“Dad?” My soft voice was barely audible over the noise, but I wasn’t willing to raise it. “I was looking for a tissue. I know Mom’s the one who has everything always ready to hand.”
Across the still and silent figure, my father gave a wistful smile. He stayed soft, too, interspersing odd pauses not set to any known punctuation. It came anyway, tied to the steadily irregular beeping. “Aye, she had that. A bandage for a scrape, flashlight for a power outage. Turned a stray pretty feather into a quill when her pen exploded once, did I ever tell you that one?”
“You did, Dad.” I hesitated, and patted my eyes with a tissue. “Anyway, I found a single puzzle piece. Jigsaw. Carefully sealed in a plastic baggie.”
“Ah.” He leaned back, face half-hidden behind the cords. Funny how badly placed fluorescents could make the light so shadowed. “You’ll be wanting to know the meaning behind it, then.”
I nodded, hoping he could see it. Didn’t matter, though. We both wanted to fill the room with more than empty, silent waiting.
“Well, puzzle pieces mean a lot of things. Autism awareness, for one thing. Your Mam’s brother was never formally diagnosed, but for certain sure, he was on the spectrum. Struggled with people his whole life.”
“Wish I’d met Uncle Mike.”
Dad snorted, the sound incongruous and loud. “He’d have liked you better once you were old enough to have an intelligent conversation. But Lisse always said you took after him.”
That was news to me, and it wasn’t clear if it was welcome. “I do?”
“Aye.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on the rail. “You’re my out of the box thinker, you are. Mike didn’t see solutions the same way as anyone else either. Ever struggle to explain the obvious to anyone?”
My mouth dropped. I’d just been complaining to a girlfriend last night. I could feel the glare coming on at the suspicion of eavesdropping, eyes narrowing and lips curling back in a half-hearted snarl.
He raised a hand to stop me, then reached out to hold hers. “I didn’t eavesdrop. Happened to Mike all the time. I see it in you, too. But you’re more functional than he was, more like your mam. You see the pieces of the world and connect them, while your uncle tended to see them in a vacuum.”
“So the puzzle piece is to remember her brother?”
Dad twisted his lips briefly and tilted his head from side to side. “Eh. She did puzzles with her grandmother as a girl, and always said it left good memories. And her whole job was solving puzzles. Said it was good to keep the brain active.”
I watched him look down at legs that withered by the day, the pain in the room palpable as the whole situation tore at the fabric of reality we had known to be true. Mom’s brain might never be the same again.
The chair squealed abruptly as I stood, unable to take the tension any longer. “I’ve got to get back, Dad.” I reached across the bed and squeezed his shoulder. Letting go awkwardly, I smoothed my uniform down with one hand while tipping back the last of my coffee with the other.
The liquid was cold and bitter, tainted with the scent of hospital antiseptic, and strengthened my resolve even though it was weak. “My turn to solve this one.”
***
I forgot to send a prompt to MOTE this week, so I grabbed a spare: There was a puzzle piece in the purse.
