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As Monday dawns a shard
of sunlight slices across my eyes. But I don’t mind. Today waking up doesn’t seem so bad. I stretch and swing my feet out of bed. As wonderful as I feel right now, I know this is going to be the longest day in history. My clock says it’s barely eight a.m., which means I’ve got ten whole hours to go until I see David again. I’m sure I can find some way to pass the time. But first—breakfast.

Throwing on my robe, I head for my bedroom door, but before I reach it my cell vibrates on my nightstand. It’s a text from Papa. It was sent hours ago. I must have been too deep asleep to hear it:

Check on your mother

I delete the text and drop the phone into my robe pocket. “Can’t I at least go pee first?”

After last night’s shindig and Mama’s condition on the way home, I doubt she’s going to appreciate my waking her up and pricking her with a metal barb. Her sugar levels will probably be soaring. Too much alcohol will do that to a diabetic.

I use the restroom and wash my hands. Then I enter my parents’ room to see Mama lying on her stomach in the bed, her feet peeking out from beneath her yellow sham. Her face is half buried in a pillow. I watch her breathe for a moment. She’s gone, really gone.

“Mama?”  I speak gently. No sense in startling her. Her insulin bottle and a used syringe lay nearby along with her other prescriptions. At least she took Papa’s advice last night and gave herself a little extra. Maybe her levels won’t be through the roof after all.

“Mama,” I say more firmly. “It’s time to test.”

She doesn’t stir. After donning a pair of surgical gloves, I prep the monitor and insert the strip. I lift the index finger of her limp left hand, prick the pad of her finger, and a small bead of red appears. Touching the blood to the end of the test strip, I watch the numbers count down.

3-2-1…

I read the monitor. This can’t be right. The number is low, way too low. Quickly I prepare the monitor for another reading, but the result is the same.

Oh my God.

Juice! She needs juice! I grab a box from the shelf. My hands shake as I insert the straw. What the heck am I thinking? She’s unconscious, damn it! How is she going to drink this?

Glucose.

I drop the box not caring where it lands. Hurrying to the bathroom, I rummage through my parents’ mess of a medicine cabinet and find a nearly empty canister of glucose tablets. I run back to Mama and place one of the thick, chalky discs under her tongue.

“Mama, wake up.”  I pat her hand and rub her arm, my gloved hands slide clumsily across her skin. Mama doesn’t move.

I fish in my pocket for my phone. My fingers tremble as I dial my father’s cell number which, of course, goes to voicemail. “Papa, she’s not waking up. I gave her glucose, but—I don’t know what to do! God, please get this.”

I press
end
, then dial
911
.

Is this real? It couldn’t possibly be. Why does Papa have to be gone
today
? Why won’t he answer his phone?

The chaos happens so fast—the sirens, the paramedics, the ambulance. I climb into the back with Mama and hold her hand, but I’m crying so hard I can’t think straight.

We arrive at the hospital, and the ambulance doors swing open. Looming above us, the skeletal frame of the half-finished wing glares at me like a disapproving deity. Mama’s whisked away, vanishing through the doors to the ER.

A nurse with a plump, kind face leads me to the check-in counter. “What’s your name, honey?”

Another nurse, chomping on a wad of gum, gestures with a pen. “Louise, that’s the Ortiz girl. Hey, sweetie, is that your mom they just brought in?”

I nod, unable to find my voice.

“Christ,” Louise mutters.

“You know what that means,” says Gum Chewer, rolling her eyes. “The media’s gonna be here any minute.”

The automatic door slides open and Papa rushes in followed closely by two security guards. Through the glass I see some reporters gathering. It feels like we’ve turned back time; it’s last week all over again. Only this time I don’t care that the media’s here.

Papa hurries over, his face puckered with worry. “I got your message and tried to call you back.”

Noticing that I’m still wearing my bathrobe, I pat the empty pockets. Once again I am without my phone. I must have left it in Mama’s room.

“I tried the house,” Papa continues, “but Helen said you’d just left with the ambulance, so I came straight over. Are you all right?”

I shake my head. The tears won’t stop coming.  “She won’t wake up,” I say, choking on the words. “Why won’t she wake up?”

Louise the nurse spots Papa and ushers him away from me. She’s taking him to see Mama. Gum Chewer leads me to a private waiting room, sits me in a chair, and turns on the overhead TV, like I could pay attention to some stupid show right now. A moment later…I’m alone.

I don’t know how much time passes, but eventually Louise comes in to check on me. She offers me a granola bar, but I can’t eat anything.

