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Show Moon - 209 James put you in a hospital in Delaware under the care of some doctor who was supposed to do wonders for M.S. patients. Esther called me from San Francisco, all the joking gone out of her. I said it was going to be fine, that it was, in fact, going to be wonderful. You'd finally gotten to a good doctor in Delaware, and who knows, the man was working on cures. And, look, already, your eyesight had returned. My buoyant optimism must have confused Esther. She said something vague, hung up. I went to visit you in Delaware, carrying a pot of golden mums and feeling festive and jaunty. It was also my birthday. For all my travels, the trip felt daring. Td never been to Delaware. I was going by train and would get off at the right stop, no longer a frightened child. Most of all, I was going to see you someplace where James wouldn't be there to ruin things. The hospital was on a hill, a long climb from the railroad station. The receptionist told me where to find you. I bypassed the elevator, took the stairs three at a time, hurried down the corridors, averting my eyes from the other patients whom I felt I had no right to gaze upon. Even so, I saw that most of them were women. They had you tied to a chair, propped and bundled with pillows. They had you tied to this chair with a sheet folded into a wide strip and wrapped around your waist. You were tiny, your eyes like a sparrow's, alert, very dark, very quick. You saw me and smiled. "Hello, Dear," you said. I needed to compose myself and fussed around for "just the perfect place" for the mums. "They're in a pot," I said, "so you can take them home when you leave." I cast around for another chair, pulled up close to you, sat down. Then I got up and kissed your forehead, sat back down. A tube looped along the side |