My mother’s hand is on my temple, nails sweeping the remaining hair on the right side out of my face. Her voice is soft, and she says my name over and over again until I open my eyes. Staring into her face, the line of her thin nose and wide mouth, I’m overwhelmed by a strange and sudden feeling of déjà vu. Another hospital. Light fingers on my forehead.

She blinks and draws into herself. The vulnerability disappears behind her black-framed glasses.

“You’re awake.”

“You’re here,” I say dryly, taking in her gray blazer and slacks, the neatness of her hair.

“I’ve been here every day,” she says, straightening the cuff of her blouse. “You’ve been asleep.”

To list everyone else I’ve seen would be petulant. But I would if there weren’t cat’s claws strangling my vocal cords.

Danae strides across the room, nods at my mother, and notes something on her clipboard.

“I don’t know what her problem is,” I say after she marches out again.

“You tried to punch her while she was sponge-bathing you. You also pulled out your ventilator and accused her of lighting matches under your bed.”

My mouth drops open. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were semiconscious.”

“Well,” I begin, “she can hardly blame me—”

“None of the other nurses will work with you.”

I frown.

“Where’s Dad?” I ask, changing the subject.

She clears her throat. “You know your father hates hospitals. I’ve been sending him hourly updates. Don’t think he doesn’t care.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “He’s barely eaten or slept since we got the call—”

I roll my eyes.

My mother’s defense of my father is legendary. A Rhodes scholar and world-traveling journalist, legend has it, he took one look at my book-clutching, Simone de Beauvoir–quoting mother and changed his hippie, let-the-wind-blow-him-in-any-and-all-directions ways, determined that this anti-anything-resembling-a-patriarchal-institution woman would marry him and bear his children. I was born two years later, and my mother hyphenated her last name. His friends loved to regale me with stories of my father joining peaceful revolutions in Thailand, dogging the president of Myanmar for six weeks, and tripping on ayahuasca so he could write a full-fledged report on the Achuar people. This thrill-loving, adventurous man did not match the nightmare-suffering, verging-on-agoraphobic person I grew up with, who feared everything from tornadoes to virus-carrying waiters, refused to let me participate in gymnastics, and wouldn’t talk to me for weeks when I announced my plans to join the force. No one else seemed bothered by this contradiction. And the one time my teenaged self sarcastically asked, “What happened?” the laughter was sucked out of the room, my father’s eyes clouded over, and my nothing-ruffles-her-feathers mother shouted at me for the first time in my life.