“He woke up and he can’t breathe,” my mother explained. “His chest hurt, his left side, and I think, oh my God, not now, please. I called the 911, and they come so fast, but I do the CPR thing anyway. When they come, they tell me I did good job, and then they take him. I only stopped to take your number with me.”

“You did CPR?”

“Yes. It helped, because he really stop breathing.”

“How did you know how to do CPR?”

“I take the course, after he in the hospital last time. They make me practice on the big doll.”

“I can’t believe you learned CPR.”

“It’s easy,” she said dismissively. “Look—Michael.”

I looked down at him, and indeed he was awake, wide-eyed, staring at us. “Oh, I didn’t even realize—”

“Shhh …” she said softly.

“He’s probably hungry. He’ll start crying in a minute.”

“No, no, he’s sleeping.” She rocked the stroller back and forth gently, and his eyelids dropped down slowly upon his cheeks.

“You used to do that, when you were baby. You open your eyes in the sleep, so you look awake, but still asleep.”

I sat down on the long, vinyl-upholstered bench in the corner. “He still wakes up every night, at least two or three times, to eat.”

“Soon he will sleep long. You start sleeping long when you were six months. So he have time.”

“I’m adjusting, but I’m still tired all the time,” I confessed to her.

“Because you do it by yourself. You should not do by yourself.”

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Exhausted and irritable, I wondered why on earth I was doing this by myself. How had I ended up raising a child on my own?

“I don’t know how it happened this way.”

“Because you stubborn.” When I looked up at her, ready to say something, she quickly added, “Like me. You just like me, Hanan. Is this so bad?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say to her.

The nurse walked in then and checked my father’s vital signs. “Looking good,” she said to us. “The doctor will be in soon to check on him.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“We have some coffee behind the nurses’ station, if you like,” she said to us. “The cafeteria upstairs won’t open for another few hours.”

“OK,” I said. I offered to get some for my mom and myself.

“No, I get it. I stay awake with Baba and the baby. You sleep.”

“No, I’m fine …” I started to protest.

“You tired, Hanan. You have to sleep.”

She left and returned a few minutes later with a large paper cup in her hand. “This American coffee so disgusting. It tastes like dirty water,” she said. “American people—they drink coffee only to stay awake. Not to enjoy it.”