The nurse shot Patrick a look as she tucked the thermometer in the pocket of her scrubs. Thirty-five?
Patrick cleared his throat, then whispered. “Forty-three?”
“Sir. The boy needs to stay until I can get a doctor in here for the all-clear. You, however, do not.”
Patrick smiled to ease the tension. “Can we get lollipops?”
Maisie perked up. They hadn’t had breakfast. Patrick had suggested they could sneak down to the cafeteria while Grant was dozing, but she wouldn’t hear of leaving his side.
“Behave yourselves and we’ll talk.”
There was a low rumbling, like a truck passing by, and the floor began to shake. Maisie’s face glazed with panic and Patrick took her hand. “It’s okay. Just an aftershock.”
The nurse grabbed the rails on the side of Grant’s bed. “Oh, we’re going to get a few of those.” She turned to Maisie. “They make you nervous, sweetheart?”
Maisie nodded. The rumbling slowed its roll and then dissipated like a wave hitting the shore.
“What’s your name?”
“Maisie,” she replied. Patrick was surprised by how frail she sounded; in his mind she had hardened as the summer progressed.
“Maisie, I’m Imani. Have you had breakfast? I think we have some muffins lying around here. And maybe some orange juice. Would you like to come with me and see what we can find?”
She nodded again, and Patrick offered a grateful Thank you over Maisie’s head.
After they were gone, Patrick sat with Grant. “Close your eyes, bud. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” He took the boy’s hand, and when Grant closed his eyes, and he thought it was safe, Patrick started to weep. It was next to a bed like this where he last held Joe’s hand. He didn’t remember everything, not even then, and certainly not now, time robbing him of a number of intimate and precious details. He didn’t ever have a memory of being pulled from the car wreckage, and he’d long ago given up hope of recovering it. Nor did he remember much about his first few hours in the hospital, when he was the one in Grant’s shoes, the one in the bed. Only his physical pain was seared into memory; even if it wasn’t, he had a lovely scar as tormentor.
Joe lived for four days after the crash. One hundred two hours and thirty-four minutes. Lived wasn’t the proper word. Survived wasn’t, either. His heart pumped and his lungs drew breath, at least one of those with the help of machines; he never regained consciousness. He was Joe one second and then he was not. His face bruised and swollen beyond recognition, as almost to prove that point. I’m unrecognizable. Don’t try to save me. I am not myself. Patrick was still Patrick, it would take months for him to change; they were no longer Joe and Patrick once Joe’s family swooped in—they instantly took charge of all decisions. It was a male nurse, Seth, Patrick thought, although his name, too, was in danger of fading (Could it have been Scott? Or Sam?), who quietly ushered him in to sit with his love, to give them a last moment alone, while Joe’s family retreated to the cafeteria—without him—to decide.
He’d held Joe’s hand, he remembered that. It was warm; he was shocked. It fit in his, like it always did, even though the rest of him was misshapen. He traced Joe’s cuticles and then knuckles, tried to make contact with every last cell of skin. There was a scrape on the web between his thumb and forefinger. It had to have been from the crash, but the way it was scabbed over, already on the way to healing, maybe it was from before. He wanted so desperately to recall. If Joe was healing, then he had to still be there. His skin would mend and then his bones. His organs would follow, and maybe his brain would be last, but it, too, would heal. It would remember its work, controlling his vital systems. It would tell his heart to beat, to pump blood away and then pull it back. It would tell his lungs to expand, drawing in oxygen, and then tell them to contract, forcing out carbon dioxide. He held Joe’s hand until Seth or Scott or Sam returned, placed his own hand on top of his, on top of Joe’s, and slowly pried their fingers apart.
When he walked out of that room, he never saw Joe again.
Patrick wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and found Maisie standing in front of him clutching three containers of orange juice with foil tops.
“You okay, GUP?”
Patrick inhaled deeply and said he was, but he couldn’t hide his tears.
I want to be.
But he couldn’t do this again.
TWENTY
Patrick pulled the Tesla into his garage around five and, feeling no need to take it out again anytime soon, secured the car under the dustcover. Grant wasn’t in the mood for lupper; Patrick forced him to eat half a peanut butter sandwich anyway so that he could take the mild painkiller that had been prescribed, changed the sheets on the kid’s bed, and then tucked him in tight. After he was out, Maisie helped clean up the debris from the quake, holding a bag open as her uncle swept the remnants of some possessions with a broom and dustpan. The Jonathan Adler knickknacks from atop the piano. A vase from Takashimaya that lived on the coffee table. A few shattered picture frames, photos of him on various sets, mostly, with other recognizable faces. They straightened ornaments on tinsel branches and marveled how so many had refused to be shaken from the tree. Maisie, for her part, seemed equally reluctant to shake her uncle’s side.
“These don’t really need glass, anyway,” Maisie offered helpfully, assessing the picture frames.
“You’re right,” Patrick agreed. The photos themselves were undamaged.
They swept the tile floors and
