Chapter 31

I close the door. The latch clicks with a finality that makes my stomach drop.

The other person in the room—a nurse, I realize now—checks something on a monitor and slips past us without a word. Then it's just the three of us and the steady beep of machines.

My mother shifts against her pillows. The movement looks painful, though she doesn't make a sound. She's always been good at not making sounds.

"Sit," she says.

There are two chairs by the bed. Daniel takes the one farther from her, leaving me the closer seat. I don't sit.

"How long have you been here?"

"Does it matter?"

"Someone called me. They said it was urgent."

"That would be Patricia. My neighbor. She has opinions about family obligations." My mother's eyes drift to the window, though the curtains block any view. "I didn't ask her to call."

"But you didn't tell her not to."

"No."

The beeping fills the silence. I count seven beats before Daniel speaks.

"Mrs. Chen, I'm Daniel Reeves. It's good to finally meet you."

She turns her attention to him, and I see her doing what she always does—cataloging, assessing, filing away information for later use. His clothes, his posture, the way he sits with his hands loose on his knees. The wedding ring.

"You're younger than I expected."

"I'm thirty-two."

"Nora is twenty-eight."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel ancient." She coughs, a wet rattling sound that goes on too long. When she finishes, there's a sheen of sweat on her forehead. "How long have you actually been married? Not the paperwork date. The real one."

Daniel glances at me. I still haven't sat down.

"We got married for the visa," I say. "That part you already know. But we've been together—really together—for about eight months now."

"So the marriage came first."

"Yes."

"Backwards."

"Most things in my life are."

My mother almost smiles again. "You get that from your father."

The mention of him lands like a stone in still water. Ripples spreading, disturbing everything.

"Don't," I say.

"He would have liked Daniel. He always said you'd end up with someone practical."

"I said don't."

"Nora." Daniel's voice is quiet. Not a reprimand, just my name. A reminder that I'm not alone in this room.

I sit. The chair is vinyl and cold through my jeans.

My mother watches me with those dark eyes that used to see everything, know everything, judge everything. They're dimmer now, but no less sharp.

"Patricia said you collapsed at the grocery store."

"The produce section. Very dramatic. I ruined a display of oranges."

"What did the doctors say?"

"Many things. Most of them unpleasant." She adjusts the blanket across her lap with fingers that shake slightly. "Stage four. Pancreatic. Six months ago they said I had a year. Now they're less optimistic."

The beeping continues. Steady, mechanical, indifferent.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Why would I?"

"Because I'm your daughter."

"You made it very clear three years ago that you were done being my daughter."

The words should hurt more than they do. Maybe I've built up a tolerance.

"You told me I was selfish. That I was throwing my life away. That if I moved to Seattle with 'that woman,' I shouldn't bother coming back."

"I was angry."

"You were cruel."

"Yes." My mother looks at her hands. "I was that too."

Daniel shifts in his chair. I can feel him wanting to say something, to smooth this over somehow, but he stays quiet. He's good at knowing when to stay quiet.

"Sarah left me anyway," I say. "Six months after we moved. She met someone else. Someone who didn't have a mother who disowned her. Someone who didn't cry in the bathroom at two in the morning because she missed her family."

"I didn't disown you."

"You told me not to come back."

"I told you not to come back if you were going to make stupid choices. You came back anyway. You just didn't come to see me."

This is news. I stare at her.

"Patricia talks," my mother says. "She has a daughter who works at that coffee shop on Madison. The one with the blue awning. She said she saw you there every Sunday for months. Reading. Always alone."

"I didn't know you were keeping tabs."

"I wasn't. Information just finds its way to me." She coughs again, softer this time. "You moved back almost two years ago. You've been in the same city as me for two years, and you never called."

"Neither did you."

"I'm a stubborn old woman dying of cancer. What's your excuse?"

The machines beep. Someone laughs in the hallway, the sound muffled and distant.

"I was afraid," I say.

"Of me?"

"Of this. Of sitting in a hospital room and having this conversation and realizing that we wasted all this time being angry at each other over something that doesn't even matter anymore."

