Echoes Page 0,66

deeply as she slipped it onto her finger next to her wedding ring, and then it made her shiver for a moment. Why had her mother given it to her now? Perhaps she was sicker than even Beata realized, or maybe her mother was just worried. She said she'd had the same problem before, and it had gone away. But Beata worried about her all that night.

When she got up the next day, on a whim, she decided to call her, just to make sure that she was all right and still planning to go to the doctor. She didn't trust her to keep the appointment. She knew how much her mother hated doctors, and how independent she was. It was always awkward calling her, and Beata had only done so a few times in the last two years. But she knew her father would be at the office. And after nineteen years, there were no servants left in the house who would recognize her voice.

She dialed the number nervously, and noticed that her hands were trembling. It was always upsetting calling there, and this time a man's voice answered. Beata assumed it was the butler, and asked for her mother in a businesslike voice. There was a long silence in response, and then he asked who was calling. Not knowing what else to do, she gave Amadea's name, as she had before.

“I regret to inform you, madame, that Mrs. Wittgenstein is in the hospital. She collapsed last night.”

“Oh my God, how awful…is she all right? Where did they take her?” She sounded distraught and not businesslike at all. The butler gave her the name of the hospital, but only because she sounded so distressed about it, and he assumed, whoever she was, that she wanted to send his employer flowers. “She can only have visits from her family,” he said to make sure she didn't try to visit her, and Beata nodded.

“Of course.” A moment later she hung up, and stared into space as she sat next to the phone in her hallway. She didn't know how, but she knew she had to see her. What if she died? Her father couldn't possibly refuse to let her see her mother in extremis. He just couldn't. She didn't even stop to dress properly. She just put a black coat over the black dress she was wearing, jammed on a hat, and grabbed her handbag and ran out the door. Within minutes, she was in a taxi, heading toward the hospital, to see her mother. And as they drove there, without thinking, she touched the ring her mother had given her the day before. Thank God she had seen her, she thought to herself, praying that her mother would recover.

She made her way into the hospital, and a nurse at the front desk told her which floor and which room to go to. She was in the best hospital in Cologne, and there were nurses and doctors and well-dressed people everywhere. Beata realized that she looked less than elegant in the haphazard clothes she wore, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to see her mother and be there for her. And as soon as she got off the elevator and turned into the first corridor, she saw them. Both her brothers and her sister and her father, standing in the hallway. There were two women with them that she didn't recognize, who she assumed were her sisters-in-law. Feeling her heart pound, she approached the group. She was within a foot of them, before Brigitte turned and saw her, and looked at her with wide eyes. She said nothing as the others noticed her expression, and slowly they each turned to see Beata, as did, finally, her father. He looked straight at Beata and said nothing. Absolutely nothing, and made no move toward her.

“I came to see Mama,” she said in the terrified voice of a child, wanting to reach forward and hug him, and even beg his forgiveness if she had to. But he appeared to be made of stone. The rest of her family stood in shocked silence, watching her.

“You are dead, Beata. And your mother is dying.” There were tears in his eyes as he said it, for his wife, not his daughter. He looked icy toward Beata.

“I want to see her.”

“Dead people do not visit the dying. We sat shiva for you.”

“I'm sorry. I am truly sorry. You can't keep me from seeing her,” she said