Wish You Were Here(75)

“Atta girl,” Maggie says.

It is after a session of occupational therapy—which involves me taking off and putting on clothes, and during which I decide that socks are the work of the devil—that I see the news story: a funeral director in Queens, talking about how backed up they are for cremations; how you can pick up the ashes of your loved one with contactless delivery.

It makes me think, again, that being sore from all this therapy is not the worst that could happen, but rather the best. The majority of people in the Covid ICU ward will only come out of it in a body bag.

Instead of ringing for help, I cantilever my body upright so that I can reach for my phone, which sits on the table hovering across my bed. After I’ve hauled my body weight around, the phone feels light as a feather—an improvement since yesterday.

I do not want to make this call, but I know I have to.

I dial the main switchboard of The Greens. “Hello,” I say, when I am connected to the business office. “I’m Diana O’Toole. My mother, Hannah, was one of your residents. I’ve been sick in the hospital, but I wanted you to know that once I’m discharged I can pick up her things. If you need to put someone else in the room, you can store—”

“Ms. O’Toole,” the director of the facility says. “Are you saying you want to move your mother from our facility?”

“I … ?what?”

“I can assure you she’s being well taken care of. I know that there have been a lot of care facilities in the news recently because of Covid, but we have had zero cases here and we’re maintaining a level of vigilance—”

My heart starts galloping in my chest. “Zero cases,” I repeat.

“Yes.”

“My mother is alive.”

The director hesitates. “Ms. O’Toole,” she says gently, “why would you think otherwise?”

The phone drops out of my hand, and I bury my face in my hands and burst into tears.

What else didn’t actually happen?

If my mother is alive, if I was never in the Galápagos, are there other things I believed as fact that aren’t necessarily true?

Like … ?do I still have a job?

I find myself logging in to my email, something I’ve avoided, because my eyes still have trouble focusing on a tiny screen and the number of unread messages is so high it makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.

But before I can even begin to do a specific search for work emails, a text pings from Finn, with a Zoom link and an emoji heart. It’s been two long, endless days that I haven’t seen him or talked to him, because he’s been at work, so I immediately log on. It is the first time I’ve seen him without a mask, and there are bruises along the bridge of his nose. His hair is wet; he is freshly showered. His face lights up when I join the call.

“Why didn’t you tell me my mother was alive?” I blurt out.

He blinks, confused. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Because when I was … ?sedated I thought she died.”

His breath gusts out. “Oh my God, Diana.”

“I saw her on a FaceTime call, fighting to breathe,” I tell him. “And then she …” I can’t say it. I feel like I’ll jinx this unexpected resurrection. “I asked you about her, when I first woke up. You said you’d take care of everything. So I assumed that meant you knew what had happened. That you’d been talking to the memory care place and the funeral home and everything.”

“Well,” he says tentatively, “silver lining, right?”

“When I thought she’d died, I didn’t feel anything. I thought I was a monster.”

“Maybe you didn’t feel anything because on some unconscious level you knew it wasn’t real—”

“It felt real,” I snap, and I swipe at my eyes. “I want to visit her.”

“Okay. We will.”

“I think I need to go by myself,” I say.

“Then that gives you even more incentive to get better,” Finn replies, gentling his voice. “How’s rehab?”

“Torture,” I say, still sniffling. “Every inch of me aches and my bed has plastic under the sheets so I’m sweating bullets.”

“You won’t be there that long,” he says confidently. “It usually takes three times as long to get back to where you were after you’re intubated. So that would be fifteen days for you.”

“My physical therapist said two weeks.”

“You’ve always been an A student,” Finn says.

I peer through the screen at his face. “Did someone punch you?” I brush my finger along the orbital bones of my own face, mirroring where his is bruised.

“They’re from the N95 mask,” Finn says. “That’s how tight they have to be fitted to keep us safe. I don’t even notice it anymore. Of course, that’s probably because I’m always wearing the damn mask.”

All of a sudden, I am ashamed. I jumped all over Finn the minute the call connected, all but accusing him of not being more clear that my mother was healthy. Of course he couldn’t have known that I’d be doubting this. Plus, given the limited exposure I’ve allowed my mother in my life, she would not be anywhere near Finn’s first, fifth, or even fiftieth topic of conversation after I awakened from a medically induced coma. “I haven’t asked about your day,” I say. “How was it?”