'What do you mean?'
'Something from his room. Anything. Just something was in his room,
so I can have it and know there's a room where he is.'
The chasm of insecurity and fear revealed by the boy's request was
almost more than Heather could bear without losing the emotional
control she had thus far maintained with such iron-willed success. Her
chest tightened, and she had to swallow hard before she dared to
speak.
'Sure, okay, I'll bring you something.'
'If I'm asleep, wake me.'
'Okay.'
'Promise?'
'I promise, peanut. Now I gotta go. You be good for Mae.'
'We're playing five hundred rummy.'
'You're not betting, are you?'
'Just pretzel sticks.'
'Good. I wouldn't want to see you bankrupt a good friend like Mae,'
Heather said, and the boy's giggle was sweet music.
To be sure she didn't interfere with the nurses, Heather leaned against
the wall beside the door that led out of the I.C.U. She could see
Jack's cubicle from there. His door was closed, privacy curtains drawn
at the big observation windows.
The air in the I.C.U smelled of various antiseptics. She ought to have
been used to those astringent and metallic odors by now. Instead, they
became increasingly noxious and left a bitter taste as well.
When at last the doctors stepped out of Jack's cubicle and walked
toward her, they were smiling, but she had the disquieting feeling they
had bad news. Their smiles ended at the corners of their mouths, in
their eyes was something worse than sorrow--perhaps pity.
Dr. Walter Delaney was in his fifties and would have been perfect as
the wise father in a television sitcom in the early sixties. Brown
hair going to gray at the temples. A handsome if soft-featured face.
He radiated quiet authority, vet was as relaxed and mellow as Ozzie
Nelson or Robert Young.
'You okay, Heather?' Delaney asked.
She nodded. 'I'm holding up.'
'I don't know if you've heard the latest news,' Emil Procnow said, 'but
the man who shot up the service station this morning was carrying
cocaine and PCP in his pockets. If he was using both drugs
simultaneously ... well, that's psycho soup for sure.'
'Like nuking your own brain, for God's sake,' Delaney said
disgustedly.
Heather knew they were genuinely frustrated and angry, but she also
suspected they were delaying the bad news. To the surgeon, she said,
'He came through without brain damage. You were worried about that,
but he came through.'
'He's not aphasic,' Procnow said. 'He can speak, read, spell, do basic
math in his head. Mental faculties appear intact.'
'Which means there's not likely to be any brain-related physical
