“I had a dream, Mama,” Jerry found himself saying to the comatose woman with the feeding tube and the oxygen mask. “I dreamt that Sylvia swooped down on her broom from Toronto and took you back there to a nursing home she dumped you in. And never visited you again.”
Jerry put his hand on his mother’s wrist, and for a second, thought he felt an impulse from her. But no, just his imagination. He’d also dreamed that Sylvia had walked into the men’s room and peed in the urinal – just like a man, instead of sitting down on the toilet like a lady. Sylvia. He hated his lawyer sister. She always had an argument up her sleeve to get whatever it was that she wanted. What a jerk.
“Well, she won’t get what she wants, Mother,” Jerry said. “I’m sorry about the fall, I’m sorry about going out on Saturday nights without telling you. If you recover, I promise I’ll be a good boy. I promise I’ll be nice.”
At that moment, Nurse Gertler came into the room. “All right, Mr. Lindstrom, visiting hours are over. My goodness, you look a fright, almost as white as your mother. Now go home, Mr. Lindstrom, and please get some rest. You can’t be getting sick yourself.”
“How can I rest, knowing that she’s in here like this?”
“She won’t be waking up tonight, Mr. Lindstrom. You might as well go home.”
He pressed his hand onto hers. “All right. Mama, I’m going –“ he said, and then he felt the hand push back against his. “Nurse Gertler, she pressed my hand –“
And then he saw the bells and whistles go off the E.C.G., her heart began to race, she began to breathe harder, Nurse Gertler called for more nurses, doctors came into the room, Jerry didn’t know what was happening – and then he became dizzy and saw blackness encroach into his vision, and all was a swirling, breathless mass of confusion until finally he succumbed to the blackness.
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