Page 19 of The Darkest Night

It was her mother and grandmother. Hodge hovered behind them.

The pathology director greeted Mehta with a somber nod.

“Hi, Ramesh.”

“It’s good to see you again, Steve.” Mehta looked at Mae. “I’ll leave you with your visitors.”

He left the room.

Although access was usually restricted to one family member in ICU, the hospital had made an exception for the people caught in the unprecedented tragedy three days back. No one wished to deepen the victims’ distress by separating them from their loved ones.

Mae wondered whether everyone else was enduring the same emotional detachment she’d experienced since she’d woken up yesterday.

Yoo-Mi and Ye-Seul approached the bed and took the chairs they’d occupied for most of the last three days.

“Ryu is parking the car,” her mother murmured.

Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying all night.

“What about the funeral home?”

Yoo-Mi stared, her eyes widening slightly. “We closed up for the week. We couldn’t very well operate as normal with everything that—”

She stopped and bit her lip.

“With everything that happened to me?” Mae finished.

Yoo-Mi nodded miserably. “You almost died, Hana Mae.”

Tears sprung to her eyes. She sobbed and pressed a hand to her mouth. Hodge grabbed some tissues from a box and gave them to her.

“Thank you.” Yoo-Mi sniffed. “Who are you again?”

“He’s my boss, Mom,” Mae said.

“Oh?” Ye-Seul brightened. “Steve who likes to wank.”

Shocked silence descended on the room. Yoo-Mi paled. Hodge’s jaw sagged open.

Mae cast an apologetic look at her boss. “If you mean Steve who likes the New YorkYankees, then yes.”

Hodge closed his mouth.

“We really need to get Grandma new hearing aids,” Mae told Yoo-Mi.

“I know. But she likes the ones she has right now. She says they make her look cool.”

Mae swallowed a sigh and studied her mother’s pale face. She couldn’t very well tell Yoo-Mi off in the state she was in right now. But closing the funeral home was going to cost them money.

Ye-Seul gripped Mae’s hand where it rested on the covers, her liver-spotted, parchment skin warm against Mae’s flesh. “We brought another one of your favorites today.Samgyetang.”

Yoo-Mi took a large plastic container out of the food bag she’d brought and removed the lid. The smell of ginseng chicken soup filled the room. Nausea twisted Mae’s stomach. She clenched her teeth and swallowed.

Everything tasted like sour ash since she’d woken up.

“Thanks, Grandma.”

Hodge fidgeted where he stood at the end of the bed. His gaze flitted to the thank you cards crowding the surfaces of the hospital room.

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