The Graceview Patient By Caitlin Starling - 3

Of course, it wasn’t actually that simple.

It’s important to remember the before, isn’t it? What life was like. What the world is like, outside the drifting sedative haze, the beeping of an infusion pump. My nurses go home at the end of each shift, and maybe, one day, I will, too.

But home to what, exactly?

My mother called right as I hauled my suitcase out of the trunk of my rideshare car. I remember juggling everything awkwardly, accepting the call even as I tapped in a cursory five-star rating ( thank you for a speedy delivery to the rest of my life! ), managing the curb with its flaking yellow paint.

“Oh my gosh, honey, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot. Are you there? Is it starting? How are you, are you scared?”

Or something like that. My mother’s words have a tendency to pile up on top of each other into an indistinct wave of noise.

“I just got here,” I said. The car pulled away. My scalp itched. My fingers ached where I had banged them against the car. I wished she hadn’t called.

It would have been simpler.

I almost hadn’t told her about the trial. It felt—unreal. Private, and just for me. As much as I’d been looking for loopholes and gotchas, I didn’t want her to weigh in. In the end, I’d minimized it. Couldn’t lie about not having a mailing address for a while, but I’d left out the complete destruction of my immune system bit.

She’d panicked anyway.

Where are you going to live? Can you afford a storage unit? Are you sure? I saw some bad reviews of the hospital, do you think that’s normal? And on and on.

It sounded like caring, and she did care, in her own way. It just hadn’t actually felt tender or supportive in years. Still, I let the sound of it wash over me, even as I tuned out the specifics and looked at my new home.

The circle I’d been let out at was an old carriageway. It was covered by a colonnaded brickwork arch that towered over me and blocked out much of the sunlight. The shadows beneath were cool and scented with car exhaust and asphalt. The road ringed around a manicured garden, just barely visible through the columns and past a delivery truck that was trying to navigate the tight space.

Graceview Memorial is old.

Old and currently well-kept, though it hasn’t always been. You can see little hints of decay, inside and out. They’d kept the original facade, attached to that colonnade, the first two floors fronted by elegant red and cream bricks with cast details at various joining parts, small cement sculptures worked into the architecture. A bit of ivy clung to the brickwork, picturesque but tearing at the mortar the longer it grew there.

Behind that facade rose modern towers and a skybridge, incongruous, ill-proportioned. But functional.

Most of that was invisible from where I stood, but I’d stared at it, numb and rapt, for the slow creep forward in the dropoff line. Now, I just looked at the utilitarian WEST ENTRANCE sign above the retrofitted sliding doors, with EMERGENCY ROOM and an arrow pointing east below it.

My mother was still talking, off on a tangent about her friend Nancy, who had spent two weeks in the hospital last summer for—something. I don’t remember. I don’t know if my mother actually knew, either, for that matter.

“I’m supposed to check in soon,” I said, interrupting the flow when it became clear she wasn’t coming to any kind of point. I’d been standing at the curb for too long; somebody was finally assertive enough to honk at me. I swapped my phone to my other hand and grabbed my suitcase, heading for the doors.

Silence on the other end, and then:

“How are you feeling?” Like she’d remembered I was actually there, that she wasn’t leaving a voicemail.

This was a trick question. I used to fall for it, too. I used to list off every ache and pain. And in return, I’d just get—sadness. So much sadness, and guilt, and shame, because somehow my suffering was evidence for her failure as a mother.

But I had to answer it. I couldn’t lie, couldn’t say, I’m fine , because I was walking into the atrium of a hospital. I wasn’t exactly feeling good . “I’m managing,” I said.

The atrium held some of the wonder of the facade. It was two stories tall, airy and open, and crowned with a bit of stained glass up at the windows near the ceiling. But the carpet was institutional, scuffed and worn. The benches were from the mid-eighties. The benign neglect of too much foot traffic and too little budget showed everywhere.

Signs pointed in every direction. I eyed the elevator bank, not hopeful about the state of my room. I’d wind up being pleasantly surprised: the ward was so much nicer, so much newer, than this politely decaying entrance.

Rustling over the phone, and my mother’s long-suffering sigh. I braced myself. “Look, honey,” she said, “are you sure ? Really, really sure? I know you want to feel better, but months in the hospital … you can catch all kinds of illnesses. MRSA! You could get MRSA.”

“I’m not going to get MRSA,” I said, even though that was a very real possibility. “And if I do, they’ll take care of it. Mom—”

“I did look at flights this morning,” she said. “They’re getting more expensive every year, I swear, but I should be able to make it work. Just have to ask my sister for a loan.”

“Mom. Don’t do that, please.”

“I’ll have to get time off work, too. Betty won’t like it, but she’ll just have to deal with it. Although I am out of PTO—”

“ Mom . Listen to me. Please stay home. Please keep going to work and don’t ask Aunt Lisa for a fucking cent. You know she’ll hold it over you for years. And I’ll be fine .”

I was met with silence. The kind of silence that was smothering, wrapping around me, threatening to stop up my nose and mouth so I couldn’t breathe.

I should have let the call go to voicemail.

“I am your mother,” she said.

I shut my eyes.

“And I’m your adult child.”

“Do you think I can’t help?”

“I never said that.” We’d gone around and around on this so many times before. And all I wanted, all I needed in that moment, was a little shared confidence. I wanted to be able to tell her about the hospital, about what it looked like, about what I was actually afraid of. I wanted her to see through my eyes.

But they were still shut, and there was only blank emptiness.

“Look, Mom, I’m sorry. I have to go check in now. I’ll call you later.”

Later—days later. Or weeks. She knew it. I knew it. It would be a relief to both of us, and would simultaneously give her endless fodder for complaining to her friends and coworkers.

“Of course,” my mother said, sounding so sad . Begging me to be drawn back in. I held firm, opened my eyes, and made myself focus on the stained glass, trying to figure out what the designs were supposed to be. “I love you, Meg.”

If I’d known that would be the last time I’d hear her voice, I would have said it back.