My mother is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice is softer, though no less precise.

"It mattered. It mattered to me that my daughter was making choices that would hurt her. It mattered that I couldn't protect you from that hurt. It mattered that you wouldn't listen."

"I was twenty-five years old. I didn't need protecting."

"You always need protecting. That's what children don't understand. You never stop being my child, no matter how old you get, no matter how far away you go, no matter how much you hate me for the things I say."

"I don't hate you."

"You should. I've earned it."

Daniel clears his throat. "Mrs. Chen—"

"Helen. If you're going to sit in my hospital room while I have this conversation with my daughter, you can call me Helen."

"Helen," he says. "I don't think Nora came here to fight with you."

"No?" My mother looks at me. "Why did you come?"

"Because Patricia called and said you were dying."

"And?"

"And I don't want you to die alone."

"Even though I'm a cruel, stubborn old woman who said terrible things to you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The question hangs in the air between us. I don't have a good answer. Or maybe I have too many answers, all of them tangled up with each other, impossible to separate into something coherent.

"Because you're my mother," I finally say. "Because when I was seven and broke my arm falling out of that tree in the backyard, you sat with me in the emergency room all night even though you had to work the next morning. Because you taught me how to make dumplings from scratch and how to balance a checkbook and how to change a tire. Because you came to every single one of my school plays, even the terrible ones where I forgot all my lines. Because you're the reason I know how to be strong, even when being strong feels impossible."

My mother's eyes are wet. She blinks rapidly, but the tears come anyway, sliding down her cheeks in thin tracks.

"I was so angry at you," she whispers. "For so long. And then one day I woke up and I wasn't angry anymore, I was just tired. And I wanted to call you, but I didn't know how. I didn't know what to say. 'I'm sorry' felt too small. Everything felt too small."

"You could have just called and said hello."

"I could have. I should have." She reaches for the tissue box on the bedside table, but her hand shakes too much. Daniel stands and hands her a tissue. She takes it, wipes her eyes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She looks at him again, really looks at him, and this time when she speaks, there's something different in her voice. Something almost warm.

"You take care of her."

"I try."

"She's difficult."

"I've noticed."

"She gets that from me."

"I've noticed that too."

My mother laughs, a sound I haven't heard in years, and then the laugh turns into another cough, this one worse than the others, her whole body convulsing with it. Daniel moves fast, pressing the call button, and within seconds a nurse appears.

"I'm fine," my mother gasps, but she's not fine, anyone can see she's not fine.

The nurse checks her vitals, adjusts something on the IV, speaks in low, soothing tones. My mother's breathing gradually slows, evens out. The nurse gives us a look that says visiting hours are over, whether officially or not.

"We should go," I say. "Let you rest."

"Come back tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Both of you."

Daniel nods. "We will."

I stand, and my mother catches my hand. Her grip is weak, but it's there.

"Nora."

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you married him. Even if it was backwards."

"Me too."

She lets go. We move toward the door, and I'm almost through it when she speaks again.

"Your father would have liked him," she says. "But he would have loved that you found someone who stays. That's all he ever wanted for you. Someone who stays."

I don't trust myself to speak, so I just nod.

In the hallway, Daniel takes my hand. We walk to the elevator in silence, wait for it in silence, ride down in silence. It's not until we're outside, standing in the parking lot under a sky gone purple with dusk, that I finally let myself cry.

Daniel holds me while I do. He doesn't say anything. He just holds me.

When I'm done, when there's nothing left, I pull back and wipe my face with my sleeve.

"That was worse than I thought it would be."

"Yeah."

"But also better."

"Yeah."

"I don't know what to do now."

"We come back tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. Until we don't have to anymore."

I nod. He's right. It's simple and terrible and right.

We're almost to the car when my phone buzzes. A text from a number I don't recognize.

This is Patricia Chen's neighbor. Your mother asked me to give you something. Can you come by the house tomorrow before you visit? It's important.

I show Daniel the message.

"What do you think it is?" he asks.

"I don't know."

But I do know, somewhere deep in the part of me that still remembers being a child in that house, that whatever it is, it's going to change everything.