Note: This happened the week of March 25 in the LTAC.

“’Scuse my hand, Ian.” Long pause. “Ian, ‘scuse my hand.” Pause. “Ian, press my fingers.”  The petite night nurse was beginning her shift, checking Ian’s neurological responses. “Ian—” she began.

I interrupted, leaning into his line of vision. “Hey, Buddy, squeeeeze her fingers. This is your nurse. Squeeze her fingers.”

The nurse looked across Ian, addressing me. “Now, you understand that his brain has to switch to an entirely new thought process when you give what he will think is a different command.”

Ian was in a long-term acute care facility (LTAC). Too healthy for the ICU, unable to breathe without a ventilator to qualify for the neuro floor, he was moved to this part of the hospital, even though his brain injury and bone flap (missing skull piece) made him an unusual patient. I’d been staying nights with Ian to monitor his care while Ashley was balancing care for one-year-old James and returning to teaching.

The nurse was quiet, looking at me for a response. I studied her in return. She was younger than I, her accent crisp against my drawl. Her enunciation had features of British English, except for “squeeze.” I thought she might be from Pakistan but was too aggravated to ask.

Every part of my addled brain bounced “’scuse my hand” like so much hysterical laughter. I hoped I had as blank-eyed an expression as I struggled for. “Thank you for helping me understand,” I replied softly.

She nodded briskly and began again. “Scuse my hand–”

I fingered the edge of a pillow case to the pillow Ian’s hand was propped on, musing: she sounds like Lacey’s friends from Pakistan. Actually, I while I’d heard Pakistanis speak, I never heard any of Lacey’s friends. She met them in 1999-2000 when we lived in Oxford, England while attending an all-girls school in lieu of her freshman year of high school. That year, I learned about henna (Lacey was a quick study and was sought out for her skills), what her friends missed about Pakistan, that England was not the racially tolerant place I had thought, and that Lacey hated curry.

Recalling me from my reverie, the nurse announced, “Ian is unresponsive. I will try again.” She checked his feeding machine, ventilator, and his prickly mom, asking if I needed anything before leaving the room.

Need anything? I need you to let me help. I need you to let me deliver the command to my son who has been asked too many times to perform for too many people, friends and family included. I need you to listen to me. I need . . .

“No Thanks, though.” We smiled at each other, and I was left alone with the prattle of ESPN and the whir of the ventilator.

What if she’s right? What if Ian thinks “Oh my gosh, Mom. Just STOP!” when he hears my voice.

Startled by a flash of memory of Ian’s silent eye-rolling, an expression I had seen only days before his accident when I had made one of those “now-honey-you-know-that” comments, I pulled a chair up to his bed. Sat. Made eye contact.

What do you see when you see me? What version of Mom am I to you? Are you logging stories you’ll drown me with at some family dinner a year, or two, or so, from now? Will I want to run from the room crying, “I was doing the best I could to pray, to watch, to teach, to be a good mother-in-law, to—” I paused the unending list. Ian’s gaze had wandered. It returned to mine as if he knew my own thoughts had wandered.

I placed my hand on his, leaned further into his line of vision. “Sorry, Bud. I know I’m just Mom. I love you.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Thanks, Bud.”