The volunteer at the visitor desk directed them to the ICU after taking down all three of their names. As it often was when the three of them were together, they walked through the hospital and people parted from their path as if they were water and the other people were grains of sand. It wasn’t that they were pushy, it was more like an energy other people could feel but couldn’t see. Katie had noticed the phenomenon by the time she was nine. Her friends would tell her it was because her daddy was rich. She disagreed. There was something much more primal influencing the wide berth people made around them. Something organic that wolves in a pack understood and people didn’t.

Instead of concentrating on the coming task, Katie noticed the people parting to let them through and drew in the scents surrounding her. The sterile smell of the hospital walls, part antiseptic, part floor cleaner, met with the unique scent of despair.

“Hospitals always smell so…”

“Awful,” her brother finished her sentence.

“Yeah.”

He offered a grin, grasped her arm, and linked it through his.

This is just as hard on him as it is me. She was more thankful for her brother in that moment than she’d been in a while.

One day I’m going to have to adopt a brother or sister for Savannah. Just thinking about her daughter helped dispel the sour mood she’d woken up with.

They rode the elevator to the fifth floor in silence.

A large waiting room sat outside a set of locked doors leading into the ICU. Several families gathered in the space, some with pillows cradling their heads. A television added background to the noise of the room.

“Mr. Morrison?” The man who approached them wore a suit and tie and stood a good two inches shorter than Katie. The man was dwarfed by her father yet he lifted his head and offered his hand in greeting. “I’m Dennis Nemo, the nursing director you spoke with last night.”

“Yes, thank you for meeting us.”

“Not a problem.”

Gaylord turned toward them, offering an introduction. “These are Annette’s children, Jack and Katelyn.”

Dennis nodded to both of them before returning his attention to her father. “There’s been a few changes since we talked last night.” Dennis opened the doors with a swipe of his ID badge.

He led them not into her mother’s room, but to a smaller waiting room where he asked them to wait. Dennis left the room and said he’d be right back.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

Gaylord shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Katie managed to sit, but she perched on the edge of her chair and jumped when a young woman in scrubs walked into the room beside Dennis.

“This is Valerie. She’s the nurse taking care of your wife.”

Katie’s gaze snapped to her father.

“We’re divorced,” he corrected Dennis’s mistake.

“Right, you told me that. Sorry. In any case, Valerie was here yesterday when Annette came in and has been here for a couple hours this morning.”

Valerie smiled at all of them and encouraged them to sit.

Dennis sat beside her and let her talk. The minute she opened her mouth Katie was reminded of Monica.

Valerie was warm, caring, and had a spark behind her eye that told Katie that she loved her job.

“It would help if I knew what you’ve been told,” Valerie started.

Gaylord repeated what he’d told them the night before. “There was a car accident. I was told she didn’t have a seat belt on and she ended up on the street.”

Valerie nodded. “Right.”

Katie placed a hand on her father’s arm as he continued. “The doctor said she had to have surgery right away to stop internal bleeding. Something about a collapsed lung. She was conscious last night…asking to see the kids.”

Hearing her father say that a second time set Katie back.

I don’t care.

Yet even as Katie heard her own words mumbled inside her head, she knew they were full of shit.

“When I left last night, she was groggy from surgery and heavily medicated for pain. She asked for you…all of you. I told her you were coming and she seemed to calm down. Well, later last night she had a setback. The night nurse report said that at three o’clock she started to drop her oxygen saturation. The X-rays indicated a fluid buildup in her good lung. We had no choice but to intubate her.”

“What does all that mean?” Jack asked.

“We placed a tube into her lungs to help her breathe.” Valerie paused and looked at each of them. “She’s on a ventilator.”

“A breathing machine?”

“Yes. But since we put her on it, her vital signs have been stable. I know it sounds bad, and I’m not suggesting her condition isn’t critical, but right now she’s as stable as she can be in the ICU.”

Having spent nearly two months living with a critical care trauma nurse, Katie asked what Monica told her to. “Valerie. How long have you been a nurse?”

“Ten years.”

“How is she?”

Valerie looked at Dennis then back at her. “Like I said, she is as stable as—”

“No.” Katie took off her glasses and met Valerie’s eyes. “One of my best friends works the ER. She told me to ask you what your gut says.”

Valerie rubbed her hands on her pants and sat forward. “Your mom’s fighting right now. I’m hopeful.”

Katie drew in a deep breath and looked at her dad and her brother. “Can we see her?”