Judy’s mother sits beside her, as she has every day, watching the daughter who was not supposed to die dying. She sees her daughter lying semi-conscious in the stark hospital bed under a sheet tent, smelling like rot, looking emaciated. Tubes are coming out of her from everywhere, and pumps are all around. She cannot see how her daughter will live. She misses her lively daily telephone calls.

Only a month ago, she and Judy spoke every morning on the telephone, talking about her grandchildren, talking about Cliff, talking about things a mother and daughter are supposed to talk about. With Percy having died in 1963 from a heart attack, the phone calls had become even more important to her. But now, she sits in silence beside her silent, still daughter in the midst of the noisy machines keeping Judy alive. This is their new morning ritual.

Every morning, Marjorie eats breakfast, gets dressed, and goes down to TGH to sit in this green room with her dying daughter. Meanwhile, her daughter, who speaks little and hardly knows that her mother is there, doesn’t eat breakfast and doesn’t need to get dressed. Marjorie hates this new morning ritual.

Suddenly, she has had enough. She stands up, picks up her purse, and walks out of the room and down the hallway to the gastroenterologist’s office. Sun streams in through the window behind the cheerful young secretary. The blue-walled waiting room is empty. She asks to see Dr. Jeejeebhoy and is told he will be coming out of his office soon. She sits down. A strange-looking calendar with odd caricatures all over it leers down at her from the wall. She stares into space, seeing the image of her dying daughter, steeling herself against tears. Men don’t like weepy women.

He comes out with a patient, sees her, and comes over.

“Hello, Mrs. Russell. What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you.”