Edison looked down at his mother on the hospital bed. He had brought her a special blanket, one he had shipped from their house on Earth. It was crocheted with little blue and orange flowers, and cheered up the dreary white and gray sheets folded over her legs. Diana, shriveled, small, spoke to him through her oxygen mask.

“You’re awake,” Edison said, frowning. “But you’ve been asleep for months . . .”

“It’s you,” she said, patting the bed by her knees. “You woke me up. Where are Candace and Joey?”

“He doesn’t like it here.” Sitting next to her, he could feel the scary thinness of her leg through the blanket. He ran his hand over the blue and orange flowers. “It upsets him.”

“It upsets you, too.”

Edison didn’t say anything, swallowing around a lump.

“But you come to see me, it upsets you but you come to see me,” she said, smiling as much as she could through the mask. “Because you love your mother, baby. You’ve always been such a good son.”

A nurse came in, sighing, consulting an overstuffed clipboard. Her name tag was blank, and when Edison tried to look at her face, it was nothing but a smudge, a blur. He squinted, but she never came into focus.

“Something isn’t right,” he whispered.

“Mr. Aries? I think you should leave now,” the nurse said, her voice warped, almost a garble. But he knew what she said, and what she wanted.

“I’m staying with my mother.”

“That’s right, baby. You stay here with your mother.” Diana reached for his hand, and he took it, cradling the baby-bird lightness of it carefully in his palm.

“It’s time for you to go,” the nurse said, never putting down her clipboard. “Now.”

Diana sat up, struggling, leaning toward him. She smelled sour and dusty, her hair badly in need of a wash. “Don’t let her take me, baby. Don’t let her kill your mother.”

“What?”

A nurse wouldn’t do that . . . It was his decision. Of course it was his decision. But his mother had woken up, hadn’t she? The life support could be taken away. They would run some tests, of course, make sure she was in good enough shape to get off the oxygen, but then she would be better.

He stared at the nurse for a long time, trying to make a face out of the fuzzy space where a nose and mouth should be. Soft, strange noises came from her, as if something were stuck in her chest, a hiccup, but louder and more like a voice. He strained to hear it, but nothing became clear, and then he saw her darting forward, toward the bed. Toward the machine.

“No!”