My mother did not look at me as I got into the driver seat.

They stood together in the gray light of the garage as I backed out of the space, two figures frozen against the concrete.

I drove toward the exit, my hands gripping the steering wheel.

The question remained of how they had found my car in a hospital parking garage forty miles from their house.

By seven o’clock, the main lobby of St.

Anne was nearly empty, the blue plastic chairs lined up in neat, silent rows under the fluorescent lights.