The day they let me out of the hospital, my mother brought me a sweater with the tags still on.
It was gray. Cashmere. A size too big. She’d bought it at the department store in the mall on her way to pick me up. She held it out to me in the discharge room without saying hello.
“Put this on,” she said. “Over the gown. Before we go through the lobby.”
“I have my own clothes,” I said. “In the bag.”
“Put it on, Stacey.”
I put it on. It was soft and it smelled like the store. It came down past my hands. I think that was the point. I think she wanted to cover my arms, even though there was nothing on my arms to cover. I think she just wanted to cover something.
A nurse named Gloria walked us to the elevator. She was older, with gray braids and reading glasses on a beaded chain. She’d been on my floor for most of the three weeks I was there. She used to come sit with me at night when I couldn’t sleep. She never asked questions. She just sat.
At the elevator, Gloria squeezed my hand.
“You call that number on your paper if it gets dark again,” she said quietly. “Day or night. You hear me? There are people whose whole job is to pick up.”
“I hear you,” I said.
My mother pressed the elevator button three times, fast, like it would come quicker.
In the car, she didn’t say anything for twenty minutes. My father drove. He kept both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. The radio was off.
Finally, at a red light on Highway 31, my mother said, “Your aunt Linda asked where you’ve been. I told her mono.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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