I don’t argue. I get into Judy’s car and we’re off, the blare of sirens leading the way.
At the hospital,the paramedics whisk Sara away. Judy and I are left alone in plastic chairs under a light so bright it erases every shadow. The air smells of bleach, every surface wiped down to a clinical shine. I sit with my hands on my knees, afraid to move.
Judy sits beside me, her face ashen. She reaches out, placing her hand over mine. The coolness of her touch offers little comfort, but I’m grateful for the gesture. I wonder how many times she’s sat like this, in hallways and waiting rooms, clinging to hope.
Nathan and Cassie arrive an eternity later. Cassie’s hair is damp, cheeks flushed. She sits beside me and slips her hand into mine, fingers sticky with sugar from the vending machine.
“How is she?”
I shrug. “We’re still waiting on the doctor to give us an update.”
Nathan paces, his arms crossed tight. He looks at me, then away, then back again, as if searching for a horizon he can’t find.
None of us speak. There’s nothing left to say.
Time does strange things in a hospital. It slows and stretches, loops in on itself. At some point, Cassie leans against my arm and falls asleep, her breath warm against my skin. Nathan sits across from us, elbows on knees, his head bowed as if in prayer.
I stare at the double doors at the end of the corridor, willing them to open.
When they finally do, a doctor in blue scrubs steps out. She looks at me, then at Judy, then at Nathan, then at Cassie, as if assembling a family from the fragments in front of her.
“She’s stable, for now,” she says. “We’re doing everything we can.”
The words land like a fist, but I nod, trying to keep my composure.
Cassie wakes up, blinking in the artificial light. She doesn’t ask if Sara will be okay. She just takes my hand, and Judy’s too, linking us together in a chain. Nathan joins, leans forward, stretching out a hand to join ours.
And for the longest time, we sit like that, the four of us, waiting.
31
Diane
The hospital room is colder than the air outside, which seems like a design flaw until I realize it’s intentional. The overhead lights are a syrupy white, the walls a colorless beige that claims to be soothing but reads as surrender. Every surface is easy-wipe, no texture for the mind to catch on, except for the ripple of blue-green blanket pulled over Sara’s knees.
She lies in the bed’s crook, small and receding, with her hands folded over her stomach as if she’s practicing a prayer. Each finger is a different shade—knuckle yellow, palm gray, the nail beds turned a faint, almost hopeful lavender. A plastic cannula snakes into her nostrils. The oxygen hisses with a steadiness the rest of her can’t muster.
I sit in the visitor’s chair next to the bed. My left hand cradles hers, careful not to jostle the IV line or the tangle of hospital bracelets stacked like cheap jewelry on her wrist.
Cassie is here, too. She perches in the window-seat, knees drawn up, head bowed over the palm-sized shell she brought from Sara’s porch. It’s a moon shell, one of those perfect tight spirals you find by the high tide mark if you’re lucky or patient. Sara gave it to her last week, pressed it into her hand with thegravity of a final gift. Cassie traces the spiral over and over, as if she might find the way out.
Nathan stands behind me, silent, his hand resting on my shoulder. He’s been here for an hour and hasn’t said a word. He smells like cold air and old paint, and his thumb taps an anxious rhythm where the strap of my bra crosses the blade of my shoulder. I want to reach back, to pull his hand into mine, but I can’t bear to let go of Sara, not even for a moment.
Judy leans against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She’s been Sara’s friend for thirty-four years, and in that time they’ve weathered countless storms. But none of that seems to have prepared her for seeing Sara like this. Her eyes are red-rimmed and hollow, darting to each monitor, each machine, as though by watching she can control the outcome.
The silence in the room is heavy, pressing down on us all. It’s broken only by the steady chirp of the heart monitor. Sometimes it stutters, and I find myself holding my own breath in anticipation. The nurse comes and goes, checking the numbers, adjusting the drip, then retreating into the hush of the hallway. She moves with the economy of someone who’s seen too much and is saving her empathy for the really hard cases.
This should be the really hard case, but everyone seems to agree the outcome is already decided.
It’s been an hour since Sara last woke, but I talk to her anyway. I narrate the weather, the beach, the state of Cassie’s sneakers. I tell her about the broken mailbox and the paint that won’t dry and the latest dumb thing the town council did. I even read her a paragraph from my notebook, the one she always nagged me to fill, and when I finish, I swear I see the edge of her mouth twitch. Maybe it’s the nerves. Maybe it’s the body’s last rebellion.
Cassie looks up from the shell, her hair a static blur against the hospital glass. “Is she dreaming?” she asks, and her voice is so small I almost miss it.
“I think so,” I say. “She’s always liked dreaming more than being awake.”
Cassie accepts this as a minor mercy. She sets the shell on the window sill, cupping it gently, then leans her forehead to the glass. Outside, the sunset is starting, but in here, time is a closed system.
Nathan squeezes my shoulder, then lets go. He drags a chair closer to the bed and sits beside me, knees barely clearing the bedrail. He folds his hands in his lap, knuckles white, and keeps his eyes on Sara’s face. There’s a smudge of Alizarin crimson on the back of his thumb, a relic from yesterday’s unfinished canvas, and I imagine the tiny fleck of color soaking into the weave of his jeans.