Page 68 of Nightwatching

He was startled by her voice. She was, too. It sounded as if she’d taken up a pack-a-day habit and years had passed since they’d last seen each other.

“Wha—huh?”

“Where are my kids?”

“They said you were awake. I was hoping we could discuss the break-in.”

“My kids?”

“They’re with your father-in-law.”

“No,” she croaked. “Nope.”

She tried to push herself up, sit higher on the bed. Looked around for her phone to call someone, anyone, else.

“Hey, relax. They’re okay. A caseworker’s checking in on them.”

She pulled at the tubes, heard a beeping start.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to—ma’am, stop that!”

Pull, pull, pop, pop. Hands, dizziness, and darkness.

—

She was alone in a half-lit room. She didn’t know where she was.

Just float away and find them.

She sat up, put her legs over the side of the bed. They werewrapped in gauze, her feet cocooned huge and white. She stood up and then went weightless. Felt her cheek meet the floor with a crack in a vague, distant way.

—

When she opened her eyes, she understood she was in a hospital bed. The pain was a living thing, squirming and shifting. Her face had become a swollen rift. She tried to lift her hand to her head to touch it, assess the damage, and found that she was restrained. Padded Velcro cuffs held her wrists to the bed. One hand was bandaged. Tubes came from her arm, tangled like a sterile spiderweb. She couldn’t reach to pull them out. She could only barely reach a button printed with a lady in a dress.

“Yes?” came a disembodied voice.

“Help!”

“What do you need, ma’am? You hit the nurse call button.”

“I’m tied up. Please help me!”

“That’s for your own safety. You fell out of bed. You’ve been pulling out your lines. Just try to rest.”

She thrashed.

“Stop that, ma’am, just—”

The voice went dead. She threw herself back and forth on the bed and was exhausted so quickly that by the time the nurses arrived she was still and weakened.

“It’s okay, ma’am. You keep trying to walk and pull your tubes out. This is so you don’t hurt yourself.”

“My children?”

“Yes, we’ve told you, they’re with your father-in-law.”

“No. No.”

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