The room remained quiet for the next hour, save for the hum of the heating vent in the corner. I watched the light shift on the ceiling, the pale squares of sun moving slowly toward the closet door.
My sister Diana came in twenty minutes after the noon whistle blew at the lumber yard down the road. She was forty-one, with her dark hair pulled back into a tight clip that made her eyes look wider than they were. She carried a brown paper bag that smelled of toasted rye bread and mustard.
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest as she stood near the foot of my bed, her eyes scanning the IV pole and the plastic water pitcher.
“You look gray, Elena,” she said, her voice carrying its usual sharp, declarative edge. “Have you eaten anything today?”
“Aaron went to get coffee,” I said.
Diana set the bag on my bedside table and pulled out a turkey sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
“He has been gone over an hour,” she said. “I saw him near the elevators, staring at the floor indicator.”
“He is just anxious,” I said. “He wants this to go well. He wants a son, Diana.”
“He has four daughters who are waiting for him to call them,” Diana said. “And instead he is pacing the hallways like a man who lost his wallet.”
She sat in the vinyl chair by the wall, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest.
“Michael stopped by the house this morning before he went to the school,” she said. “He left three bags of groceries on the kitchen counter.”
“I did not ask him to do that,” I said.
“He spent thirty dollars of his own money,” Diana said. “He told me he wanted to make sure you had a full pantry when you brought the baby home. He even bought that expensive milk Ava likes.”
“He has always been quiet about his help,” I said.
“He is too quiet,” Diana said. “He looks like he has not slept in a week. He was asking me if Aaron seemed different lately.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
