My mother was sick. Hospice had her resting comfortably in an old brick and mortar building that used to be a convent. They gave an estimate of hours or days.

Waiting for the bad news was beginning to take its toll. Every twenty minutes I checked the battery level on my cell phone. Reading, writing, even thinking was out of the question, because it's true what they say: you only get one mother in this life.

I couldn't sleep so I walked three blocks to a diner for a midnight breakfast.

There was one other customer, a fat man eating an English muffin.

The menu was a blackboard above the grill, everything written in cursive with pink chalk. Only the prices were clear. While I was deciding what to order, the fat man said, Do you know how to make coffee?

The waitress, who was a peroxide blonde with a mouthful of chewing gum, leaned left, looking past me.

She said, I gave you coffee. You're drinking it.

This, darling, is not coffee, the fat man said.

The waitress blew a bubble, let it snap. She gave me a look like I knew her shoes were too tight and her varicose veins made her legs ache.

What's yours, she said.

I pretended to study the menu board but all I could think of was how I am not bothered writing stories about unremarkable people living unremarkable lives while I kill time waiting for my mother to die.