“Is that what you told them?” I asked.
She did not answer. She reached out, her fingers catching the black cord that ran from my chest to the wall monitor.
With a quick, hard jerk, she pulled the plug from the outlet.
The machine beside my bed went dark, its screen instantly losing the green mountain peaks of my heart rate. The silence that followed was heavy and dry, filling the corners of Room Four Twelve.
In the corner of the room, my mother, Martha, sat in the vinyl armchair. She did not move a muscle, but her fingers rose to adjust her pearl necklace, sliding the cold stones back and forth.
“Mother,” I said, my voice barely a whisper in the sudden quiet of the room. “Tell her to plug it back in.”
Martha looked at the black screen, then at the empty outlet on the wall, her expression completely flat. She adjusted the collar of her blouse, her eyes drifting toward the window.
“She always makes everything bigger than it is,” Martha whispered. Her voice was light and airy, like dry leaves scraping across a porch.
I watched her hand stay on her pearls, the knuckles pale and still. She was not going to help me.
The realization settled into my chest, heavier than the physical pain from the car crash. Martha was not just sitting there; she was waiting for me to give up.
“You knew she was going to do that,” I said.
Tessa tossed the blank consent form onto the bedside table, right next to the white plastic folder. “Do not be dramatic, Nora, it is just a plug.”
“It monitors my heart,” I said, my finger tapping faster against my thigh.
Martha turned her head away, looking out at the parking lot where the oak trees were dropping their brown leaves. She did not speak another word.
