In "Safe Harbor," what is the double meaning of the question David asks when he is brought into the emergency room?

When David is brought into the emergency room, he asks whether his mother knows that he is there. In a literal sense, he wonders if his mother, who is also in the St. Vincent's emergency room, has been told about his accident and his arrival. But on a deeper level, he worries about his place in his mother's world--she has been an inconsistent parent to him, and shortly before his accident, she even failed to recognize him, briefly, after her seizure.