We ended up at a tiny Mexican place that Shane and Alice used to love. I’d never gone with them since I’d always tried to eat healthily, but I’d often thought about trying it and saw no reason not to today. We didn’t talk about much of substance over our enchiladas, but it was nice to simply sit there and discuss world events. By discuss, I mainly mean that we made fun of them, because that’s what we did.

By the time we were done with our food it was almost one, and we decided to go back to the hospital to check and see how things were going. We weren’t planning to spend the entire day there since Ryan was coming in that afternoon and Shane had invited me to go meet him with her, just for something to do. Jenny had a phone date with some publisher or something and Shane said she wanted the company. It sounded a lot better than sitting in the hospital room all day, so I agreed. I knew Alice hated it when I sat with her all day, and even though I was feeling a lot better I knew she’d still get on my case about wasting time there with her when I could be out doing something.

Alice got moved to her new room without any real incident. A nurse came in to bathe her, since she was able to sit up with a little assistance, and Alice smiled when she realized she’d be allowed to take a shower. I could understand that; I imagined she felt pretty gross. She’d had sponge baths, of course, but hadn’t been able to really bathe. Gemma had told me that since she was able to sit for short periods now, she could shower. She’d have to be put on a bench in there and partially supported by the nurse, who would wash her, but that was still a lot better than going without in my opinion.

“I wish I could help her,” I said to Shane and Jenny as we walked up to the cafeteria to get some coffee while we waited. They just shrugged at me, and I couldn’t really blame them. There was really no way I could help at this stage, and we all knew that. That didn’t alleviate my desire to do so, though.