“There are some magazines here.” She picks up a stack and flips through a few. “
People
?
GQ
?
Martha Stewart
? Damn, this one’s a year old. Can you believe that?” She lays them down again. “I’m sure someone will be in soon, honey.” She smiles warmly. “The moment there’s any word, any word at all, I’ll let you know.”

As the minutes wear on, I finally turn my attention to the TV. Anything’s better than sitting here wringing my hands. When the morning news comes on, I turn up the volume. The lead story is about Mama. A reporter appears on screen standing in front of the hospital doors:

“Ana Ortiz, the wife of Alberto Ortiz, has been taken to the hospital in what is believed to be critical condition. Sources say Mrs. Ortiz may be in a coma.”

Someone should get fired for leaking this to the press.

The report is followed by a recap of last night’s story—Papa’s investigation. I shake my head…I wish they would just leave us alone.

I get the feeling I’m being watched; that odd sixth sense that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up washes over me. I turn around and find Papa observing me from the doorway.

“Is it true?” I ask, though I don’t need to. I can see the answer clearly on his face. “The news says Mama’s in a coma.”

Papa stares at the wall behind me. He looks exhausted, wrung out. Just then a doctor comes in. He’s in green scrubs and is pulling off a pair of surgical gloves. Mine
are still on. I’d forgotten all about them. I peel them off behind my back and stuff them in my pocket.

“Your daughter?” asks the doctor. My father nods.

“I’m Dr. Zimmerman. You did the right thing calling 911.”

“Will my mother be all right?”

“She’s in a coma. Her blood sugar dropped dangerously low.”

“But she’ll wake up.”

“It is possible, in theory. But—”

“But?”

“When the sugar level in the blood drops that low sometimes damage occurs, irreversible damage.”

“But I don’t understand. Mama’s levels drop all the time. She always wakes up. She says it makes her feel sick.”

The doctor glances at Papa and then back at me. “Your mother takes Trazodone, a mild tranquilizer. There was quite a bit of it in her bloodstream. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to put her into a deep sleep. That, combined with the extra insulin she took before she went to bed last night, well…she just couldn’t wake up when she needed to.”

Louise comes in and turns off the TV. Papa sits down and buries his face in his hands. I should say something, but I decide it’s best to let him alone—at least for now. I look up at Dr. Zimmerman. He’s younger than Papa, with eyebrows and freckles that match his auburn hair.

“I want to see her,” I tell him.

He pauses, his face full of concern, and then looks toward Papa for approval, but Papa is too absorbed in himself at the moment to notice. Dr. Zimmerman fingers the end of his stethoscope. “Of course,” he says, finally. “Come with me.”

I follow him out of the waiting room through a wide automatic door and down a hall with a yellow stripe painted down the middle of the floor. We pass several glass-fronted rooms and the nurses’ station. Dr. Zimmerman says something to one of the nurses about my presence, and then takes me to patient holding room eight.

Mama is on the bed covered with a thin white sheet up to her chest. The side rails are up, and she’s got an IV going. Such a familiar sight. I was here in this ER only a week ago, lying in a bed and hooked up to an IV just like this. I lower one side of the rail and sit down on the orange plastic chair beside Mama’s bed.

How did this happen? How did I
let
this happen? My brain is spinning with questions. I watch Mama’s face, peaceful like she’s sleeping.

“Mama?” I say quietly. I lean a little closer. “Mama, can you hear me?”

My throat feels tight. I don’t fight the tears when they come, or the anger. I blame myself, though I don’t know what I’ve done to cause this. If I’d gone in to check on her sooner…if I had called 911 before giving her the glucose…if I hadn’t left the fundraiser so Papa could have brought her home sooner…? I don’t know. I don’t know.

“I’m so sorry. I just—I want—”

A sob explodes out of me and I bury my face in Mama’s sheet, letting my tears soak the coarse fabric.

“Mama, I just want to know you’re still here.” My voice is muffled against the bed. I lift my gaze to look at her. Can she hear me? Deep down does she know I’m here, know what’s happening around her?

I stare at my fingers, alien to me, always hiding away in my pockets or gloves. I watch them hover like spirits over Mama’s face. Then slowly they come down and make contact.

Papa and I drive home
in complete silence, each left to our own thoughts. A thin rain begins to fall, and the only sound is the car wipers slapping against the windshield. The signals and brake lights from the cars ahead of us are indistinguishable blurs of color. The sky is a drab shade of gray.

The grandfather clock just chimes six p.m. when we walk in the front door.

