She’s alive, he tells himself. She’s alive, she’s herself, she’s your mother.
“Your mother suffered a grand mal seizure this afternoon. With every seizure, there’s a strong possibility of brain damage,” says Dr. Seth, “and the seizures will come more frequently.”
“Can stress trigger it?” Amadeo asks. “Like, if something stressful happened?”
“Of course. Our bodies and minds are intrinsically linked, and it wouldn’t be surprising if she was under a great deal of pressure.”
Amadeo is awash in hot horror. Her eyes had flickered so strangely in the orange light of the parking garage as she waited for him.
“But it could happen without obvious triggers, too. With this condition, it was going to happen.”
Both Amadeo and Valerie have trouble absorbing the bewildering news that the hospital already has their mother on file, that apparently she’s been in treatment since June.
“She would have told us,” Amadeo says lamely, and the doctors press their lips in sympathy.
“Her fall that night,” says Valerie, stricken. “Remember?” She turns to Amadeo, her tone less accusing than imploring. “Haven’t you noticed symptoms?”
Of course he’d noticed—he just didn’t let himself think about the moments of vertigo, the increasingly random things she’d say, or the spacey, panicked look that would come over her, as though she was lost in their own living room. It never occurred to him that anything truly bad could befall his mother, who is the surest force in his life. And Amadeo himself hurried her condition along by making her so unhappy.
“How could she have known and not told us?” Valerie asks the doctors in a drowning voice, searching each of their faces, and Amadeo is surprised by the protectiveness he feels for her. “Didn’t she need us?”
Dr. Konecky raises her palms with compassion. “You’ll have to talk to her about it. But it’s possible your mother wanted to maintain control of the news, given how out-of-control the diagnosis is.” She posits this gently, regretfully, as though she risks blowing their feeble little minds with a theory so profound. Amadeo expects Valerie to lash out at the lank-haired doctor, but his sister doesn’t seem to take offense.
It’s after ten when they’re allowed to see their mother. In the waiting room, the girls have fallen asleep. Lily, still wrapped in Amadeo’s shirt, is slumped in her chair with her fat novel open in her lap, her neck kinked in a way that makes Amadeo wince. Sarah sprawls on a love seat wearing an oversized purple sweatshirt that Valerie was forced to spend forty-five dollars on in the gift shop. Santa Fe: Living the Dream! “Whose bright fucking idea was it to sell these in a fucking hospital?” Valerie said as she handed over her credit card. “I fucking hate this city.”
Shoulder to shoulder, brother and sister stand before the figure in the hospital bed. Amadeo tries to ignore the bandage swaddling her head like a turban. He tries instead to look into her drawn, clay-colored face, and to see his mother, but the familiar lines around her mouth only make the full effect more chilling and unfamiliar.
She’s sleeping, motionless and small under the light blanket. Oxygen tube in her nostrils, IVs in her arm. She’s lost a lot of weight, Amadeo realizes with a shock. Can she have lost all this weight since this morning? Surely not. But how has he not noticed?
Amadeo puts his arm around his sister, and she sags against him. He thinks of those afternoons on the couch when they were kids. But after a moment she steps away and sits heavily in the vinyl chair.
“Mom? Are you awake?” Yolanda’s eyes slide back and forth beneath her thin purple lids. Valerie stands abruptly. “She must be cold.” She starts opening cupboards, revealing only cleaning products and sterile supplies.
Amadeo’s last visit to the hospital, to the Espa?ola maternity ward, had been stressful, sure, and scary, too, but exciting. He didn’t actually believe that anything truly dire could happen to his daughter. Here, though, the air is leaden. He should call Angel, he thinks, but then Valerie slams a cupboard.