“Your momma’s a real spatial lady.” Larry shook his head. It was the third time he’d said that, in that manner, and Kate had to wonder if he was in love with her. In the past, Mary-Sue would never have had the patience for anyone with a Jesus fish stuck on his bumper; now Kate couldn’t be so sure.

“Don’t know how you can stand to live so far away from her,” Larry said.

Kate scowled. Okay, now this cretin was trying to lay a trip on her. He had no right, he didn’t know her at all! And who asked him anyway? Then when she caught the soft look in Larry’s eyes, she realized all he’d meant was, Don’t you miss her?

“God bless her, she’s a tough gal,” he said. “Never loses hope.”

“Just tell me what happened to her.”

“With all due respect, I will let her tell it to you herself.”

He signaled at the sign for Homestead Hospital, and Kate’s hands gripped the edge of her seat. The angry part of her that raged to tell her mother, “This is what you get for living out in this godforsaken place on your own,” melted away. She fought the queasiness that had overcome her.

“Why didn’t you call me?” her voice was breaking. “I was so . . . worried . . .”

“Because—well, I didn’t think it was my place to go against your momma’s wishes. You know what she’s like.”

They pulled into the parking garage. Larry had the three dollars for the attendant ready in advance, obviously a regular visitor. He took one of the hundred empty spots.

“What’s your last name, Larry?”

“You’re not going to tell the cops on me now, are you?” he smiled. “It’s Burk. Without the e.”

“If this ever happens again, can I call you?”

“Let’s better hope this dun happen again. But yes, honey. ’Course you may.”

Mary-Sue was sleeping on her belly like an infant when Larry escorted Kate to her room. Apart from the Band-Aid on her left temple and the outlines of gauze under her hospital clothes, she looked pretty much the same as she’d always looked. Kate was relieved. With her eyes closed and her body rising and falling in a steady rhythm, Mary-Sue even looked restful. But Kate could hardly bear to glance at her mother. Each glimpse of her in that bed was a confirmation of some unstoppable truth—we aged, we got weak, we didn’t love our mothers enough.

The room was decorated à la Golden Girls—salmon, jade, brass, all thrown together in a budget-conscious stab at island style. It was also shared. The other bed was occupied by a large Jamaican lady named Maggie, and Maggie’s way of celebrating the recovery of her collapsed lung was to crunch through a colossal bag of spicy Doritos.