“I’ll take care of Mark.” She was halfway to the front door by the time she’d completed her sentence.

The hospital in Akron’s proper is a city unto itself, and each year more of its outbuildings swallow parts of Akron’s downtown. The large state university in Akron was doing the same thing coming from the opposite directions. I wondered when the two finally met who would overtake whom.

I left my car in the parking deck closest to the Emergency Room entrance. I knew the layout fairly well because my father spent three weeks in the hospital after his fall.

As I stepped through the mechanical doors, the faint scent of antiseptic hit me, reminding me of my father’s accident. I had been in Chicago, finishing my freshman year of art school. Mom had called from the emergency room and told me to come home immediately. I told her I had one more exam to take the next morning and I’d drive home after the exam.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d treat this family crisis the same way you’ve acted about your brother’s problems.” Before I could respond, or even think of a response, she hung up.

The next day with my car waiting outside the visual arts building, packed to the gills with clothes and dorm room trappings, I took the final, confusing the impressionists with the expressionists. I drove the six hours home, straight and alone. Choosing the wrong bank of elevators when I arrived at the hospital, I lost myself in its endless corridors and passages. A friendly, large-toothed nurse helped me find my father’s room, on the opposite side of the hospital, where he was attached to metal rods and plastic tubes.

Mom and Carmen hovered over my father with anxious chatter and didn’t even notice when I walked into the room. I didn’t call attention to myself. Instead, I focused on Mark who had huddled in a corner, his long arms wrapped around his body like a straightjacket. He was even thinner than he had been over Christmas, the last time I’d been home. I walked over to him, took his hand, and led him out of the room.