This Is How I Find Her by Sara Polsky Read Free Book Online Page A

one said anything.
    I called James that afternoon, wanting to ask if he knew why Leila hadn’t saved me a seat or returned my calls. But when his mom told me he was at Leila’s, I hung up without leaving a message, and he never called back.

Nine
    Until I get to the hospital, I’m half convinced my mother somehow won’t be there, or that even if she is, no one will let me see her. But when I tell the gray-haired woman behind the information desk that I’m there to visit “Canon, Amy,” she doesn’t ask me any questions. She just holds out a pink laminated visitor pass that gives me access to the eighth floor.
    â€œGo right on up, sweetheart,” she says, pointing. “Just walk around that corner for the elevator.”
    I blink when she calls me sweetheart, but I don’t say anything. I just put out my hand and take the pass.
    â€”
    I walk halfway around the eighth floor, circling the nurses’ station twice, before I find my mother’s room. A small bronze plaque hangs next to the doorway, and I linger, reading it. In Memory of Tanya Wilson.
    I trace my index finger along the indented letters, from the bar at the top of the first I all the way to the bottom point of the n . I wonder vaguely who Tanya Wilson was, why her name is next to this particular door. Did she stay here? Would she be okay with the world knowing that she did?
    I don’t actually care enough to find out; the wondering is just an excuse not to go inside. Now that I know my mother is here, I don’t feel panicked anymore. I’m just anxious and on edge, and I trace my fingers over the letters in Tanya Wilson’s name again, going in reverse this time, from the end of the n back to the top of the T.
    But the voice in my head is still whispering its questions, and I know only one way I can get it to leave me alone. So I take one deep breath and one long step. And then I’m in.
    â€”
    An empty bed. That’s what I see first in the room the receptionist said is my mother’s, one extra-long empty bed covered with a single white sheet. I zoom in on it and the panic in my stomach is back. The voice in my head is anxious and loud. Did they move her but the woman downstairs just didn’t know? Or is she really not here at all? Then where is she?
    I force myself to breathe and look up, and that’s when I notice the drawn curtain on the other side of the bed, a sheet of yellow fabric that’s an old, worn yellow, not a cheerful one. I step over and pull it back, and there’s my mother. She’s on another bed with plain sheets, covered in layers of white knit blankets. Under them, her legs make two hills. A mini mountain range of mom.
    She’s sleeping.
    I think she’s sleeping.
    â€œMom?” I say, so low she probably wouldn’t hear it even if she were awake. I think of yesterday, when I had to check for her breath by putting my ear right over her mouth.
    This time I step close to her and stare until I’m certain her chest is moving up and down. Then I take an inventory of the rest of her, from top to bottom, studying her as if I’m going to turn what I see into a sketch. Her hair is still bedraggled and uneven; her face is pale, but not as pale as it was yesterday. Her left arm sits on top of the blankets with an IV attached to it. The IV looks empty, but when I peer at it closely, I see some kind of clear fluid. I watch it trickle down until I realize I’m breathing at the same pace as the drip.
    The blankets hide the rest of her body, but I see its outline: her other arm, her hand, her torso. Two legs and two feet. All in order. I want to step closer, to reach out and make sure she’s really, solidly there, but I don’t want to wake her up or disrupt the careful arrangement of hospital tubes.
    So I move back. I’m already reaching behind me for a chair when my legs start to feel wobbly. I fall into the chair instead of sitting, suddenly