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George was trying to speak to her daughter, but the nurse Ruth didn’t like, the one who wore the old-fashioned white dress and cap, sidled between them.

She pressed her cold fingers to the inside of George’s wrist. What was the point of these nurses taking her vital signs anymore?

She had so little time left, and she had so many things to say to Ruth.

Maybe she’d already said them. Her memories scattered.

She was too tired to corral them. Completing a thought or a sentence, raising her voice above a whispery rasp took so much strength.

She closed her eyes. She’d rest for a moment, then try again.

She woke to the torment of the mattress, plank-hard beneath her spine.

She yearned for and dreaded the morphine.

The drug stretched and contracted time, made it elastic, untrackable.

Was it day or night? In the glare of the yellow hospital lights, always day.

Every time she opened her eyes, there was Ruth.

Often Tom. Sometimes Frank. Never Vivian.

Nor Ivy. She’d stopped expecting Ivy. But always, always Ruth.

“Not for another hour,” said the nurse, to something Ruth asked her.

Then she was gone. “My daughter,” said George, and Ruth took her hand, which hurt.

Everything hurt. Even the sheets against her skin.

But she endured it. “My daughter,” she said again.

“Love.” She had hoped to get out “you,” but another wave of pain crested within her.

There had been a day—maybe it was yesterday, impossible to be sure.

A day of so little pain, and she’d been alert.

Ruth had been there, and Tom and Frank, and they had all laughed together, even Tom and Frank.

And she’d thought, Why wasn’t it like this all the time?

Why weren’t we like this all the time? Why only now? Oh, right. Because of the dying.

The dying meant it was time to say everything that needed saying.

To tell Ruth all of it. She couldn’t leave that task to Vivian.

Where was Vivian? George pushed her mind to the surface.

“Ruth,” she rasped, and her beautiful daughter turned toward her.

“Ruth, you were born on January eleventh. I suppose that’s your real birthday.

There’s so much interest in what’s ‘real.’ I have to say, I don’t necessarily agree that ‘real’ is what matters. ”

Ruth shushed her and stroked her arm.

“What’s she saying?” asked Tom, looming over Ruth’s shoulder.

“I’m not sure. Something about a birthday.”

She tried again. “We were wrong to keep it from you. Not wrong to do it. You were mine before you were even born, regardless of what’s ‘real.’ You were mine. You are mine. Should have told you both,” said George. “You and Ivy. When you were young.”

“I think she’s asking for Ivy,” said Ruth. “She’s coming, Mom. She’ll be here soon.” But George still knew a lie when she heard one. She fought to stay awake, to keep speaking, to tell Ruth everything.

“Ivy,” she’d said, when the nurse brought in the forms and asked the baby’s name. “Ivy Amelia Rutledge.”

“Ivy’s a nice name,” mumbled Vivian. She’d entered the hospital room bearing Ruth before her like an offering, holding her as far from her body as it was possible to hold a baby and still carry oneself somewhat comfortably.

This, along with Vivian’s flat response to the name Ivy, irritated George.

At least she’d picked a cheerful name for her daughter, and not something old fashioned.

Though George had praised the name Ruth when Vivian proposed it.

“Lovely,” she’d said, not just nice . “Ruth is just lovely.” And if her tone had sounded overenthusiastic, it was only because Vivian had added, “You can change it. Anything you like is fine with me.”

Under different circumstances, she would have named her daughter after Vivian. But that was impossible now. Ivy had a hint of Vivian about it, though. And that would have to be enough.

Ivy slept in the nursery down the hall. The nurses brought her in every four hours for a feeding.

She nursed, burped, tolerated having her diaper changed, gazed at George for a few moments, then drifted back to sleep.

At which point a nurse magically appeared and whisked her away again.

“So that you can sleep.” George, having grown up in Adele’s energetic household, had never realized a person could sleep so much.

After two days in the hospital, she felt as though she’d built up a lifetime reserve of rest. She couldn’t imagine ever needing more.

“Then tell them you want to come home,” said Vivian.

She was unencumbered now, having trundled Ruth into George’s eager arms. Ruth stared up at her with wide blue eyes, then nuzzled against her.

George had missed her terribly in the day they’d been apart.

“There’s my good girl,” she murmured. Vivian turned and walked to the window.

“Do you think they’ll let me?” George asked.

“Let you what?”

“Go home.” She supposed it was only natural that Vivian would be upset, distracted.

“You’re not under arrest.”

No, but she should be. Both of them should be, for what they were about to do.

“If they say no, just become a more difficult patient. They’ll kick you out in a flash.”

George inhaled the powdery scent of Ruth’s nearly bald head. She’d never liked being difficult.

“Look, George, if you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to take charge. Otherwise, I don’t see how you’ll manage it.”

“You’re right.”

“I know I am. Now, Quigley’s cousin is coming tomorrow. He’ll handle the paperwork.” Vivian quoted a scandalous price for the handling of the paperwork.

“Okay,” said George. She would have paid double if she’d had to.

“Good. I’d better go. Come home soon, George.

Promise?” Vivian, pinch faced, reached for Ruth, and George reluctantly surrendered the sweet weight of her.

Vivian’s dress hung loosely on her too-thin frame.

The delicate skin beneath her eyes looked bruised.

George wanted to trade places with her, tuck her into a hospital bed and go home with Ruth herself.

“Promise.”

“Should have told you both,” said George. Her ribs were an edifice constructed purely of pain, but she forced air up through her lungs, determined to be heard. “Should have told you both when you were young.”

“Sounds like someone has a secret to share,” said the white-capped nurse, materializing next to Ruth. “Not uncommon at this stage.”

“Just give her the morphine,” said Ruth. “Just do your goddamn job.”

The room fuzzed and dimmed, and she floated away from the pain, Ruth’s warm hand enclosing hers.

Sleep.

Voices.

Tom and Ruth talking. Too far away for her to catch the words. Her hand still in Ruth’s. She drifted between sleep and wakefulness, lulled by the sound of their voices until the current bore her out of earshot.

A comforting hum struck up in the center of her heart.

It strengthened and spread outward. Warming her to her fingertips, her toes, her scalp.

It revved, rocketed forward, the accelerating force of it pressing her against the mattress.

No pain now. Just that miraculous bursting instant when thrust overcame drag and she was released, aloft.

Rising. Up through a gray furze, escaping the cloud cover.

Ahead of her the golden ball of the sun.

Around her pure azure sky. So bright, but she kept her eyes wide open.

No need to squint. Such perfect blue. Such beautiful streaks of light rippling through it.

She picked up speed, soaring higher, racing straight toward the brilliant sun.