“Okay.”
“But they left. About an hour ago.”
I watched her through anesthesia’s haze, the world distant and sluggish.
“Why?” I asked. “Did something happen? Is somebody sick?”
Her grip whitened around the tablet.
“They said,” she began, hesitated, then tried once more. “They said the parking was getting too expensive.”
At first I blamed the medication for what sounded like an absurd misunderstanding, even managing a brief laugh.
“The parking,” I repeated.
Kayla nodded miserably.
“The garage here is eight dollars an hour,” she replied softly. “After four hours, it’s a flat thirty-two. Your son said they’d already been here almost five hours. He said there was no point paying for another day when you’d just be sleeping anyway.” I had survived valve replacement despite the risk of never awakening; I had signed the consent papers knowing that. Yet each child promised to greet me upon waking.
