I WOKE WITH a jolt, to a man’s voice at the door, saying excuse me? I coughed, felt sweat flood my armpits and chest. It was a delivery guy, arm around an obscene bouquet of flowers.

“Did I scare you?” He held up the bouquet. “Where should I put these?” I pointed at a table near the bed.

“Are those for me?” I asked. Were they from Leah? For me and Naurene both? The beginning of a new togetherness? The man read the card, confirmed my name.

My mother woke. “Look at this,” she said in her drug voice, all the spit sucked out.

“Who sent them, though?” I asked.

The man tiptoed into the room, set the flowers on a side table, shrugged. “It’s on the card,” he said and hurried out like he might catch cancer if he lingered.

“Check the card,” my mom said, rifling around her sheets for the pain bolus.

I walked over to the vase, found the card. It was matte black with a silver Get Well on the front. Leah wouldn’t have picked black, no. I flipped it over. Sending healing vibes. Love, Jake. Blood rushed from my head to my guts. My mom said, “From who?” I considered lying, then repeated the message out loud.

“Is this the man who does your Instagram?”

“My manager,” I said.

“Your manager,” she said, “fancy.” Her voice was full, like he was her man, too. I glared at her. Yesterday her face had been pale, but clear. Today, ruddy circles rouged her cheeks.

“Water,” she said.

“Little sips,” I said and held a cup to her mouth. She drank. When she drifted back to sleep, I took the vase from the table and carried it past the nurse’s station, which was empty, through the doors and into the women’s restroom. I emptied the water in the sink. It smelled like rotting food and I ran the tap to rinse it down, then dumped the flowers in the narrow trashcan, left the vase on the floor. I returned to my chair, watched Housewives on the muted TV.

“Where are my flowers?” my mother said when she woke.

“They were full of bugs,” I said, eyes still on the screen, the fighting women, toddling in their Louboutins.

“Such a shame,” she said.

I helped her out of bed, held the butt of her nightgown closed, and together we walked the hall and back, no nurse required. My mother pushed her IV stand like a rolling torch, lighting our way.

IT WAS THEN that she started to insist.

“Home is where I’ll heal,” she said.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Nancy said. My mother’s surgeon came by, flipped pages on a clipboard.

“We’ve been up and walking,” I said and felt like a suck-up.

“Remarkable,” he said, looking at me, his gaze hard in a way I had learned to recognize, and use.