I texted Aunt Tammy when I got to the neuro ICU waiting room, and she came out and led me through several hallways to Joan’s room. It was small and bristling with machines and monitors that surrounded Joan’s guard-railed bed. She was awake, and today she knew who I was, though she still had trouble speaking. Aunt Tammy and I puttered around, talking to her and to each other in the tone of voice you use on a child who’s scraped their knee: It’s going to be fine.

Time must pass more slowly in hospitals. We were waiting to meet with Joan’s doctor, but after a while Aunt Tammy asked if I’d go down to the cafeteria and buy her some coffee. I got lost along the way; every hallway looked the same. I imagined turning a corner and finding Steph there, searching for me. I imagined taking her back to Joan’s room and introducing her to Aunt Tammy.

I found the cafeteria and bought two coffees. Mine was so bitter I could barely swallow it, but I drank it anyway because it seemed like that’s what people did in hospitals. The doctor came to Joan’s room, but I didn’t understand what he told Aunt Tammy, who took notes on her phone as he talked. My brain was foggy from lack of sleep, but my body was wide-awake, jittery from the caffeine, and primed for Steph.

At three o’clock I left the hospital to pick up Dad at the Airporter stop in San Rafael. When I turned onto Sir Francis Drake, I glanced at the church on the corner. I wasn’t even Catholic, but I felt guilty.

—

Dad’s hair had grown out; it flopped over his forehead in brown waves as he hugged me in the parking lot. He was wearing wrinkled clothes and his glasses were smudged. He looked like this every time he emerged from a writers’ retreat, but this time the dazed expression on his face was slightly different. This time he also looked frightened.

Dad hardly ever let me drive if he could do it, but today he didn’t even notice that I got into the driver’s seat.

At the hospital I took him to Joan’s room and waited in the doorway while he went in. I heard her speaking faintly: “Matty, you came all this way . . .”

“I’m here, Mom. I’m not leaving you till you’re better.”

He didn’t have that cheery, forced positive tone that Aunt Tammy and I had when we talked to her. He sounded raw and scared. My dad was no good at faking anything.

Steph texted me: How’s Joan? How are you?

I went out to the waiting room to write back. Better. My dad and aunt are here. We’re at the hospital.