Chapter 5
Julian exhaled and shut the folder.
“That took courage,” he said.
“It didn’t feel like courage. It felt like falling.”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing.” He briefly touched the bed rail. “I’ll be in the waiting room. I’m not leaving until Dr. Patel says the crisis window has passed.”
“Julian, you have a family. Go home.”
“So do you, Miranda,” he said. “It just doesn’t look the way you expected.”
He left before I could respond.
Marisol slowly checked my IV, chart, and the pillow beneath my injured arm. She looked to be in her forties, with a thick braid pinned behind her head and reading glasses resting like a headband. She never seemed rushed, and I’d noticed the entire floor felt calmer when she worked.
“Can I say something?” she asked.
“Please.”
“I have watched full grown men faint at the sight of a needle.” She smiled a little. “You just dismantled your whole family with a broken wrist and a steady voice. I don’t know if that’s the bravest thing I’ve seen this year or the saddest.”
“Maybe both.”
“Maybe both,” she agreed, and to my surprise she pulled the visitor’s chair to the side of my bed and sat down in it. “I’m on until seven. Your numbers are up. I’m going to sit here until they come down.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
She simply stayed, one hand near mine on the blanket without touching.
Something inside me broke open. I’d expected tears over Mom, Dad, the past, perhaps even the house. Instead, I cried because a stranger had chosen to sit beside me.
Marisol said nothing. She handed me tissues, fixed my blanket, then turned the wall clock away from my view. Such a small gesture, yet I noticed.
“When I was nine,” she said quietly, “my mother worked two jobs. Cleaning offices at night, sewing during the day. We had almost no money. She couldn’t buy me toys or nice shoes or a bicycle like the other children had.” She smiled at the memory. “But she never missed a school program. Not one. She would come straight from work, still in her uniform, and sit in the very back, and clap louder than anyone in the room. I always knew where she was. I could find her in a crowd with my eyes closed.”
She met my eyes.
“Presence is the only thing a person truly can’t fake, Miranda. Money can be given from far away. Love has to be brought in person.”
