The Thirty First Call From The Hospital

Her eyes opened. They were clear. Denise told me afterward that a good many of them come all the way up to the surface once before they go, and that she has learned to stop whatever she is doing and listen.

Denise was right there. She had come in to check the drip. Pastor Dan sat forward so fast his Bible slid off his knee.

Evelyn looked at the ceiling tiles. She looked at the curtain. She looked at me.

“Tracey.”

“I’m here.”

“What time is it?”

“About four in the morning.”

“Have you been here the whole time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you eat?”

I laughed, and it came out wet. “No.”

“Well, that’s foolish.” She turned her head on the pillow, slowly, and found the pastor. “Dan. They called you. It must be bad.”

“I came to keep Tracey company,” he said.

“Don’t fib to an old woman. You never were any good at it.” She was quiet a moment, getting her breath. Then she looked back at me, and I knew what was coming, and I would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else.

“Where’s my boy?”

I had four hours to get ready for that question, and I had nothing.

I could not lie to her. I had never once lied to her, not about a pie crust, not about a doctor’s report, and I was not going to start in the last hour of her life.

And I could not say it. I could not put Maui and a shower and a woman’s voice into that room and make her carry it out of this world with her.

So I said the only thing that was left.

“He’s traveling, Evelyn.”

She looked at me for a long time.

Her eyes went over my face the way she used to check a crust for cracks. I tried to hold still. I felt my chin go, and I pressed my lips together, and that was all the answer she needed.

“Traveling,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you call him?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

I could have said a few. I said, “Thirty-one.”

Denise made a small sound at the foot of the bed.

Evelyn closed her eyes. I thought we had lost her again. But then she opened them, and there was something in them I had only seen once before, the day a man at the co-op tried to shortchange her and she made him count it back out loud in front of the whole line.

“I know exactly what kind of traveling,” she said.

“Evelyn, don’t. You rest.”

“I’ll rest directly. I have all the time in the world for resting.” Her voice was thin, but every word of it was whole. “I raised that boy, and I was married to his father for thirty-eight years. I know the kind of traveling where a man can’t answer his telephone. I ironed shirts for it.”

Nobody moved.

“Dan, are you listening?”

“I’m listening, Evelyn.”

“And you.” She couldn’t lift her head to see Denise, so she lifted one finger off the blanket in her direction. “Nurse. What’s your name?”

“Denise, ma’am.”

“Denise. You’ve got good ears?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“Then the three of you hear me, because I’m only going to say it the once, and I want it said back to him right.”

She pulled my hand up onto her chest and held it there under both of hers. I could feel her heart, quick and light, like a bird you’ve picked up off the porch.