She stood there with her hand on the door handle for a long time. Then she looked back at us.
“Come on,” she said. Her voice was rough. “All of you. Before I change my mind.”
The room was small. Smaller than I expected.
There was a hospital bed with the head raised up. An IV pole with a bag dripping slowly. A heart monitor beeping softly. A chair. A sink. A little bedside table with a plastic pitcher of water and a cup with a bendy straw.
And on the back wall, right across from the bed, there was a little square window.
Two feet by two feet. Looking out at the courtyard. At the bare cherry tree, its branches black and shiny in the rain.
My grandmother’s window.
In the bed, there was a woman.
She was very small. So thin that she barely made a shape under the white blankets. Her hair was short and gray and thin. Her skin was pale and yellowish. There were dark circles under her eyes.
