Page 94 of Second Alarm
"I see it."
It's Mom.
Mom: Cal is stable. Sleeping. I'm at the hospital. I'll stay tonight. Go to sleep, Hanna. I love you.
I read it twice.
Me: I love you too. Thank you. Tell him when he wakes up I'm coming in the morning.
She writes back almost immediately.
Mom: Is Ty with you.
I stare at the phone. I look at Ty. I type.
Me: Yes.
Mom: Good. Tell him I love him.
"My mother says she loves you."
His eyes are closed, his hand still on my chest. His face does something I've never seen it do — not a smile, not a frown, nothing you could put a name to. It's the face of a man being loved by a mother he needed for years without ever being told.
"Tell her." Very softly.
"Tell her what."
"Tell her I love her too."
I type:
Me: He loves you too.
Mom: I know. Go to sleep.
I put the phone down. Ty's hand hasn't moved.
"I'm going to tell Cal tomorrow. In the hospital."
"You don't have to do it there."
"I know. I'm going to. Because if I don't do it there, I'll do it Tuesday, and Tuesday I'll do it Wednesday. I have to do it tomorrow."
"You want me to come."
I think about it — Ty at the foot of Cal's hospital bed while I say the sentence. Cal, concussed, hearing it for the first time with Ty in the room. Cal's face. What's fair to each of them, and to me.
"No. I want to do it alone. And then I want to call you. You and I do the next part together — but the telling part, I have to do alone. I'm the one who has to do it."
"Okay."
"Not because you shouldn't be in the room."
"Okay."
"Because he needs to hear it from me first. Not see you standing there while I say it. He needs to hear his sister, and when he's done being angry at his sister, he can see you."
"Okay, Hanna."
