Chapter 9 - Gold Necklaces
The hallway outside the ICU didn't look like a hallway anymore by that evening. The lights had gone low and yellow, and every door made the same soft hiss when it opened. I sat on the plastic chairs with my legs tucked under me because my feet wouldn't reach the floor right.
Mom sat next to me but not really next to me. She'd pulled one chair out a little, like she needed air. Her beige blouse was wrinkled at the elbows now and one side had come untucked from her dark pants. She kept reaching up to her neck.
She twisted those thin gold necklaces over and over. I'd watched her do it in the bedroom that morning by the glass doors. Then it had looked like panic. Now it looked like she was checking if they were still there.
"You hungry?" she asked. Her voice sounded scraped.
I shook my head. Through the narrow window in Rose's door I could see the edge of her bed and the tube taped to her hand. A nurse moved in and out of the frame.
Mom followed where I was looking. "They won't let us both go in right now," she said. "Just for a minute when she settles."
I picked at the arm of the chair. I'd told myself on the school sidewalk that afternoon I had to see Rose alone to ask if she was mad I didn't wake her up faster. Now that I was that close, my chest felt too tight to stand up.
Mom dug in her purse. She pulled out lip balm, receipts, my old library card, and then a folded paper that was soft at the creases from being opened too many times. She held it flat on her knees but didn't hand it to me right away.
"Grandma gave me this last month," she said. "After her appointment in town."
I leaned over. It was a form with boxes checked in shaky blue ink. At the top it said Advance Directive in big letters. Rose's name was printed, but the line for her signature at the bottom was empty.
I didn't know what half the words meant. "No machines?" Mom said quietly, answering before I asked. She touched one checked box. "She told Dr. Patel she didn't want them. No chest pressing. No tube to breathe for her. She said she'd lived long enough to decide how the morning should come."
She folded it again and twisted her necklaces so hard the gold left a red mark. I heard the little clink of the chains catching.
"Did the doctor sign it?" I asked.
Mom shook her head. "She never turned it in. She said she'd sign it when she was ready. She kept saying, let me have one more normal week, Elena. Let me sleep in my own bed."
The ICU door hissed again and a man with an oxygen tank shuffled past with his daughter holding his elbow. Mom waited until they turned the corner.
Her hand stopped on her necklaces. "That night before — she woke up and couldn't catch her breath. She sat on the edge of the bed and held my wrist real hard. She said, promise me you won't call them to poke at me tonight. Promise you'll let the morning come natural."
My stomach dropped. "You promised?"
"I told her I'd stay with her," Mom said. She looked down at her hands. "I sat in that armchair until almost four. Her breathing got slower. I thought — I thought if I waited until daylight she might wake up and change her mind and sign it proper. Or get better on her own."
I stared at her. The words came out before I could make them polite. "Why didn't you call sooner?"
Mom flinched. Not big. Just her mouth pulling in at the corners the way it had in that tight close-up look I couldn't forget from the bedroom. She reached for my hand and then stopped halfway, her fingers hovering over the chair.
May you like
"Because I promised her," she whispered. "And because I was scared if I broke that promise, she'd never forgive me. And I was scared if I kept it, you would never forgive me."
Through the doorway glass, Rose's monitor gave a steady beep. Mom stood up when the nurse waved, still holding that unsigned paper, her necklaces twisted tight against her throat.
