Free There Was an Old Woman by Hallie Ephron

checked off under DESCRIPTION OF WORK.
    Demolition and removal.

Chapter Fourteen
    It was past five when Evie stepped off the bus in front of Bronx Metropolitan Hospital. The building was covered in white brick and, typical of so many big buildings that had gone up in the 1960s, tiered like a wedding cake. A broad cantilevered canopy covered the entrance. A siren flared as an ambulance drove off, then fell silent when the glass door slid shut behind Evie.
    She made her way through the crowded lobby to the information desk, where she got her mother’s room number. As she walked to the elevators a pale woman with reddened eyes stumbled past with her cell phone to her ear. Another woman rushed across the lobby, carrying an enormous gift bag and a bunch of pink helium balloons.
    Hospitals ushered people in and out, and hosted all manner of crises in between, she thought as she rode a crowded elevator to the eighth floor. But no amount of intellectualizing could ease the anxiety that built in the pit of her stomach the closer she got to her mother’s room.
    She exited the elevator onto a hushed floor, the only sound the metal clatter of a hospital cart and the shush of elevator doors closing. Room 8231. Evie stood for a few moments outside the door to her mother’s room.
    Brace yourself. Ginger’s words came back to her.
    Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.
    Evie barely recognized her mother. Thin and haggard, she was propped up in the hospital bed nearest to the door. Her once lustrous auburn curls had turned a flat slate gray and stood out from her skull like the puff of a ripe dandelion.
    Another patient was sleeping in the bed by the window. Evie drew the curtain between the beds and pulled over a chair.
    Her mother seemed to be asleep, too. Her cheeks, flushed with broken blood vessels, gave the illusion of robust health. Her eyes were closed, but the lids trembled as if she were dreaming. One arm was taped to her chest. Her other hand rested on the bedcovers, the nails stained yellow with nicotine. Evie winced at the dark bruising on the back of her hand where an IV line fed into a purple vein.
    It’s just a movie. That was what Evie used to tell herself whenever things got ugly, when her mother woke her and Ginger in the middle of the night, transformed into the banshee that she became when she and her father were fighting drunk. On nights like that, Evie and Ginger hid under their beds and tried to sleep. When it was warm enough, they crept outside with their blankets and pillows and slept in the backyard. Or in the car. They’d occasionally take refuge in Mrs. Yetner’s garage.
    Evie’s mother had never, ever copped to having a drinking problem. Maybe she didn’t remember her bouts of drunkenness; maybe she simply chose not to. Perhaps pride kept her from admitting, even to herself, that she could behave so monstrously.
    What Evie felt now, looking at the much diminished figure in the bed, wasn’t pity, and it certainly wasn’t rage. How could it be? After all, her mother had so utterly defeated herself.
    Evie leaned forward, resting her head in her arms on the side of the bed. She felt sad and completely exhausted, and she let those feelings wash over her, barely aware of voices and footsteps from the hall, the snoring of the woman in the other bed, announcements that came over the loudspeakers.
    The next thing she felt was a light touch on the side of her head. Her mother was stroking her hair, the same way she did when Evie was a little girl. For a few moments, Evie surrendered to it. Then she raised her head.
    Her mother was looking across at her, smiling. “You came.” Those once clear dark brown eyes seemed cloudy. Without another word, her mother pushed herself to a seated position with her good arm and swung her thin legs off the bed. Evie took her mother’s arm and steadied her as she got to her feet and slid her feet into