Page 82 of Come Back To Me

“Who is this?” I ask. Her accent is from home.

“I’m calling from Manchester Regional Hospital…” My head jerks back involuntarily. It is never good news when a hospital calls you—never, ever, ever.

“Your mother, Grace Phillips, was airlifted here this morning. She had a massive stroke…”

My mother…?

“How did you…?” I shake my head. Not the time for that. “Is she all right?”

“I’m afraid not,” she says. “A friend found her; unfortunately, we don’t know how long she was like that. She’s in critical condition. We’ve stabilized her, but…you might want to come in to say your goodbyes.”

“All right then,” I say. I hang up and I’m chilled all over. I sit down.

“Why are you shivering?” Ann asks.

She closes the window and drapes a throw over my shoulders. I’m shaking from the shock, but I don’t tell Ann that. The only one who knows about my relationship with my mother is David.

“Here,” I say to Ann, handing her the throw. “Our plans have been thwarted. My horoscope was wrong this time.” She watches me sadly as I go to retrieve my passport from my bag.

“But, you just got here,” she says.

“I know, but I have to go. It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t everything?” Ann sighs.

“Word.”

Instead of booking a train ticket to Portland, I book a plane ticket home. Some things are not meant to be. Perhaps I need to take the hint that the universe is sending me. I came to find David for closure, and instead, my mother found me. So off I go.

I hug Ann goodbye and take the skyrail to the airport.

My mother has brown hair, blonde at the roots. Her hands are those of a gardener’s, tan from the sun, with black dirt underneath her fingernails. As I sit next to her, holding her hand, I rub my thumb back and forth over her skin like David used to do to comfort me. I don’t know if she can hear me, but I tell her where I’ve been and what I’ve done over the years. I tell her about the song of David. I tell her that I forgive her. I tell her what I’ve learned. She dies forty-nine hours after I arrive, at 7:49 in the evening. I do not cry when they take her body away, nor when the kind nurse puts her arm around my shoulders. I cry when I see David getting out of a cab as I am leaving the hospital to go back to my hotel. I don’t have to question why he’s here. I know he came for me. When he walks toward me, I can barely hold myself up I’m crying so hard.

He grabs me before I hit the ground and he holds me up.

Two mornings later we pick up her things from the hospital: the clothes and jewelry she was wearing when they found her, and her house keys, which a nurse tells me her neighbor dropped off.

I tell him that she died forty-nine hours after I got there and he raises his eyebrows. We’re sitting across the table from each other in a little coffee shop. Neither of us has eaten much in days and we decide to split a sandwich.

“I still have it,” I say, pulling the piece of paper from my purse. I slide it across the table and he picks it up.

He starts to laugh.

“What, David? What does it mean?”

“The lady at the bar,” he says. “—She told me to write something random on the paper and leave.”

“What?” I say, shocked. “Penny?”

He nods. “She said that if you give a random object to a person who is searching for something they would create their own meaning around it, and that meaning would reflect the deepest desire of their heart. It was a way for the person to find their way back to you. Even if it took a lifetime. There was no way I could have said anything to make you realize it was me you were looking for your whole life. You had to realize that on your own.”

“Let me get this straight,” I say, frowning. “Penny told you to leave me a random something—something that had absolutely no meaning—to torment me?”

He nods.

“Why the number forty-nine? You could have left me a toothpick or a...shoelace.”

David shakes his head. His hair is under a beanie even though it’s warm outside. He wears hats to disguise himself, though it’s hard to miss him. Even as we sit in our little corner table people turn to look.

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