Her happiness was short-lived. After I explained what had happened, I passed the phone to the nurse, who then asked Aunt Tammy all the questions that I hadn’t been able to answer. I sat in the gray plastic chair next to the nurse’s station and listened distractedly to the conversation. I felt like a six-year-old lost in the supermarket. Every time the sliding doors to the back of the ER opened, I looked up as if Joan might walk out and say it was all a big mistake, she was fine.

When the nurse finished talking to Aunt Tammy, she handed my phone back to me. “Aunt Tammy?” I said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. I’m going to call you back in a bit, okay? I have to make some arrangements—” In the background I heard my cousins shouting something, and Aunt Tammy told them to hush. “I’ll call you back soon,” she said, and hung up.

The nurse I’d been speaking to was entering something into her computer, and I went over to ask her, “Is my grandma okay?”

“She’s being treated for a stroke,” the nurse said. “You should take a seat over there and I’ll be sure to let you know when there’s news.” I must have looked like I needed more reassurance because she added, “She’s in good hands. And there’s a bathroom over there to your right. You might want to wash up a little. Is that marinara?”

I glanced down at myself and saw red smeared over my arms. It looked like I was covered in blood. “Tomatoes,” I said.

She nodded. “I’ll let you know when we have more information.”

I swung Joan’s purse over my shoulder and headed to the restroom. It smelled of antiseptic cleaning solution that couldn’t quite hide the lingering odor of something more unpleasant. I tried to breathe through my mouth as I dampened a paper towel to scrub off the tomato residue. It had dried in sticky streaks on my skin, and it took what seemed like a mountain of paper towels to get it off. My jeans were spotted with it, too, and a long stain went up the front of my MIT T-shirt where I had dragged Joan into my lap. I wiped at my shirt, but that just turned it into a big wet spot. I gave up and went to wash my hands. In the mirror over the sink I looked freaked out, and my hair was escaping from its ponytail. I splashed lukewarm water over my face and blotted it dry with another thin paper towel. I redid my ponytail as the bathroom door opened. A woman rushed inside and slammed a stall door shut. She made a gagging sound, and before I heard anything more, I fled.