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including stories Mom had told me of how much she loved working at that hospital—some of them more true than others. I crossed my fingers and hit send.
    I wracked my brain for what else might be out there. I loved kids, and I was trained in CPR, so maybe a nanny or babysitting position would be open somewhere. But all of the positions not only wanted college degrees but were out of town and spanned visiting hours at the hospital, five days a week. I needed to be able to go see Mom at least sometimes. The few daycare positions I found open required college degrees, too, or only had occasional opportunities available. I needed a guarantee of cash.
    So the job thing wasn’t working out so brilliantly. Maybe it would be easier to find an apartment, but I before I started that, I needed a few minutes’ break.
    I called the hospital to check on Mom. Her vitals were still the same, but she was complaining about increased headache pain, so they’d taken her for an MRI, just to look at her brain a little more. She still didn’t really seem to remember Carol, but at least she wasn’t agitated around her. Carol was planning to leave the hospital at the end of her shift—she’d stayed the night just to be there with Mom—so they’d given Mom a sleeping aid to get her through tonight. I even spoke with the charge nurse, who urged me to stay in and get some rest myself.
    Yeah, right. Back to the new-life-in-Vegas housing hunt.
    I scoured one rental site after another, trying to find a place that was in a safe area, was on the bus route that went by the hospital so I could get there quickly, and had at least some furniture. Even if it didn’t, I reasoned, I could get a cheap sleeping bag and some pillows and be just fine. The lists started popping up in my brain again. What were the bare minimum household goods I could get away with here in Vegas for a few weeks? Could I borrow some stuff from Mike? Would that be weird? The lump was back in my throat, and I tried to push all the complicated stuff away. One step at a time, Andi.
    I found a few places that, although seeming kind of sketchy, were within my budget, but then I realized almost everything required a year-long lease; anything under that increased the price fifty percent. Plus, I had no idea where I’d be working, so I had no idea how transportation costs would add to it. For a second, I thought maybe I could borrow Mike’s car since his leg was broken, but then I remembered his car had been smashed in the accident. That just got me thinking about Mom lying in her hospital bed again, and before I knew it, tears were flowing down my cheeks and a heavy ache had moved into my head.
    I was so tired, so sad, so lost. By now, the sun was going down, and I hadn’t had a thing to eat, but crying always made me feel like I was going to throw up so it was kind of moot. It was all I could do to curl up on top of one of the blankets—no way I was getting under the moldy-smoky covers—and fall asleep.
     
    Crying always exhausted me to the point of no return. When I finally woke up, the sun was starting to rise again, making the sky out my window a dull violet color. I must have been out for ten hours, and my morning breath was good evidence of that. At least my headache was gone, even if it did take me a good ten minutes to convince my shoulders to lift up off the bed. I dug my toothbrush and tiny tube of toothpaste out of my duffle bag, scoffing at my own stupidity in thinking I’d be here a short enough time that I’d only need that much. My feet thudded heavily on the floor as I traipsed toward the bathroom. I peeled off the clothes I’d been wearing for twenty-four hours, cranked the shower to hot, and adjusted the head so it was a strong, pounding stream of water.
    I stood there for long minutes, pressing one palm to the wall and bowing my head, begging the water to melt away all the tension, worry, and stress. When the steam in the bathroom grew so dense I felt like I