It’s entirely possible that my sense of something awful having happened at the first hospital was simply a reflection of guilt on my part, at having let my mother die, all alone on a bathroom floor, without having at least gone to see her one last time.

But how in the world can recognizing a second hospital that I’d never seen before, then proceeding without hesitation into one building among many, be explained without considering possibilities that go beyond our normal ways of grasping objective reality?