The doctor led us down a quiet corridor to Room 214, and my legs felt like wet cement. Through the narrow window, gray courtyard light fell across a hospital bed. A woman lay there with silver streaks in her dark hair, thin and perfectly still, machines humming softly beside her. Grandma’s hand shook as she pushed the door open. “Ethan, I need you to listen to me before you say anything,” she whispered.

I stepped closer. The woman’s face was one I knew from the single photograph on Grandma’s mantel, the mother I had been told died the day I was born. A nameplate on the bed read Laura Bennett. My mother’s name. Behind me, the doctor said, “We have a problem. Last night, the administrator signed her transfer papers, and a van arrives at nine.” Then the monitor beside the bed began to beep faster.