bruise. Sometime after that I heard the jingle of glass and metal that tells you the doctors are making rounds, accompanied by nurses with trays of syringes and pills and other things patients need. By then the sky was a sullen gray, as bright as it probably meant to get. I got up, washed and dressed, zipped my jacket over my bare chest because I didn't want anyone's sympathy.
I stood watching Tony, who with the aid of a complex network of machines and tubes and drugs was able to successfully complete each breath he started. His face was pallid, yellow-tinged, his eyelids dark and sunken. He already looked like a man who’d been sick a long time, a man who’d be a long time getting well.
The attending physician, a younger, colder man than the surgeon, asked me to wait outside while he did his work. When he came out he was noticeably friendlier. He told me Tony was doing well. I recognized that thaw, that softening of the armor in which he wrapped himself in case he had to deliver bad news. Relax, I wanted to tell him. You get used to it. Eventually the armor turns to stone around you. Then it doesn't soften anymore; but then you're never caught without it, either.
I didn't go back into Tony's room when the doctor was gone. Tony was not likely to wake until later. The cop MacGregor had sent was sitting patiently in the hall— had, it turned out, been sitting there most of the night, while I was tossing on the cot. Let him wait to hear from Tony. I had to move. I had to do something, while the ideas slugged it out in my head until a winner was declared.
The hospital cafeteria wasn't open yet, so I drove to Friendly's, just before the state highway entrance—E-Z- Off, E-Z-On. I had fried eggs because I knew they couldn't make fried eggs from powder, and I had bacon and potatoes and toast and coffee and orange juice and more coffee, but before any of that I called Eve Colgate.
She answered on the second ring.
'It's Bill,' I said.
'Are you all right?' Eve asked. 'I just called the hospital.
They've upgraded Tony's condition to 'stable.' They said you'd gone.'
'He's doing all right, but the doctor says it'll be a slow recovery.'
'Did he wake up? Did you speak to him?' 'No.'
'So he doesn't know you were there.'
'It doesn't matter.'
'If you're not staying with him, maybe I'll come down. He should have a friend there when he wakes.'
'He'll tell you he'd rather be left alone.'
'When he tells me that, I'll leave,' she said easily. 'Bill, how are you?'
'I'm okay. How are you two doing?'
'We're fine. We're having breakfast.' A note of amusement crept into Eve's voice. 'We just got back from doing the morning chores.'
'What's funny?'
'Lydia did quite well,' Eve said gravely.
'Oh, God,' I said.
'She wants to talk to you.'
A pause, and then Lydia. 'Bill? Do you know how big cows are?'
I chuckled.
'Don't laugh!' she demanded. 'The closest I ever was to a live chicken before is the Grand Street kosher market. Did you know chickens get annoyed when you take the eggs away?'
'Only if your hands are cold.'
'Oh, you're so smart. Did you ever milk a cow?'
'Did you?' I asked, impressed.
'Well, sort of. Eve showed me. I wasn't real good at it. I mean, they do it all by machines anyway. We just got enough for breakfast.' She stopped for breath, then asked, 'How's Tony?'
I repeated what I'd told Eve.
'It sounds as though he'll be all right,' she said. 'I'm so glad.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Me, too.'
'What are you going to do now?'
'I'm going over to Frank Grice's place, on the other side of Cobleskill. If I can't find him I'm going to try that other dump.'
'Be careful.'
'I'm always careful.'
'Uh-huh. I'd feel better if I were with you.'
'I'd feel better if you were with me, too. But I want you to stay with Eve. And think of all you're learning. This will be good, for when we buy our little rose-covered cottage. You can milk the cows and collect the eggs and bake cherry pies while I split firewood and shoot things for food for the winter.'
'If this were my phone I'd hang up on you.'
'If this were your phone your mother would already have hung up on me. I'll call again later. 'Bye.'
