17
I paced the small waiting room while my mother stared at the wall, deep inside her own mind, and my sister texted on her phone. We’d been at the hospital for three hours and had seen no sign of the doctor to tell us how my father was doing.
Several times I’d thought about going to the cafeteria downstairs, just to have something to occupy my mind, but I gave up on the idea a second later. What if the doctor came when I wasn’t there?
I flopped down in the chair beside my mother.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
My mother reached over the armrests and held my good hand. I stared at our fingers laced together. She never did that.
“There isn’t much to understand,” she said. “We won’t know the details until he can tell us.”
But when would that be? We had no idea when he would wake u
