10:05.

A friend recently told me he thinks I have a martyr complex. The way he said it offended me, as if I walk around carrying glue in my pocket, waiting to help put broken pieces back together at a moment's notice. But last night, waiting in the emergency room as I rubbed my mother's back as she coughed and coughed, I'm reminded of why I stay.

I know my mother doesn't 'need' me as much as she used to. After all, last night she kept asking for him. I helped her as she fumbled with her phone to contact the companion she's grown to love. He finally rushed in, still groggy from a much-needed nap he tried to sneak in after having worked several days straight. She leans in close, and I think of how he drove all the way to the hospital just to hold my mother's hand. I suddenly felt alone and intrusive and so I rubbed my own two hands together, cursing the all-too-familiar joint pain that comes from the shift in air from night to morning. Looks like going to work today is out of the question. And I had a presentation scheduled for tonight too. I become one of those obnoxious people who checks their smartphones.

My mother reaches for me and says, "ay, mi hija, tu eres una niña tan buena," and I smile because that's what I've always been: the good girl. I wasn't my sister, who was 'different,' who went out with strangers and 'disrespected' the night, who owned her body by marking it up with tattoos and piercings, who had sex and liked it, regardless of who it was with. My mother and my sister refused to understand each other, and so I was the one who had the heart to stay. Even if it meant sacrificing my own personal growth and happiness.

It's been a long day of with hospital rooms, rain, and a stubborn Grandma who wants to show her support, but who needs looking after herself. I fix her dinner, my attempt at a tortilla de papa when my mother phones me from her hospital bed, telling me to make sure I eat. I tell her not to worry, she needs to focus on herself right now. But as I finally let my tired and painful body stretch into bed, I feel so guilty for wanting to tell myself the same thing.