The monitor was only reacting to my voice, because I had whispered “Mom” without meaning to. A nurse calmed the machines, and Grandma sank into the chair beside the bed and finally told me everything. Twenty-nine years ago, my mother suffered a brain bleed while giving birth to me and never woke up. Grandpa could not bear the thought of me growing up beside a hospital bed, so he made Grandma promise to say that Mom had died.

“I kept that promise for twenty-nine years, and I have hated myself for it,” Grandma said. “But I never abandoned her.” Every Wednesday while I was at school, she came here and read aloud. When the hospital wanted to move my mother to a cheaper ward in the basement, Grandma sold her wedding jewelry to pay for Room 214. She also paid for the little window, so that if my mother ever opened her eyes, the first thing she saw would be a garden instead of a wall.