“You don’t understand. I’m looking for her son. He’s the one I’m here to see—but he’ll be in her room.” “Oh. Well, then, you’re in luck. She was just transferred out of ICU, and she’s in a private room now. One floor up.” She looked up the information in her computer, and gave me the room number. “But remember, you can’t go in. She’s not ready for too many visitors, yet. Immediate family only.” “Of course.” I thanked her and took the elevator up to the next floor. As I approached the room, I looked through the door’s narrow window and saw—through a sliver of an opening in the curtain that was pulled around the bed—that Alex was sitting at his mother’s bedside. I reached out to turn the door handle, when a voice startled me. “Can I help you?” I turned to see a man in scrubs, about fifty-ish, with greying brown hair, a beard, and glasses. He was sitting a few feet away at a computer terminal mounted to the wall near Mrs.
