Life As I Knew It by RANDI HACKER

Author:RANDI HACKER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Later That Same Day …

Before we left the hospital, my mother, sister, and I went down to the cafeteria to have something to drink and talk.

“Okay. So what s the plan?” asked Francesca after we had carried our drinks to a small table and sat down.

“Do we need a plan?” I asked.

Francesca put her hand on my shoulder and looked at me.

“Yes,” she said.

My mother took a deep breath. “The plan, as I see it,” she said, “is to watch him for the next few days, then transfer him to rehab, then discharge him to a convalescent facility, and then transfer him home.”

“So they think he’s going to recover?” I asked. My heart was hammering—I really hoped this was true.

“We don’t know that, Angelina,” said my mother.

“But you just said he’s going to rehab and coming home,” I said. “That means they thing he’s going to live.”

“They think he’s going to live, Angelina,” said my mother. “They said nothing about recovering.”

“It’s distinctions like these that make malpractice suits and right-to-die issues so difficult to define,” said Francesca.

The picture of my father ripping out his tubes popped into my head. My mother’s words about how complicated it all was echoed in my brain.

My mother looked at her watch, then stood up.

“I want to get back upstairs,” she said.

We stood too. My mother reached out her arms and hugged me, then she turned to Francesca and, in a surprise move, hugged her, too.

And in even more of a surprise move Francesca hugged my mother back.

After our brief supportive-family moment my mother stepped away and said to both of us, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” then walked out the door without a backward glance.

Francesca and I watched the door for a long time. I don’t know what she was looking for, but I half expected and half wished that my mother would come back. She didn’t.

So before long, and without saying a word to each other, my sister and I went home.

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