No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol

Author:Glynnis MacNicol
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

12. Be Careful What You Wish For

My mother stayed in the hospital for five days. After twenty-four hours she was moved to a room on one of the higher floors, which she shared with three other people. When I arrived on the second morning she was dozing. She was in the bed closest to the door, separated by a curtain. The only direct daylight came from a window at the other end of the room, and most of it was a secondary reflection off the shiny floor. This was a preview of what the rest of her life would be like if I didn’t get her in a good home.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw her. She was lying on top of her covers, and over her pajamas she was wearing a bright orange vest, the type construction workers wear when they are working on busy roadways. I backed out of her room without waking her and inquired at the nurses’ desk. They told me the evening before she’d become extremely agitated. “I barely recognized her,” one nurse said with wide eyes. “She had been so gentle all day.” Afterward, they told me, she’d gone wandering off and had ended up in an off-limits area of the hospital reserved for surgery staff. It had apparently taken them a while to realize she didn’t work there.

“Is this all in her file?” I immediately asked. The nurse nodded, frowning slightly at my clinical reaction. I explained to her the problems I’d encountered and how badly I needed a record of this. She assured me it was all going into the file. “She is very bad.” Again, she sounded amazed. I practically wept with relief that I wasn’t crazy, and then felt so guilty for it I didn’t want to go back into my mother’s room. Instead I went to the coffee shop downstairs and purchased two double chocolate donuts. My pants had grown tighter in just the two weeks I’d been home. There’d been no time for exercise, and the brief amount of pleasure the kids’ chocolate Halloween candy brought me felt like the only comfort I could currently rely on. I decided I wasn’t going to feel bad about this, even if it meant saying goodbye to my wardrobe. I was going to take the small bits of consolation where I could get them. When I got back upstairs, my mother was awake and sitting on the side of her bed, bouncing. As I walked in she clapped her hands together. “Oh goody, you’re here!”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, watching her face to see if my calling her Mom would confuse her. But she just smiled. I leaned over, gave her a kiss, and asked her if she wanted some of a donut.

“No, no, I have work to do. I think they need me to admit some of the patients.”

She tried to stand up.

“I think we should stay here for a bit.” I didn’t bother to explain that she didn’t work here.

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