They kept her two nights. The children came. Mark stood at the window of the room as if the parking lot had offended him. Helen spoke with the nurses and made a list. Lydia sat by the bed and held her mother's good hand and tried not to look as if she were competing with the list. Ruth was there when they arrived and was still there when visiting hours bent. No one asked her to leave. No one, either, asked her what she needed. She drank bad coffee from a machine and texted Mrs. Adelman to check that the porch light had been turned on.
On the second night, when Evelyn was asleep and Ruth had gone down the hall to stretch her back, Helen and Mark and Lydia stood in the family waiting room under a television no one was watching. The room smelled of wool and vending-machine chocolate. Helen said, "We should talk about the house before we are talking about it in a worse room."
"She's not dying," Lydia said.
"She is seventy-eight and she had a stroke on the steps," Helen said. "I am not burying her. I am trying not to be surprised."
Mark rubbed his face. He had driven four hours and his eyes were red. "If we don't decide, she'll decide. And she decides strangely when she thinks she's protecting someone."