The curtain between our beds moved. Not a lot, just enough that I could tell she had reached for it. She pulled it back slow. The metal rings scraped on the rod. She sat up a little and looked right at me across the space between the beds.

“That was my mother.”

I did not know what to say. My mouth went dry. I could feel the IV pulling at my hand. She kept looking at me like she was trying to match my face to something she had heard a long time ago.

She told me her mother had come home from that stay weaker than before. She told me her mother never knew exactly what went wrong that night, only that the night nurse had stayed right there with her the whole time. She said her mother used to tell the story at family dinners sometimes, always ending it the same way.

She looked down at her hands for a second. Then she looked back at me.

“She said that nurse had kind eyes and never left the room.”

I could not answer her. The monitor next to my bed started beeping faster. A nurse came in a minute later to check on us both. The woman let the curtain fall back between us. We did not talk much after that.

They discharged me two days later. I have not heard from her since. I still think about what she said every night before I turn off the light. Some mistakes do not go away just because the person you hurt never knew your name.

I cannot stop seeing the way her hand looked on that curtain. Her fingers were knotted up from arthritis the same as mine. The metal made a little screech when it moved along the rod and I remember the cool air from the vent hitting my face right then.

She sat up straighter in her bed. “She told us the nurse stayed even after her shift was over.” Her eyes were watery but she did not cry. “Mom said that nurse talked to her about her own kids to keep her mind off the pain.”

I nodded but I could not get any sound out. The blanket felt heavy on my legs and the pillow was still too flat like we had joked about the first night. All I could think was how small the room suddenly seemed with that curtain open.

She waited a minute like she wanted me to say something back. “I used to wonder if that nurse ever knew what happened to Mom after.” Her voice got softer on that last part. “Now I guess I know.”

The beeping from her monitor filled up the quiet after she spoke. I stared at the ceiling tiles and counted the little holes in them to keep myself steady. When the nurse came in she just checked our vitals and left without asking why the curtain was open.