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"That’s right She canancy test"

"Why not have you run the test to begin with?"

"I couldn’t tell you that Perhaps she was embarrassed about the predicament she was in She said she’d pleaded with the Lompoc doctor to abort her He’d turned her down and I was next on her list"

He dried his hands thoroughly and hung the towel on the rack

"And you refused?" "Of course" "Why ’of course’?"

"Aside froal, it’s soitiirl couldn’t have done the sah she didn’t seem to see it that way She said it would ruin her life, but that simply wasn’t true"

While he talked, he unlocked a cabinet and took out a big jar of pills He shook five into a small white envelope, which he handed to me

"What are these?"

"Tylenol with codeine"

I couldn’t believe I’d need painkillers, but I tucked the envelope in et bashed around a lot "Did you tell Jean’son?"

"Unfortunately, no Jean was a reed to keep the s would have turned out differently"

"And you have no idea who Jean’s father was?" "I’d try ice on that ar persists, come back and see me At the office, if you don’t ive you any indication who she was involved with?"

Dr Dunne left the roo-sleeved shirt out of the backseat of my car and pulled it on over my T-shirt so the rainbow of bruises ontonext I was done in It was only four o’clock and I felt as if the day had gone on forever So un shells loaded with rock salt The 42,000 unaccounted for Soure in the fog I had caught glimpses, but there was no way to identify the face I pulled ain so I could talk to Royce

I found the hospital on Johnson, just a few blocks froh school, the architecture chunky and nondescript No design awards for this one

Royce was on the ical floor The soles of hly polished vinyl tiles I passed the nurses’ station, following the room numbers Nobody paid any attention tomy eyes when I passed an open door The sick, the injured, and the dying have very little privacy as it is Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that et-well cards propped open, their television sets on I could setables to me

I came to Royce’s roos I went in Royce was asleep He looked like a captive, sides pulled up around his bed, an IV like a tether connecting hien cone covered his nose The only sound was the breath whiffling through his lips in an intermittent snore His teeth had been "taken away from him, lest he bite himself to death I stood by the bed and watched hi and his white hair was lank, plastered in long strands across his forehead His hands lay pal now and then Was he drea days? In a one, this ornery mass of protoplasm driven by countless irritations, by drea enough to have what he wanted most-his son, Bailey, whose fate he’d entrusted toon Shana Timber-lake’s door, already convinced there was no one hoer in the drive The cottage ere dark and the drawn front curtains had that blank look of no occupancy I tried the knob without luck, always interested in the notion of an unsupervised inspection of the premises, a specialty ofthe rear door She’d put a second bag of trash out, but I could see through the kitchenthat the dirty dishes were piling up again and the bed was unmade The place looked like a flophouse