The woman in bed one rejected her liver on Monday. Her best friend since high school, they were in the same sorority in college, sits sideways on the edge of her seat, elbow pressed on the arm of the chair. The lady in bed one’s son, lies back in another chair, one hand across his eyes. Both hold their phones.

The man in bed two, a “big boy” my dad says as his eyes follow him, hobbles across the floor with a walker and two physical therapists holding him upright with a harness. His wife with a mountain of strawberry blond hair sits in the waiting room checking her phone.

Your mom chats with a tough little lady from Seguin with short white hair and an expertise in computers. Her sister awaits a new liver. She has to get back to work. This is not her first time at the rodeo. They confer about the gout in your mom’s fingers. Her brother-in-law — her sister’s husband — arrives with his two teenaged granddaughters. “If God calls me home, I’ll give her mine,” says the redheaded older girl, offering up her own organs.

Across the room, a Navy vet fresh from his own hernia surgery has just arrived from Korea where he and his wife teach special needs children of military personnel. She has moved a step closer to death’s door, the search for her liver upgraded from regional to national.

A grey-haired man shows up just before visiting hours each day with a book. “Here we go,” he says as we all get up and head for the Unit. He has the jovial world -weariness of a man who has been here a while. He will stay as long as he must.

The lady in bed one gets a liver. The doctors tell her friend that the operation will go all night. She might as well go home. The next day, she returns to her vigil. “I got no sleep,” she said. “I kept dreaming the phone was ringing.” The son returns. She can’t believe how old he’s become. They talk of older things, people who have not taken this seriously, who aren’t here. They wait.

The Navy vet and the teenagers fret about hotel costs. The Sheraton and Marriott are so expensive. “My grandpa says ‘La Quinta all the way,'” the younger brunette says. She also says that she hasn’t flown on a plane since 9/11. “Were you even alive during 9/11?” you have to ask. She laughs. “No, I wasn’t born yet, but I still won’t fly.”  The Navy vet gets a great empty room deal at the Sheraton.

Outside of the ICU the man from bed two lies on a gurney. “Say good night to Paw-paw,” a young, woman who looks older than her years encourages the little girls around her. The strawberry blonde wife stands among a small crowd of people clustered around her husband. “He got his liver!” she tells your mom.

The best friend is not around for a few days. You worry. Then she comes in wearing church clothes. You are surprised at how happy you are to see her. “She’s doing fine,” she says of her friend. The doctors had left the incision open because her friend had rejected so many others, “they are going to close her up now.” She’s doing that much better.

The grandfather signals to the girls. They have to go back to school in the morning. They will return the following weekend. “We’ll be prayin’ for ya’ll,” they say. They mean it.

The Navy vet runs in. “They got her a liver!” he shouts. Two minutes to visiting hours and he counts down every second. He sprints in to tell his wife.

You want to stay. The doctors say they will expect to send him out of ICU on Monday, when you have to fly back. Classes start on Tuesday. You stay at his side as long as you can. The narcotics have made him dopey. You can think of nothing to say but “I love you I love you I love you I’m sorry for the bad things I love you so much thank you for all you have done I love you. Please know that I love you.” What do you say when you aren’t sure if this is the last time? You have asked yourself this question for years. You don’t know the answer. He puts on his machine for sleep apnea and you leave him looking a bit like a Hefalump, cute and ready for a rest. You wish him nice dreams. You will see him at Thanksgiving.

The next better is that they move him out of ICU. The next better is that they move him to an extended care facility. Better. Better. Things are getting better.

You know what the call means when you see your mother’s number.