The next morning Pam awoke in her own apartment and instantly felt guilty. Not that she had missed her appointment to pick up Larissa—she was actually in plenty of time for that—but because she had actually slept at home while Jim was in the hospital waiting for someone to entertain him. Fortunately, she had a good idea of how to do just that. She grabbed the video iPod she had bought when she left Roy the TV (thinking fondly back to a different video iPod, and what a good idea it had been not to keep it, but also remembering that Roy had cheaped out of buying her one himself, and vowing never to let someone keep her from something she wanted again) and checked to make sure Dazed and Confused was loaded onto it before grabbing her headphones and heading out the door.

Larissa was waiting anxiously for her, so it seemed she was not the only one in a hurry that morning. They drove into the hospital not in silence but with the kind of meaningless but important chit-chat that doesn’t need to go below the surface to reaffirm the deep ties between two people who understand each other well. They agreed that this morning they would let Jim pick what to do and talk about, since they figured that he had probably had enough of people telling him what to do with the doctors.

They pulled into the hospital at 6:30 am, early enough that they expected to catch the morning round of doctors, and Pam parked next to Larissa’s car so that they could find both cars later.  Larissa’s long legs carried her into the hospital first, but she waited for Pam by the elevator and they found themselves side by side as they walked into the by now familiar waiting room. A nurse stopped them before they could go into Jim’s room though—Janet, her nametag said—and informed them that he was sleeping, that he had PT at 9, and that the neurologist and GP would both be by in the next couple of hours to see him before that. She added that the cardiologist and pulmonologist had decided yesterday that they didn’t need to see him again imminently unless something took a turn for the worse.

This was, of course, good news, but Pam wasn’t sure what to do with herself without waking up Jim—and from the fidgety look Larissa was sending her way, neither was she. They sat chatting in the waiting room about what to do until Pam’s phone unexpectedly rang. She checked the number and picked up, mouthing an apology to Larissa.

“Hi, mom.”

“Hi honey! I hope I didn’t wake you up?”

“No, mom, but…”

“That’s good. I thought since you said you were at the hospital with Jim that you would probably be up early, and you know how your father’s work gets him out of bed so early in the morning these days, so I found myself up and dressed and having walked the dog and I thought, you know, Pam is probably awake and dressed and I can probably call her.”

“Sure, mom. What are you calling about?” She rolled her eyes for Larissa’s benefit, and was rewarded with a little snort.

“Well, I was wondering when I could come over to the hospital and meet Jim.”

“Mom!”

“Now, honey, I’m worried that if I don’t come and meet him now you’ll let him slip away in the night or something and I won’t get to meet him again. I mean, really, I’ve been hearing about this boy for four years now, it’s about time I got a good look at him.”

Her mother was definitely not keeping her voice down, and she was pretty sure that Larissa could hear every word—if it hadn’t already woken up Jim three doors down past the waiting room. Her face was burning.

“Mom! Jim is in the hospital.”

“I know, sweetie, so I expect he has a lot of time on his hands. He’d probably appreciate some visitors.”

“He’s recovering from injuries! This is not prime meet-the-parents time!”

“I know, dear, that’s why I didn’t invite your father.”

“I wasn’t objecting to the plural.”

“Oh, so I should call him and have him come?”

“That’s not what I meant! I thought you’d, like, have dinner with us when he got out of the hospital or something.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, Pam dear. We’ll definitely have to do that. But don’t you think it would be lovely if I got to know him a little before? There’s no time like the present.”

“Mom!”

“I’ll be over at…what is it now, 7? I’ll be over at noon. You said he was in Geisinger?”

Pam could feel the conversation slipping away from her—or more accurately, could feel that it had already slipped away. Her mother was just incorrigible when she got in a mood like this, and Larissa wasn’t helping any, since she had just literally fallen out of her chair laughing at Pam’s expression. Fine. She figured she could make up some kind of medical reason Jim couldn’t see her mother at noon, but right now she had had far too little coffee to deal with this phone call.

“Yes, he is.”

“Wonderful. I assume he’s still in the ICU, so I’ll meet you in that waiting room. Love you!”

“I love you too.”

As she hung up the call Larissa finally found her voice through the laughter. “So your mom’s coming over then?”

“Yeah. Thanks for all the help back there.”

“What can I say? I told Jim I wanted to meet her first.” Larissa winked. “Anyway, I think you’ll find he’s actually pretty open to the idea. Now, we have what, five hours? What do you say we get in there and wake sleepyhead up so he can bone up on Beesly family history before she gets here?”

“I suppose that’s a good idea. But we’re making a stop first.”

“Where?”

“I’m going to need a lot more coffee before I deal with you and my mother at the same time.”

Larissa was still laughing when they reached the coffee machine.