Margaret looked toward my mother.
“She wouldn’t let go of my hand.”
I said nothing.
“Whenever I tried to leave, she became frightened.”
Doctors believed Mom had experienced some kind of injury that affected her memory.
The hospital had registered her as unidentified.
But because she had been found in another jurisdiction, nobody connected her to the missing-person report back home.
Then Thomas explained the ring.
During Mom’s examination, nurses had removed it.
She kept trying to put it back on, but she had lost so much weight that it no longer fit properly.
Margaret volunteered to keep it safe.
“I was worried it might disappear,” she said. “There are so many people coming in and out of hospital rooms.”
So she placed the ring
inside her purse.
For weeks, Margaret and Thomas visited my mother almost every day.
She had no family that anyone could identify.
No name.
No memories.
And they couldn’t bring themselves to abandon her.
The previous night was their anniversary.
After spending weeks going back and forth between home and the hospital, they decided to have one dinner together.
That explained everything.
Thomas had kept looking at his phone because they were waiting for updates about the unidentified woman in room 318.
Then the hospital called.
Mom had suffered a seizure.
“We didn’t even think about the restaurant bill,” Thomas said. “We barely thought about anything. We just came straight here.”
The anger I had been carrying disappeared.
In its place came embarrassment.
“You stayed with her this whole time?”
Margaret looked toward the hospital bed.
“We kept hoping someone would eventually come looking for her.”
My eyes filled with
tears.
“I did.”
