “And I was part of it. There I was, here I am, right in the thick of it.” She squeezes Mother’s hand, yearning for some response. There is none. “There’s another me somewhere, you know,” Nell goes on. “Somewhere north, maybe New York City. She’s an artist, wouldn’t tolerate this sort of thing for all the world. She’s lucky; she doesn’t have to.” Nell blinks, feeling herself on the backside of the wave, riding it swiftly into weariness. She lets go of Mother’s hand and sits back. “But,” she says softly, “she doesn’t have Gabe.”