Mohawk

what folly they had succumbed to. Several of the denizens of the beloved old ivy-encircled Nathan Littler Hospital let it be known that they preferred to bleed to death than be stitched up in a place like the new hospital. One citizen was good to his word, dying in the arms of his wife of thirty years, off and on, and whose agency in the matter was later examined in public proceedings.
    Nor is there any challenge in the new hospital. The old, perched at the top of Hospital Hill, had required mettle. In bad weather, negotiating the incline was a test of commitment and, sometimes, manhood. People still talked about the year Homer Wells tried several runs at the incline and nearly made it, too. People watched him, fascinated, from their living room windows. He bent forward as if into a headwind and churned upward methodically, undeterred by treacherous patches of ice. The hill that day was impossible to ascend by automobile. It may have been Homer’s sense of accomplishment at reaching the summit that caused him momentarily to lose his concentration and his balance on an icy patch. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, he had built up such a head of steam that he flew cleanly over the snowbank into the street. Here he encountered the Bronson Dairy truck, whose driver later remarked that seeing old Homer on his hood was the surprise of his life, for he owed Homer money and the first thought that crossed his mind when he saw his friend’s nose pressed urgently against the windshield was that Homer had come to collect. Ironically, it was this very event that had provided the impetus forthe new hospital drive. It was the last thing Homer would’ve wanted.
    Tonight, business at the Mohawk Medical Services Center is brisk, though it lacks the appearance of being so. An enormous man looms over the registration desk, flanked by two equally formidable women. He admits to having contracted a dose of the clap, and he wants to know where it came from, his wife or his girl friend. “It better be one of us, dumb fuck,” the larger of the two women warns.
    On the fourth floor, Diana Wood is preparing to go home. Her mother is sleeping peacefully and there’s no reason to stay the rest of the night, though she often does, sleeping upright in one of the straight-backed chairs. Only one other person sits in the hospital corridor, a woman in her mid-thirties, facing the wall, resting her forehead against its cool surface, her arms hanging limply at her sides. Diana cannot see the woman’s face, but the grief in her posture is so profound that Di is embarrassed to come upon her unexpected. Since on the carpeted floor there’s no way to announce her presence, Diana concludes it would be best to just pass quietly by. Still, the implications of doing so are too grave to ignore, and Diana glances up when she comes parallel with the other woman, who hasn’t moved. The three-by-five card on the nearest door reads YOUNGER .
    Diana stops. Eventually the woman straightens, staring at the blank white wall before turning. She doesn’t seem terribly surprised to see someone standing there. Rather, her eyes suggest that for her there are no more surprises. “I don’t mean to intrude—” Diana says. “That’s silly, though. Of course I’m intruding—”
    “No,” the woman says vaguely.
    “It’s just that my husband and I were once friends with a Dallas Younger, and I couldn’t help noticing the name.…”
    “Dallas is my brother-in-law.”
    “I thought perhaps he’d married,” Diana explains, “and we hadn’t heard.”
    “No. Not that I know of. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
    “I’m very sorry—”
    “He’s nothing to me,” the woman says.
    “I meant.…” Diana nods toward the door.
    “Oh,” she looks flustered, embarrassed. “My daughter. Who means everything. That’s the way things work out, isn’t it.”
    “She
will
get better,” Diana says.
    Something like hope registers in the woman’s eyes, as if in her fatigue she believed momentarily that this stranger had second sight. But the hope vanishes quickly. “You’re very kind,” she says dully.
    I know what it means to lose, Diana feels like telling her. But it wouldn’t do either one of them any good. Downstairs in the lobby she has to wait for three enormous people to get through the double doors. “You happy now, dumb fuck?” one of the women says. Diana suddenly feels a blind, irrational rage. In all her life she has never