As if my arrival inconvenienced her.
My instructor stayed beside me.
“Mrs. Maura came in with dizziness and chest pressure,” she said. “She is stable. The team is still evaluating her.”
My mother looked away.
“I told them not to bother you.”
The nurse at the desk behind us coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like disagreement.
I stepped closer.
“How are you feeling?”
My voice sounded professional.
That surprised me.
“Embarrassed,” she muttered.
“That is not a symptom.”
Her mouth twitched.
Almost a smile.
Then it vanished.
“I had not eaten,” she said. “I was at work, and I got lightheaded.”
I blinked.
“At work?”
She looked at her blanket.
“I picked up morning shifts at a bakery counter.”
I had not known.
Of course I had not known.
We were barely speaking.
My mother, who once judged everyone else’s choices from the kitchen table, was working early shifts on her feet because she had drained her safety net trying to save everyone.
