I stand at the foot of the hospital bed with my arms crossed over my chest because I don't know what else to do with them, surrounded by the familiar smells of a sterile hospital. They even use the same orange-scented cleaning products.
One visitor per patient. Charlotte had fought the nurse on it, her voice clipped and professional, throwing around her medical credentials—she's a doctor, apparently—but even she failed to overcome the strict limitation.
Apparently, their dad had been here all morning and conveniently stepped out to discuss something with the doctor, giving me this precious moment with a woman I don't know.
So here I am. Alone with a sleeping woman both familiar and not.
She's asleep. She's not in a coma, at least according to the nurse. Just lightly sedated. She'll wake on her own. Her vitals are stable.
Though stable feels like a generous word.
The monitor above her head blinks in steady green intervals. Heart rate: 78. Oxygen saturation: 96%. Blood pressure: 158 over 94.
Still high.
I don't need a medical degree to know that number should be lower after treatment; I've been through it myself. My gaze flicks back to it every few seconds, as if watching the digits will force them to drop through sheer willpower, but in reality it only updates every fifteen minutes when the cuff goes off.
The woman in the bed—Elaine Graham, according to her wristband—lies propped against two thin pillows. Her dark hair fans across the white cotton, silver threads catching the fluorescent light. Her face is slack in sleep, softer than it must be when she's awake.
She's small. The hospital gown swallows her shoulders.
And she looks like my mother.
Not exactly. Not feature for feature. But the shape of her—the delicate wrists, the way her lips press together even in sleep like she's mid-disapproval, the slight furrow between her brows that never quite smooths out. The silver at her temples.
My real mother had that same furrow. That same unconscious severity, even at rest.
When I first walked in, my feet stopped working. Just—stopped. Mid-stride, three feet from the bed, like the floor turned to concrete around my ankles. The nurse had to touch my elbow to guide me forward.
Because for one horrible, disorienting second, I was back in a different hospital. Different machines. Same smell. Same helpless, useless feeling of standing beside a bed and knowing there's nothing—nothing—I could do.
I pull my chair closer.
Her hand rests on top of the blanket, an IV line taped neatly to the back of it. I reach for it, closing my fingers around hers.
Her skin is cool.
I don't say anything.
What would I say? Hi, I'm not actually your daughter, but I'm wearing her face and sitting in her chair and holding your hand because I can't seem to let go? Obviously not.
Something beeps, the kind of steady beep so you know things are working. It's almost comforting.
My throat aches.
This isn't my mother. I know that. I know that. My mother died in a hospital bed six years ago, and I held her hand just like this, and she told me to stop crying because I was making her sad. And I laughed through my tears and told her she was impossible. And she said, "You got it from somewhere, baby."
This isn't her.
But my heart doesn't seem to understand the distinction.
I press my lips together and stare at our joined hands.
The original Vivienne. The one whose body I wear, whose life I've stumbled into. She hasn't spoken to this woman in over a year. Hasn't called. Hasn't visited.
But this ache in my chest—this isn't the grief of a stranger. This isn't detachment or apathy or cruelty. This body hurts for the woman in this bed. Some muscle-memory of love that the original Vivienne carved so deep it survived whatever hollowed her out.
She isn't heartless. She does care.
So why? Why shut them out? Why let them suffer?
What happened to her, that made silence feel safer than connection?
The cuff goes off and her blood pressure updates. 149/91.
Slightly lower. Good. Good.
I squeeze her fingers and say nothing, because every word I could offer would be a lie from someone she's never met.
Minutes pass. The cuff goes off twice more, and each time her blood pressure dips a couple points lower.
Her fingers twitch in mine.
Then tighten.
"Vivi."
The name comes out broken and hoarse, barely more than breath. Her eyelids flutter—once, twice—then crack open. Blue eyes, unfocused and searching the ceiling before drifting sideways.
I lean over the bed rail, forcing a smile.
"I'm right here, Mama." The word slips out—unbidden, instinctive, pulled from somewhere beneath conscious thought. My fingers brush the hair from her forehead, tucking the silver-streaked strands behind her ear with tenderness. "I'm right here."
Her eyes lock on my face, her eyes clearing as she stares. Her chin trembles. Her eyes fill—not slowly, but all at once, like a dam giving way. Tears spill down her temples and into her hair, and her other hand rises from the blanket to reach for my face.
Her palm cups my cheek. Cool fingers against my skin, thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone the way mothers do. The way my mother used to. Like she's memorizing the shape of me.
I lean into it helplessly. The ache in my chest cracks wide open and I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste copper.
Then her expression changes. The softness drains and her jaw sets, the furrow between her brows deepening. Her wet eyes narrow.
Her hand pulls away and comes forward again, weak and open-palmed against my cheek. There's barely enough force to sting, and yet it lands like a slap from God.
Then she snorts.
"Get out."
I flinch. "Mom—"
"I'm not your mother," she says coldly.