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mother’s things—they were painted a bright, glossy red, except for her two ring fingers, which were forest green and decorated with tiny dots of silver and gold.
    â€œLittle trees,” she said, catching my look. “Just trying to stay festive in this damn place.”
    â€œThey’re cute,” I told her.
    â€œLook, sweetheart,” she began, and it seemed she was talking to both me and my father, “you guys can carry these things in yourself or you can get a paper bag downstairs. And you can bring the sneakers but I have to take the shoelaces out. And no hardcover books either. And not this lotion, sorry about that. No glass.” She was matter-of-fact, methodical, as she set the contents of the bag on the table beside her, separating them into two different categories.
    â€œThese are fine,” she said, gesturing at the pile of clothes and one hefty paperback.
    Inside, the hall was actually decorated warmly—doorways were strung with red and green beads, tinsel was draped over the long oval desk at the nurses’ station, and one of those plug-in plastic menorahs ornamented a waiting area. That year Hanukkah fell early and was over by the second week in December, but the menorah was still there, the elongated orange bulbs lit up dully. All of a sudden I felt so grateful that we didn’t actually celebrate Christmas. I imagined how much more depressed we’d all feel that day if we were missing out on some sweet family tradition. Daniel’s father was Protestant, and though Daniel had a bar mitzvah and went to Hebrew school for nearly a decade, his enthusiasm for Christmas was palpable. He’d spent the last month at school ordering presents online, compulsively checking eBay, bidding on rare books for his father or signed copies of his sister’s favorite albums. I rarely saw even the slightest hint of sentimentality in him, but there were a handful of traditions for which he felt a lot of affection. That night his family was throwing their annual Christmas Eve cocktail party, and Daniel told me they’d hired a caterer and a string quartet to accompany their carols. It all sounded so nice, but I just didn’t know if I’d be able to go, be able to stomach all that festivity.

    WHILE my father was talking to the doctor, I walked into the common area and saw my mother in there by herself, pacing the room’s short length. Her feet were padded in thick, gray woolen socks, and I worried she was going to slip on the linoleum floor; something about her gait was a little off. She looked different than she had a couple of days before. More alert, less dazed, her hair combed, the buttons on her sweater properly aligned. I wondered if they’d given her some sedatives the other day that had now worn off.
    As soon as she saw me, she said, “You have to get me out of here. I mean, this is ridiculous. You know I don’t belong with these people. I was just trying to protect you, protect us, our family. This is crazy!”
    â€œMom.”
    â€œPlease, Emma! Don’t do this to me. Please, please, I’m begging you. I’m asking you very seriously. I’m asking you nicely. I can’t, there’s just no possible way that I can stay here.”

    I thought of Visiting Day the first summer that I went to sleepaway camp, almost a decade earlier. I had been so desperately homesick and remembered begging my parents in a calm, tempered way. Like if they only understood how absolutely impossible it was for me to stay there another month, they would then have no choice but to bring me home with them.
    I had never seen my mother like this. And in denying her what she so desperately wanted, I felt as if I were being forced to do the cruelest thing any daughter had ever done. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was choking, or worse—that I was choking
her
.
    â€œThis is too much,” I said.
    â€œI know,” she whispered.