I hate the hospital as soon as we walk into it. First, I hate the round coffee kiosk on the first floor where Dad stops to buy a cappuccino, because it’s fake cheerful, and then I hate the elevators that stop on every floor and take forever to get to nine. They ding and buzz and we have to wait while things are wheeled in and out. I hate that.
“Here he is!” a nurse says when we check in at the desk on Mom’s ward. “And looking every bit as serious as his mother warned.”
Her accent is nice—I don’t hate it—but I can’t smile back at her. Now that I’m here, I just want to see Mom.
Dad’s hand is on the back of my neck. “Hi, Sophia. Anything we need to know?”
“Nothing at all,” she says. “It’s been a good morning, even better than good. And I’ve told them all to leave you alone, or else.” She raises one fist and shakes it, but she isn’t doing it for my benefit, and this is another thing I don’t hate.
Dad smiles. “Great. We’ll head back, then.”
“Don’t think I don’t know the coffee is for her!” Sophia calls after us.
I glance up at Dad’s face. “She’s not supposed to drink caffeine yet,” Dad says. “But you know what they say—doctors and nurses make the worst patients.”
I match my stride to Dad’s as we walk down the hall, one-two, one-two—and I tell myself that if we can get all the way to Mom’s room without having to stop for a passing lunch-tray cart or a sliding door, it will be a good sign.
“Right here,” Dad says. His hand is still on my neck. We turn.
Mom is on the bed, on top of the covers. She’s got on jeans and a T-shirt. She looks normal, like her regular self. But when she reaches for me, there’s a tube connected to her arm.
She follows my eyes. “Don’t worry about this thing,” she says, swatting at the tube. “Just more antibiotics.
“I can’t stand not hugging you for one more second,” Mom says. Her arms are out again, and Dad pushes the back of my neck, just a little bit.
I walk to the bed slowly, thinking about where to put my arms. I wonder if there are other tubes, hidden ones that I might accidentally touch or break. But when I get close enough Mom’s hands just take me and pull me in, and she’s a lot stronger than I thought she would be.
We don’t try to catch up. We don’t pour our hearts out. Instead, we watch a show on Mom’s television. She makes room for me in the bed on the side without any tubes, and Dad pulls a chair up close. We laugh at every joke, and once in a while Mom kisses me, and once in a while she reaches for Dad’s coffee and takes a sip.
No one comes in to remind us that we are in a hospital, and the machines on the walls and the metal bed rails kind of disappear for a while. During commercials, I take things in and Mom watches me.
“This is where I keep your notes,” she says. And she shows me a notebook with my Scrabble messages. She’s written them out, my words and hers, which Dad spelled out for me after I fell asleep.
She takes my hand and turns it so that the blue dot on my palm is facing up.
“What’s this?”
“Long story,” I tell her.
“Good story or bad story?”
I don’t know how to answer that.
She squeezes my hand. “Little of both?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “A little of both.”
“Tell me next time?”
“Sure.”
When Dad and I get home from the hospital, I call Safer. He answers on the first ring.
I tell him to come downstairs and to bring his notebook. “We’re going to make a list,” I say.
It’s a list of everything Safer is not afraid of.