“In my country, mothers leave their children to work in America to send money home, but I never know in my life a mother like yours who leaves for nothing. Selfish! At first, I am angry and hate her for you. But now I see it differently. I see that maybe she thinks you are better not with her.” Anna stops stroking my hair, props herself up on one elbow, and looks at me with sharp eyes. “But now, you felt that I too abandoned you, yes Jackie? You think I stopped loving you? Never. Yes, I didn’t give you all my attention anymore. That was very hard for you. And you were not nice to me and that was hard too. You think I changed? My clothes, my jewelry, friends? Where I grew up, I wanted only to survive. So maybe I became like a teenager. Maybe I wanted to be like a popular girl in school. I didn’t do it perfect, that is true. But I loved you, Jackie. Not as a nanny. Not a love with a salary. No, you are my one and only child. But I am not your one and only mother.”

A nurse peeks in the door, but Anna waves her away. Then she lies back down and brings her lips to my ear. “Jackie, my daughter, my sweet love,” she whispers, “I’ve gone against your father’s wishes and called your mother. She’ll be here soon. Hang on.”

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM

DAWN

DAY 49

I am trying my hardest to die before my mother arrives.

Nurse Dani enters, slowly pushing a metal cart. Various instruments of torture rattle as she approaches. No skip in her step now with Brett on location. I know just how that feels.

They’ve moved me back to my old room with its Pier One furniture and shopping center view to live out the rest of my days. There is nothing more to be done. “The die is cast,” as they say. So many phrases about dying become relevant when one is actually at the end. For instance, seeing my mother is “A fate worse than death.” I hope I “bite the dust” before she comes.

Dani wheels around the wicker settee and yanks open the blinds, flooding the room with light. A semi-circle of sun sits humpty-dumpty atop the roof-top parking of the Beverly Center.

She plugs the needle into a syringe and prepares to do battle with my exhausted veins. Twice a day they take my blood—pointless though it seems. Nurse Dani taps sharply on the inside of my junkie-bruised arm before finally pinching up something suitable for poking.

“Gotcha,” she mutters, sticking me.