Evan might be recovering faster than most, but to him it was still agonizingly slow going. This morning, he'd tried to get once through all of his flash cards-he had six hundred of them now in a shoe box next to his bed-but by about number two hundred his head felt as though it was going to explode, so he'd closed his eyes just for a minute.
And opened them more than two hours later. All of his three roommates were gone, out with their rehab or other therapies. Outside, the snow was falling in heavy clumps, which he found depressing-so depressing, in fact, along with his failure to succeed earlier with his flash cards, that for a moment he succumbed to the blind hopelessness of his situation here. He was never going to recover, in spite of what they said. He'd never really be normal again. People would notice the dent in his head, even after they put his skull back together. He'd never again talk like a regular person. He'd never have another relationship like the one he had had with Tara. He wished the shrapnel had just cut a little deeper and had killed him, the way it had his troops.
So many of them gone now. So many gone. Regular guys. And he'd been leading them. To their deaths.
Sitting up in his bed, he closed his eyes against the unexpected sting of unwelcome tears. Bringing both hands to his face, he pressed hard against his eyelids, willing himself to stop. In an instant, before he was even aware of it, the self-flagellation and depression had turned, as it often did, to fury. He was goddamned if he was going to cry. But why had this happened to him? Why wouldn't they let him out of here? Why were we having this fucking stupid war anyway? Who cared if he ever learned his fucking flash cards? He turned his head, ready to slap the damn box of the things to the ground, when his eyes grazed the wall again, stopped for a second at the new decorations. Santa and…
Those flying animals pulling the sled were reindeer. That was the word.
He started to laugh. At first it was just a small chuckle emanating from his throat, but it soon swelled to something completely out of his control, paroxysms that violently shook him until he could no longer catch his breath. His shoulders heaved and heaved some more as he tried to grab air into his lungs and now suddenly he was crying again, crying for real. Exhausted, his body shaking with the release of so much that he'd kept pent up, he collapsed back into his pillows, tears flowing unabated in a steady stream down his face.
Stephan was wiping his face with a warm towel. 'What happened here?'
'Nothing. What do you mean?'
'I mean, your face is wet. Are you all right?'
'I got frustrated. Then the reindeer.'
'Right.' Stephan, perhaps more attuned to absurdist dialogue than most people, nodded as if he understood the meaning of what Evan had just said. 'But you're all right now?'
'Fine.'
'You're sure?'
'Sure.'
'Because I've got a staff meeting in ten minutes, but I'll bail on it if you need me here. Even just to talk.'
'No. I'm good. Really, Stephan. Everything's okay.'
Nolan was thinking that this was why you didn't waste too much thought on what could go wrong. You just kept moving forward, you kept your goal in your sights, you pushed the niggling doubts out of your mind.
Walter Reed wasn't wallowing in chaos by any means, but clearly it was an understaffed and overburdened institution. In theory, maybe somebody was supposed to inquire whom he had come to visit, somebody should have checked his ID-he had almost hoped for that, since he had a Canadian passport in his pocket that identified him as Trevor Lennon-but no one had. Beyond those oversights, the crowding had become so serious that in many areas, and specifically on the upper floors of the Pediatric ICU building that had been pressed into service for recovering brain trauma patients, there was no video surveillance.
He was invisible.
There was no need to be impatient. The building had six stories and he'd covered floors two and three already, walking the hallways with a purposeful stride, as though he knew exactly where he was going. He stepped into each room on both floors, checking for Evan. As he walked the halls between rooms, he nodded to patients lying on their gurneys, or shuffling with their walkers; gave a brisk hello to anyone who looked like a doctor or nurse or staffer. He even had a name, Jarrod Smith, if anyone asked him who he was coming to visit, but he didn't think that was going to prove necessary.
Turning into the third door down on the fourth floor, he saw Evan in the bed across the room, over by the window. The three other beds in the room were all unoccupied. He walked into the room and closed the door behind him, checking the terrain, thinking on his feet that the best way to do it would be out the window.
Depressed brain-injured guy, left alone by a high window. An obvious suicide.
'Dude.'
For some reason, Evan found himself tempted to laugh. Inappropriate laughter, Stephan called it, a normal symptom of his kind of brain injury-this time he was able to resist the impulse. 'I know you,' he said after a moment.
'Of course you know me. I'm Ron Nolan.'
Evan nodded. 'That's it. Ron. How you doin', Ron?'
'I'm good. The question is, how are you doing?'
'They tell me I'm a miracle in progress, but I don't much feel like it. What are you doing here?'
'I was in town and found out you were too. I thought I'd come by and say hi.'
'What town?' Evan asked.
' Washington, D.C., or close enough. They don't tell you where you are?'
'No, they probably do.' He smiled. 'I don't remember everything the way I should yet.'
'Well,' Nolan said, 'wait a second.' He walked around the bed and over to the window. Looking left outside, then right, he suddenly threw up the bottom half of the double-hung window and stuck his head out. Bringing his body back in, he asked. 'Can you get up out of bed?'
'Slow but steady.'
'Well, check it out. Come on over here. Next time you forget where you are, look out here-you can read the Walter Reed logo out there on the-'
'What's a logo?' Evan had thrown off his covers and was sitting on the edge of the bed. 'I told you,' he explained, 'some words-'
Nolan reached out a hand, ostensibly to stop his talking. 'Hey, a picture's worth a thousand of 'em. Come here.' Taking him by the wrist, he pulled him gently off the bed to a standing position, then backed away from the window to let Evan look out.
Three steps and then…
Nolan put a hand on the center of Evan's back. A slight pressure, moving him forward.
Two steps.
'What's that window doing open?' Stephan Ray yelled from the doorway. 'You're going to freeze yourself and the rest of the room to death.' Then, pointing at Nolan, 'And who the hell is this?'
Nolan recovered without missing a beat. Pasted the smile back on as he turned. 'Ron Nolan,' he said. 'I was with Evan over in Iraq.'
'He was with me in Iraq,' Evan repeated.
'Glad to hear it, but let's close that window, what do you say? And, Evan, you shouldn't be walking around
