Chapter 5

Three days after Liam left, I went to City Hospital. The elderly nurse in the records room, wearing reading glasses, rummaged through the dusty filing cabinets for a whole morning before pulling out the yellowed hospitalization records. My mother's name was written in pen on the third page, marked in red with "Acute Kidney Failure, Requires Emergency Dialysis." "That patient back then," the old nurse took off her glasses and wiped them, "I remember particularly clearly. Her daughter guarded the corridor every day, her eyes swollen from crying like walnuts, but every time she entered the room, she'd smile and say, 'Mom, the weather's nice today.'" My fingertips traced the "Family Member Signature" column. The characters "Evelyn" on the white paper were blurred and bluish from tears. "Back then, was there a young man named Sullivan who came to pay?" My voice trembled as I handed her the money transfer slip. The old nurse squinted at it for a long time, then suddenly slapped her thi