“Why not?” Jo asked as we followed her down a bright, narrow aisle of curtained cubicles.

“It’s the holidays. Nobody wants to spend Christmas in the hospital. We don’t have any elective procedures at all scheduled for tomorrow. Here we go.” She grasped the edge of a striped curtain. “Abby, your daughters are here.”

Our mother lay flat, attached by tubes and cords to an IV drip and an array of flashing, beeping machines. The partitioned space barely held her gurney and a chair for our father.

I edged past his knees to kiss my mother, her pale face framed by a blue paper shower cap. “Hey, Momma.”

She smiled with parched lips. “Hey, baby.” Her voice was thick, her words slurred.

“Jo’s here, too.” I squeezed back to let my sister through.

“Mom.” Jo stooped, her curtain of hair falling to hide her face.

Our mother stroked her head. “Iss fine, sweethear’. I’ll be fine.”

The curtain rattled. “Okay, we’re ready for you, Abby,” a different nurse announced cheerfully. “You all can have a seat in the waiting room,” she told us. “Or get yourselves some breakfast. Cafeteria’s open.”

We kissed our mother again before she was wheeled away. It felt horribly like good-bye.

The nurse gave our father a card with our mother’s surgery number. Carrying the plastic bag full of her things, we returned to the waiting room. A family crouched forward in their chairs, looking up anxiously as we came through the door. A man worked on his laptop. A woman in a pink tracksuit turned the pages of a magazine while a teenager played with his phone.

Our father walked to the window and stared out at the rain, hands clasped behind his back.

“How’s your mom?” John asked.

“Fine,” I said. The alternative—that she was not fine, that she wasn’t going to be fine—was unbearable.

Jo looked fierce, a sure sign she was trying not to cry. “What if she’s not?” she asked in a low voice. “She could have nerve damage. She might need another surgery. There could be complications.”

“You’ve been reading Dr. Google,” John said.

“How did you know?” Jo demanded.

“Meg does the same thing every time the kids get sick. Sit down. You want coffee?”

While John fetched coffee, we sat. Jo had brought a book and her laptop. I had my phone, fully charged. But my eyes, my brain, could not focus on my newsfeed, my friends’ adorable kid pictures and cat videos. I watched the numbers on the big screen in the corner, waiting for the color to change from red to green.

“March family?”

My father turned from the window.

“Dr. Chatworth just started the surgery,” the nurse liaison said. “Everything looks good. He was able to go in with a minimally invasive technique. Abby is doing well.”

“What do you mean, started surgery?” Jo said. “We’ve been out here an hour already.”

“It takes a while to get your mother prepped,” the nurse explained. “If you want to get something to eat, now’s a good time, so you don’t miss the surgeon when he comes out. I’ll update you again in two hours.”