I stand in the doorway of my father’s room.  Way too afraid to go in.  All around me, hospital stink and loudspeaker hum.  A stroke, the doctor had said.

In this room, there is only one bed, and in it, a man hooked up to machines, head propped back.  His mouth open like a tiny bird waiting for food.

I check the room number.  I check the visitor’s pass.  Stand there for a moment, watching this stranger breathing my father’s air.

Because this could not be my father.  My father is a young, thin man.  Dark, wavy hair.  And there we are, still at the beach.  We walk to the edge of the ocean, white foam bubbling at my toes.  Too cold, I say, and he scoops me up and runs us into a wave.  Later, he buys me ice cream and squeezes my hand.

But now, there’s this man in a hospital bed.  Tiny and sparrow-boned.  A nurse pads in, wiggles some wires and tells me to take his hand.  “It’s a good sign,” she says, “if he squeezes back.”

She is so starchy white, I wonder if her father ever tossed her into a wave.  “Go on,” she says, “he’s all alone in there.”  And I think of this stranger, my father, floating in an ocean inside his head.  Wings too wet to fly.

That’s when I take his hand and hold it and hold it till he squeezes back, just like he did all those many years ago.