Six o’clock. I was supposed to do something at six.

The aroma of cornbread and chili permeates the air. “Smells like Helen’s been cooking,” Papa says. He pulls off his overcoat and lays it across the dining table. I am already halfway up the stairs.

“I’m not hungry,” I tell him, and I mean it even though my stomach rumbles.

“Me neither,” he replies, but he glances toward the kitchen with a tell-tale look of hunger in his eyes. He looks back at me. “Are you all right?”

Am I all right?
Did he really just ask me that? My mother happens to be in a coma, but I’m just dandy. What about you?

“I’m good,” I say.

Papa pulls off his black leather gloves one finger at a time. He holds them in one hand and absentmindedly slaps them against his other palm.

“I should know what to say to you,” he says finally. “I’ve run a major corporation and I’m going into politics. I always know what to say, right? This has been a rough day—for both of us.”

He pauses, waiting for me to respond. My robe is damp from the rain, and I’m starting to feel the cold against my skin. I want a hot shower. I want to go to bed. The chili smell makes me feel ill.

Papa continues, “Your mother had an insulin reaction in her sleep. You heard what Dr. Zimmerman said. Too much alcohol, too many sleeping pills, too much insulin.” He comes to the stairs. He’s close enough to touch me, but he doesn’t. He tries to smile, but his lips won’t obey.

“Mira,” he says gently, “you did everything you could. Don’t blame yourself.”

Don’t blame myself. How can I not blame myself? What’s more, how can Papa not blame himself? Isn’t it natural for people to blame themselves when tragedy strikes?

Papa walks away and slips into the kitchen and I continue up the stairs. In my room, I take off my robe, letting it fall to the floor in a soft, fuzzy, wet heap. Then I crawl into my bed. I spy my cell phone on the nightstand—not where I left it. I’m sure Helen must have found it and brought it in here for me. The screen shows I have a text. Reaching for it, I power it down. I’m not in the mood for messages tonight.

All I want to do is close my eyes and let Mama’s memories fill me up. The initial jolt of her psyche colliding with mine was like the stab of pain you get from an electric shock—only times a hundred. But after the shock subsided, the floodgates of my mind burst open and a deluge of everything Mama entered my skull. The memories came in a jumble, but lying here now I have time to sort them out, to reflect on each one.

I see her as a child, the youngest of five, happy and loved by parents who adored her. Her mother was affectionate and her father was even-tempered and kind. Though I saw no evidence of wealth in Mama’s memories, she lacked nothing to make her feel safe and loved at home.

On her fourth birthday, she got a yellow lab pup named Squiggles. She and the pup grew up together. He was her best friend, guardian and confidant until he died quietly in his sleep when Mama was fifteen. Losing him was the second greatest sorrow she ever experienced. The greatest came not from loss, but from never having what she yearned for the most.

I felt Mama’s emptiness and heartache after years of infertility. I experienced the discomfort and disappointment of in vitro fertilization and four miscarriages. And then I felt her immense joy at holding me for the first time, a motherless newborn healing the heart of a childless mother.

I felt her love for Papa, her pride in his successes. But I also felt her pain at being so often overlooked and cast aside when those successes pulled Papa further and further away from her. When I came into the picture she hoped it would change things, but Papa spent more and more time away from home.

There were so many times she tried to protect me, like when she told me Papa missed my eighth birthday party because he was away on a business trip, when he was just working late again. I felt her anger at the fact that he couldn’t love me as much as she did.

I saw Mama last night drinking at the bar, coming home half asleep in the car, leaning against Papa and Jordan’s shoulders to get upstairs, and feeling the warm, enveloping comfort of sleep as her mind slipped into a dark and painless void.

I lie in my bed and let every bit of Mama occupy my mind. I push my own thoughts and feelings away to make room for her, knowing that once I fall asleep most of it will fade. In the morning all that will remain are vague images and a few scattered details—only remnants of the few moments when Mama and I were one.

A faint chiming penetrates my room from downstairs. It’s the grandfather clock again. An hour has already passed. The chimes call me back to my own mind, my own being. I leave Mama somewhere deep inside me.

I count the chimes. When I reach six, I remember.

David. I was supposed to meet David.

Outside my bedroom window, the rain is insistent. He wouldn’t have waited in the rain, I tell myself. And if he did…

But I can’t worry about that now. I don’t really care anyway.

I close my eyes again, abandoning David in the rain. I am with him there, standing in my blue bathrobe soaked through. I leave them both—David and me—and drift away deep into my mind where Mama waits.