Three Nights Under His Window

The east lot

I went down in the elevator and out through the main doors, into the cold. It was the second week of October, and the wind off the prairie had teeth in it already.

The hospital sat up on the hill with its windows lit in rows like a ship. I walked around it, slowly, counting, until I was on the east side, where the ICU was.

The nurse had said the fourth floor. I had seen the room number, 412, on the whiteboard by the door through that little window. Four floors up, and when I asked a man at the information desk which way the four-tens faced, he said east, toward the river.

There was a surface lot on that side, half empty after visiting hours. I moved our gray Dodge Caravan over and parked it under a light pole.

That was Rick’s rule. Years ago, when Emma had her ear surgeries and I was driving to Sioux Falls alone for appointments, he had made me promise. “Always park under a light, Tam. Every time. I don’t care if you have to walk farther.”

So I always did. Nineteen years, and I always did.

From the driver’s seat I counted up four floors and across. Most of the windows had their blinds half drawn. One, third from the corner, had a light that stayed on, a low yellow light like a night-light, and every so often I saw a shadow cross it.

I did not know for certain that it was his. But I decided it was.

The first night

I called Deb’s house at nine. Emma got on the phone.

“Did you see him?”

I had decided in the elevator what I would say. I would not lie to my daughter, but I would not put her grandmother’s cruelty in her lap at thirteen years old.

“I’m right outside his window, honey,” I said. “I’m close enough to see his light. They’re taking good care of him.”

“Does Daddy know you’re there?”

I looked up at the window. “I hope so.”

Caleb got on next. He asked me straight out if Grandma was there, and I said yes. There was a long silence on the line.

“Mom. Did she do something?”

My son is not a fool. He has his father’s way of hearing what you don’t say.

“We’ll talk about it when I’m home,” I said. “Right now I need you to help Jeff and finish the beans on the north quarter if the weather holds. Can you do that for your dad?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And make sure your sister eats.”

“She had two bowls of Deb’s chili.”

“Good,” I said, and I had to stop talking for a minute.

There was a quilt in the back of the van from Emma’s softball games. It smelled like sunscreen and the dog. I wrapped it around my knees and put the seat back as far as it would go.

It got down to thirty-one degrees that night. I ran the engine ten minutes out of every hour to keep the windows from frosting over, so I could still see the light.