The fluorescent lights at St. Catherine Children’s Hospital did not flicker.
Rebecca Hale sometimes wished they would.
A flicker would have made them seem temporary.
A loose wire.
A tired bulb.
Something that could be fixed by replacing a part.
Instead, the lights burned with relentless white certainty over every corridor, every nurses’ station, every plastic chair, every closed door behind which a family was being told something they had never imagined hearing.
Rebecca had spent seventy-three days beneath those lights.
Long enough to know which vending machine ate dollar bills.
Long enough to recognize the night nurses by their footsteps.
Long enough to understand that 4:00 a.m. was not truly morning inside a hospital because nothing ever began there.
Things merely continued.
Machines continued.
Waiting continued.
Fear continued.
And in room 317, her ten-year-old daughter continued getting smaller.
Lily lay beneath a white blanket with her head turned toward the window.
Beyond the glass, rain blurred the city into gray streaks.
Her light-brown hair had become thinner during the past year. Her cheeks, once rounded from a childhood spent eating too much peanut butter and stealing frosting from mixing bowls, had narrowed.
Her eyes remained the same.
Huge.
Blue-gray.
Observant.
Too observant for a child.
Rebecca stood beside the bed holding a paper cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink.
“Mom?”
Rebecca immediately looked down.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Lily’s voice was soft.
“Is it raining?”
Rebecca glanced toward the window.
“Yes.”
“Hard?”
“Pretty hard.”
“Good.”
Rebecca smiled faintly.
“Why good?”
Lily remained facing the window.
“Because Dad hates driving in rain.”
Rebecca’s fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
There were days when Lily spoke about Mark constantly.
There were other days when she did not mention him at all.
Rebecca never knew which hurt more.
“Your father isn't driving today.”
“Oh.”
Lily’s eyes shifted toward the dialysis machine.
The mechanical rhythm continued beside the bed.
She had stopped asking what every sound meant.
That frightened Rebecca more than the first week, when Lily asked questions about everything.
What does that number mean?
Why is that tube red?
Why do kidneys stop?
Can they wake up again?
Does dialysis hurt everybody?
Will I have to do this forever?
Now Lily simply knew.
Children adapted to terrible things with an efficiency adults often praised as bravery because admitting the truth was harder.
They adapted because they had no choice.
Rebecca sat in the chair beside the bed.
“Do you want me to turn on something?”
“No.”
“Movie?”
“No.”
“Music?”
Lily shook her head.
Rebecca placed her coffee on the windowsill.
“What do you want?”
Lily thought.
“Tell me something normal.”
Rebecca’s throat tightened.
“What counts as normal?”
“Something from home.”
Rebecca looked toward the ceiling for ideas.
“Mrs. Patel’s orange cat got into our yard again.”
Lily’s mouth moved slightly.
“Mango?”
“Yes.”
“He isn't orange.”
“He is definitely orange.”
“He’s apricot.”
Rebecca smiled.
“My apologies.”
“What did he do?”
“Sat on your swing.”
“My swing?”
“For forty minutes.”