Five Days in Summer

the hallway it was like sunrise. The salmon-colored floor and cream walls were soaked in fluorescent light and small room monitors blinked behind a U-shaped nurses’ station. But no one was there to witness the emptying of her bed, her slow creep out, the abandonment of her lurid nightmare.
    She pushed her IV around a bend in the hall that led to a set of double doors just before another turn. The doors swung open and a youngish Asian woman in a white lab coat hurried through. Her name tag read MARY LAO, M.D., PEDIATRICS. Dr. Lao looked surprised when she saw Emily, and stopped right in front of her.
    “Mrs. Parker, you’re out of bed!”
    Emily couldn’t think of what to say.
    Dr. Lao smiled and hugged a clipboard to her chest. “How do you feel?”
    “A little woozy,” Emily said. “I felt like walking.”
    Dr. Lao seemed to search Emily’s eyes, like she was conducting an unauthorized examination of her being, like she needed to know more than the fact that her body was alive.
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    “Nowhere, just walking.”
    “Let me help you with this.” Inserting herself between the IV pole and Emily, Dr. Lao held the pole with one hand and laced her free arm through Emily’sso she could lean if she needed to. They walked slowly, carefully, until they reached the double doors. Dr. Lao pushed them open and maneuvered Emily through. They were on the pediatrics ward, with its sky blue walls bordered with puffs of cloud. A hand-drawn rainbow arched over a bulletin board crowded with photos of newborn babies.
    Dr. Lao stopped in front of the collage and pointed to a picture of a baby in the upper right corner. “That’s my daughter, Samantha. She’s seven months old now but the nurses keep her picture here to humor me.” She touched the miniaturized cheek of her baby, then looked at Emily.
    “She’s adorable,” Emily said. “It must be hard not to be with her all the time.”
    Dr. Lao nodded. “Exactly.”
    She took Emily’s arm and guided her halfway down the hall, then stopped in front of an open door. Emily looked in and saw a bed and a cot. Will was on the cot, fully clothed, unshaven, deeply asleep. Sammie lay on the bed, tossing in his sleep, with his own IV tube dangling into his arm.
    “The IV’s just to hydrate him. I gave him something to help him sleep.”
    Tears burned into Emily’s eyes at the sight of Sam and Will, sleeping, safe.
    “Where are my other children?”
    “They’re at home with your mother and your sisterin-law.”
    “Caro’s here?” Emily didn’t understand; Caroline was in Italy.
    “She was here until just after midnight. She took care of all the paperwork and waited until David was released. I checked him over myself and he’s in excellent condition. Your brother-in-law took Sarah andthe baby home earlier. Little Maxi is doing great, by the way.”
    “She has an ear infection,” Emily said.
    “Yes, I know. It’s healing up nicely.”
    Emily felt the cool wash of relief; all that worry for nothing.
    “How long was I gone?”
    “Including today? Five days.”
    “That long.”
    Dr. Lao squeezed Emily’s arm. “It’s over now.”
    “Can I go in?”
    “Why do you think I brought you here?”
    Dr. Lao helped her over to Sam’s bed and parked her IV stand on the side opposite his. She lifted the covers off his body and smiled. “Don’t get your tubes tangled up.”
    Emily slid in next to Sammie and smelled the salty mold of the boat in his hair. She kissed the crown of his head, and both eyelids and his nose, and one cheek, and the other, and his chin. When she looked up, Dr. Lao was gone.
    Sammie took a long, deep breath and threw a leg over Emily’s, just like he did at home when they snuggled and read. She slipped one arm under his neck, wrapped the other one around him, and pulled him close.
    His eyes fluttered open. “Mommy.”
    “I love you, Sammie.” She kissed the tender fold of his ear.
    His small hands pressed into her back in a refusal to let her go, as if she had somewhere better to be. She didn’t, and never would.
    “Tell me a story, Mommy.”
    The shadowy room and Will’s slow breathing brought back words Emily had long forgotten. Sheleaned her head into Sam’s pillow so their foreheads touched, and let him feel her breath on his ear as she whispered a story he’d loved since he was two. In the little wood, slept a big bear. On the big bear, slept a little mouse. And in his dreams, the little mouse