Viridian leaned toward me as the nurse reached for her arm on the other side of the bed and wrapped it in the blood pressure cuff. “Read A Defence of Poetry,” she said. “That’s Shelley. Very important.”

“All right,” I said again.

“It’s difficult but I have confidence in you. Now don’t disappoint me.”

“I won’t,” I said, although I didn’t know how to avoid disappointing her or anyone else.

“Poor Shelley. He drowned at sea, you know. When they found him, fish had eaten his face and hands.”

“Now that’s not a very cheerful thought,” the nurse said.

“‘Full fathom five the poet lies.’” Viridian gave me an impish look, as if this was a joke we were both in on.

I left them alone and waited in the corridor for the nurse to come out. The nurse said not to worry, when they brought blood pressure down in a hurry, it could send you on a little ride. Especially if they lowered it too fast, especially in older people. “Is she your grandmother?”

“Just a friend.” It was hard to think of her as a grandmother. My grandma had collected Beanie Babies and watched reruns of Matlock.

I found the other three in the waiting room down the hall. They stopped talking when I walked in, as if there was something I wasn’t meant to hear. I wasn’t going to tell them what I’d witnessed either. It had all been too strange and unsettling, and in another sense, mortifying.

“I got her a sandwich,” I said. “In case she wanted something.”

“Great,” Oscar said. “Thanks. We were just trying to come up with a battle plan. Barb’s going to drive me back to Fairfax. We’ll both be here in the morning when she’s released, and we’ll get her home. Boone’s going to stay here this evening in case she needs anything.”

There wasn’t any part in this for me. Maybe I would get to see my mom for dinner after all. “Okay,” I said. “I have a couple of days before the conference, so—”

“The bloody conference,” Oscar groaned. “The earth should only swallow it.”

“Try and think positive,” Barb said, although she did not sound especially positive.

I said, “I don’t think she’ll be able to go.”

“Well not if she had to go this minute,” Barb said, as if that was what I’d suggested. When Barb decided to get on your nerves, she pretty much stayed there. They all stood up. “Should we look in on her before we go?”

“I think she’s resting,” I said. I thought everybody else could pass on hearing about drowned poets.