I thought about it, then said it was nothing, I'd just had enough.
My mother went quiet for a moment.
"His last name's Henson. Forty-two, runs a building-materials business. Lost his wife to pancreatic cancer last year, left with an eight-year-old girl. I've met him myself. Honest sort. Just doesn't talk much."
"Fine."
"Don't just say fine. Come meet him already."
I said okay and hung up.
The fluorescent tube in the hallway hummed, and my own shadow stretched across the floor, thin and long and dingy gray.
I looked down at the shoes on my feet, soles worn nearly flat.
I thought of the shoes on the feet of Ethan Whitney's first love's son. Seven thousand dollars.
It wasn't that I knew anything about brands. It was that when Ethan crouched down to tie the boy's laces, the saleswoman standing nearby said, "You've got a wonderful eye, sir, this is the last limited-edition pair in the store, seven thousand."
Ethan stood up and reached for his card.
Five years of marriage, and he never once bought me a pair of shoes over forty dollars.
One winter I had frostbite on my feet and wanted a thicker pair of snow boots. He dragged me out of the store right in front of the clerk, saying, "You've got athlete's foot, don't go spreading it around."
I didn't have athlete's foot. He just didn't want to spend the money.
The ER door opened, and a nurse came out to say the girl had spiked to 104, they'd given her a fever shot, and she was under observation.
I nodded but didn't stand up.
Down at the end of the hall someone wheeled a gurney past, the wheels rumbling, the person lying on it perfectly still, a white sheet drawn all the way up to the chin.
I stared at that white sheet for a few seconds, and a thought came to me out of nowhere: how nice it would be if that were me up there.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Ethan, two words: Get back.
I didn't reply.
Another one: Who's making dinner?
Still nothing from me.
The third message came fast on its heels: Don't push your damn luck.
I flipped the phone over and pressed it face-down against my knee. The old man down the hall came by again to pour me a cup of water, saying, You don't look well, miss, should I go get a doctor?
I said no, thank you, sir.
He sighed and shuffled back, his slippers slapping against the floor.
A little past eight, my daughter woke and mumbled for her mommy. I leaned in close, and her little hand clutched my finger, her nails tiny, pink and white.
She said it hurt. I asked where, and she said her hand hurt.
The nurse said it was where the needle had gone in, and told her not to move it.
I bent down and kissed her forehead. Still hot, but not as frightening as before.
Her eyes stayed shut, and she mumbled something.
I leaned closer to hear. She was saying, "Mommy, can we not go back?"
I didn't make a sound.
I just held her little hand a bit tighter.
On the way out of the hospital I hailed a cab and gave the driver an address.
Not the address of home.
When my mother opened the door she froze, looking at me, then at the child in my arms, her eyes going red in an instant.
My father was in the kitchen cooking, the spatula clanging against the iron pan.
He didn't even turn his head. "Coming back was the right thing. There'll always be a place at this table for you."
I laid my daughter down on my mother's bed and tucked the blanket around her.
My mother followed me in, stood at the bedside watching for a long while, then asked softly, "That Whitney man, did he really never spend a single cent on this child?"
I said he had.
He'd bought a cake on her birthday once, a $3 one from the supermarket, and came home complaining that bakeries were crooks bleeding people dry.
My mother bit her lip and said nothing. In the kitchen my father turned off the burner and threw his apron down on the stove, his voice not loud: "Tomorrow I'm going to have a talk with him."
"No need," I said. "I'll handle it myself."
