I found myself squeezed into a single hospital bed with my nineteen-year-old stepson, all to care for my fifty-year-old husband. A car accident had injured his leg, cutting our road trip short; to save money, he insisted on staying at a small local hospital, but the facilities were cramped and primitive. The room had only two beds—my husband took the one on the right, while I was forced to share the one on the left with my stepson. My husband snored away right beside us, yet every time I shifted in my sleep, I would brush against my stepson’s body... What should have been a straightforward hospital vigil took an unexpected turn, and the entire incident was even witnessed by a nurse on her rounds. Had I known things would end up this way, I never would have chosen to stay in that room...
