She could hear her nervous pulse in her ears as the blood in her capillaries gushed past her eardrums. The noise bothered her. She repeated her aunt’s room number to the rhythm of her heels on the floor. She always liked to hear the aggressive steps she took.

Maria’s mother, Arlene, recognized the quick, punctuated sounds of her daughter’s heels and stepped outside of room three forty-eight to greet her and inform her of what had happened. “Maria,” she said, in a hushed voice, “your Tia Carla is very sick and she asked to see you.”

“Sick with what?” Maria asked.

“She has the blood disease called sickle cell anemia and suffered from another of the attacks, the doctors told us,” her mother answered. She stared into her daughter’s face; her eyes looked from Maria’s right eye to her left eye, searching for any of the emotional response that had so long been lacking from them.

Maria’s eyes were dark brown, so dark that even the blackness of her pupils lost their distinction. Arlene saw her own memories in Maria’s eyes, but did not find the colors of emotion underneath their protective, murky brown-black. She remembered how Maria favored the darker crayons when she was younger. She used the light pinks, the scarlets, the burnt orange, and the teal to design flowers and trees next to small, misshapen square houses. Then she always took the light brown and scribbled over the pink petals, the black over the teal leaves. The grey cancelled the orange. Later, she told Arlene that she drew a happy face at the bottom of her pictures so her daddy wouldn’t sit her down on his knee anymore and ask her what was the matter. Maria began drawing the pictures when she was three, only they lacked real definition of house, tree, and flower. The colors were there, though. She still drew the pictures when she was nine and even colored the teacher’s note dark brown on her way home from school. Arlene found the crumpled, waxy, brown letter hidden at the bottom of Maria’s backpack and scheduled a meeting with the teacher to explain the pictures and the colors. Now, Arlene noted that half of Maria’s fingernails were painted a dark red, the red that always reminded her of those stained clothes and the copper smell of blood.

“Did you hear what I said, Maria?” she asked. Maria hadn’t responded to anything Arlene told her.

“I’m sorry. I missed that. What’s wrong with Tia Carla?” Maria answered her mother after shaking her head and blinking hard a couple of times. She had been looking through the entry way of her aunt’s room. Her eyes were drawn to the blinking green and red lights on the machines surrounding the bed. Every so often, one of the machines would beep and startle her from the semi-trance she found herself in. She forced herself to look back at her mother, her very fair-skinned mother who wore all the wrong colors. She noticed how her mother’s shell-pink turtleneck emphasized her blotchy skin and double chin. She noticed that her mother’s blonde hair was graying at her temples and in bad need of another trim. She closed her eyes for a second to focus on her mother’s voice instead of her embarrassing appearance.

“I said that Tia Carla is very sick. The doctors told us she has sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder that makes it difficult for her body to get the oxygen it needs. It affects her in spurts, or attacks, they said. This afternoon she had a particularly bad attack and passed out when she was visiting us.”

“Oh. Will she be alright? How did you know where to find me?” Maria’s attention again turned back to the room. The machines were beeping more insistently and she moved aside for the nurse to walk inside. The nurse was followed by an intern dressed in his sea-green scrubs. He carried a clipboard in one hand and adjusted a mask over his mouth and nose with the other. Maria watched them calmly stand next to her aunt’s bed and turn off whatever had caused the noise that called them in there. She watched how the nurse spoke to her father and made him sit on a chair near the window. Maria looked back to her mother because she was talking again.

“Maria. Maria, will you please look at me so I know you’re listening. I don’t want to keep repeating myself to you. The doctors said that Tia should be fine tomorrow. They’re monitoring her tonight. Your father called you from here. The doctors told him that Tia asked for you as soon as she was conscious. He had called you at work, but your boss told him you had already left and that you were probably on your way to the salon, where you go every Thursday. So that’s how he finally found you.”

“Oh. I see. Is it OK if I go in there and talk to her?”

“Go ahead, Maria.”

Maria followed her mother inside the room. She walked cautiously toward the bed. White sheets were pulled close to her aunt’s chin and an oxygen mask was around her face. An IV tube ran from her arm underneath the covers to the bag on the metal stand at the side of the bed. The green-clad intern leaned over Carla before making a note on his clipboard. The nurse glanced at the paper and nodded to him. Maria watched them leave. She walked the rest of the way to the bed and rested her hand on the lump where her aunt’s shoulder was underneath the crisp, white sheet.

Her aunt slowly opened her eyes and noticed her Maria standing next to her.

“Ah, Sobrinha Maria,” she whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you to come. How are you?”

“Oh, Tia Carla, I’m fine, but I should be asking you that. Are you OK?” The emotion that had hidden itself from her mother’s eyes poured out in her voice. She pulled a chair next to the bed, careful not to bump any of the cords or wires on the floor. “I heard you had passed out at my parents’ house. Are you feeling any better? I mean, what’s going on? How come you were there?”

“Sobrinha, don’t worry about me now. The doctors, they take good care of me here. I’ll be fine.” Carla consoled Maria and feebly lifted her arms from beneath the sheets. Maria helped her pull them back. She gasped when she saw where the tubes were inserted and then taped to her aunt’s forearms. She had to sit back down on the chair.

“Arlene,” Carla said. “Arlene, could you get that book I had with me? It should be around here somewhere. I had it in my hands and was about to give it to you earlier today, before all this bloody nonsense.” She laughed weakly at her play-on-words. Maria was relieved to hear her aunt hadn’t lost her sense of humor.

“The book, right. I picked it up after you dropped it. Now, where did I put it?” Arlene searched through her large, checkered purse. “Ray, dear, did you see what I did with that book? You know, the one with the leather cover and little newsclippings sticking out of it?” she asked her husband. Ray was still sitting next to the window where the nurse had gently seated him minutes before. He looked up when he heard his name and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, never mind,” Arlene said. “I found it. I really need to clean out my purse one of these days.” She removed the book from her purse and handed it to Maria.

Maria took the book gingerly in her hands. She held it out to her aunt her directed her to open it and read the first page. Then she called Arlene to her side and asked for some private time with “her Sobrinha Maria.” Arlene and Ray both kissed Carla’s cheek before they left the room.