Calhoun cat-eyed his way down the hallway, using his peripheral vision, where he’d heard there were more rods and cones, or something. He didn’t know these floors like he did the downstairs and didn’t trust his radar enough to move forward, but he found himself inching along just the same, little by little, a man on a narrow ledge. His hands slithered ahead along the wall, letting his fingers do the walking, doing a Helen Keller routine for the railing.

All at once a bright light snapped on in his face, making him cringe back and throw up his hands to protect his eyes.

“Who are you?” a voice asked.

Calhoun lowered his hands, squinting, pupils shrinking. The old woman hunched in front of him had one hand fastened to her IV pole and the other locked onto an ancient silver flashlight that looked like it might’ve been new with Nixon. Her familiar green eyes were milky with cataracts, and her hair was a flamboyant iron wreck that stuck up and out like an old cat that couldn’t decide whether it was going to jump.

Then Calhoun saw her mouth, puckered around the absence of dentures, and her face came together.

“Ma?”

“Stevie?” She shuffled toward him, gripping the flashlight. “Is that you?”

“I’m not seeing this.”

“What’s happening?” she asked. “Where is everybody? Where’s my nurse?”

“They’re all gone, Ma.”

She blinked up at him, then down at the plastic ID band on her wrist. “What am I doing here?”

“You were a patient here. You had cancer.”

“You lie.”

“It’s true, Ma. Twenty years ago.”

“Oh,” she said in a small child’s voice. She let the flashlight slip to the floor, her veined and spotted hands going up to cover her face. Calhoun stood there for a moment, then put his arms around the round, broad haunch of her shoulders. Her hospital gown was as soft as his childhood pajamas, the one with the little breast pocket just big enough for a Matchbox car.

“Mm.” She withdrew with a sniff. “Drinking again. I can smell it on you.”

“Ma, please.”

“Well, I suppose you come by it honestly.”

“Leave Dad out of it.”

“Your father?” She scowled, creating a little flesh-cushion between her eyebrows. “Drinking was the one thing he didn’t do.”

“But you always said…”

She smiled a sad sweet smile that kept her lips pressed together. “I know what I said.”

Calhoun had never seen her smile like that.

“At first I was just lonely,” she said. “He was never around for us. I’d have one before dinner and another when he didn’t come home. And when he still didn’t come home I just put the bottle by the couch.”

“All that was you?” Calhoun asked. “All those bottles?”