Seven weeks.
He could not stop thinking about that number.
He picked up the daisies.
"Well."
He looked awkwardly toward Simone.
"Good night, ma'am."
Lily watched him leave.
Richard spent forty minutes with his grandmother.
Evelyn complained about the hospital gelatin, the television remote, the temperature of her tea, and a cardiologist she described as "twelve years old with a medical degree."
Richard listened to all of it.
Before leaving, he kissed her forehead.
"You look tired," Evelyn said.
"I am tired."
"Kids okay?"
"Mrs. Patton has them."
Evelyn studied him.
Something about grandmothers allowed them to read their grandchildren even after those grandchildren had gray beginning to appear in their beards.
"Something happen?"
Richard looked toward the hallway.
"No."
Evelyn narrowed her eyes.
"That sounded like a yes."
Richard smiled.
"I walked into the wrong room."
"That all?"
"I guess."
Evelyn accepted that answer for approximately three seconds.
Then she said, "Well, if you walked into it, maybe you were supposed to."
"Grandma."
"What?"
"You've been watching too many inspirational movies."
"I am seventy-eight and currently trapped in a hospital bed. I have earned inspirational movies."
Richard laughed.
He left a few minutes later.
The drive home took almost forty minutes.
Snow had started sticking along the edges of parked cars.
By the time Richard opened the apartment door, Mrs. Patton had already left.
There was a permission slip on the kitchen counter held down by a ketchup bottle because Olivia believed ketchup bottles were excellent paperweights.
Oliver had fallen asleep on the couch with a blue crayon clenched in one fist.
Richard stood looking at him.
Five years old.
Hair sticking up at the back.
One sock missing.
Richard carefully lifted his son.
Oliver stirred.
"Dad?"
"I'm here."
"Great-Grandma okay?"
"Yeah, buddy."
"Did she like flowers?"
"She complained they weren't chocolate."
Oliver smiled without opening his eyes.
Richard carried him to bed.
Olivia was still awake under her blanket, reading with a flashlight even though the bedside lamp worked perfectly.
"You're late."
"Hospital."
"I know."
Richard kissed her forehead.
"Go to sleep."
"Did you sing to Grandma?"
Richard paused.
"Not exactly."
Olivia looked suspicious.
Richard smiled.
"Long story."
He turned off her lamp and closed the door almost completely.
Then he stood alone in the kitchen.
The refrigerator hummed.
The radiator clicked.
And Richard thought about a hand resting alone on a white sheet.
Seven weeks.
Nobody sitting beside her.
Nobody talking about cereal boxes or school permission slips or bad hospital gelatin.
The next evening, Richard told himself he was only checking.
He visited his grandmother first.
Then, on the way out, he stopped outside room 410.
The door was partly open.
Simone was exactly as she had been.
Richard stood there for almost thirty seconds.
Then he went inside.
"I don't know if this counts as trespassing twice," he said.
He pulled the chair closer.
"I suppose once you accidentally do something, the second time becomes intentional."
He had no daisies that night.
So he brought conversation.
He told Simone his name.
He told her he worked in maintenance.
He told her she technically outranked him by several thousand organizational levels.
Then he sang.