My son forgot to pick me up from the hospital, so I rented a car, drove home, and found out they’d changed the locks, so I changed the will. “I did not forget to pick you up, Delilah. I chose not to.
So what? Let them wheel your old corpse into the hospital morgue and leave you there. Honestly, every time I see you, I want to throw up.”
I remember the click of the hospital clock, the hollow sound it made every hour, like a knock on a door no one was ever going to open.
I was lying there, sore from gallbladder surgery, with the IV drip hissing beside me and a dull throb crawling under my ribs, each breath stretched against the bandage wrapping my abdomen. The nurse had just said I could be discharged. I nodded, feigned gratitude, and reached for my phone.
Outside the window, the trees of late autumn in Maine stood like tired old ghosts, their branches twitching in a wind that smelled like the end of something. I had called him five times—Grayson Cotter, my only son, my only child. First call straight to voicemail.
Second, the same. The third connected, then dropped. The fourth rang, no answer.
Fifth time he picked up. I barely got out a hello before he launched in, voice sharp like tin in my ear. My fingers clenched the phone, knuckles aching.
I didn’t speak. I didn’t trust my voice, but I heard hers—Belle, my daughter-in-law—laughing behind him. That tight, mocking laugh she used like punctuation.
“Why is she calling again? Jesus, it’s like having a zombie on speed dial. Smells the same, too.”
Grayson didn’t correct her.
He chuckled, that same condescending sound he used on telemarketers. “Don’t call us every five minutes like a lost dog. We’re not your taxi, old woman.”
Click.
The silence after was louder than the beeping of my monitor. I just sat there. My hands shook, not just from the anesthesia wearing off, but from something heavier, something final.
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Thank you so much and keep listening. The nurse came in with my discharge papers. She smiled gently and asked if my family was on their way.
I lied and said yes. I packed slowly—each movement tugged at the incision, like my body itself was reluctant to move forward. I folded my nightgown into the small canvas bag and paused by the window.
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