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Lina squeezed her eyes shut “I hurt him”

“He told me he’d let you down He wanted to cohtened around her chest until she could barely breathe “He … he was afraid you wouldn’t forgive him’”

“I did,” Lina whispered “I did”

Madelaine pushed away the weight of her guilt and tried desperately to give her daughter a smile “You tell him that when you see him”

Madelaine had been in hospital waiting rooms a thousand times in her career, and she’d never truly noticed what they were like How the neutral walls closed in on you, how the Naugahyde chairs , even What was she supposed to do now, read about some celebrity’s valiant battle with cocaine?

She paced back and forth in front of the s lot

Lina sat stiffly in a chair by the pay phone Neither one of them had spoken in the thirty minutes since they’d arrived They’d been told that Francis was in surgery and that a Dr Nusbaum would speak to them when the operation was over

Madelaine had wanted to push her way into the OR, but she knew she wouldn’t be of any use The best help she could offer was to hold his hand when it was over

She turned, glanced again at the big black schoolroom clock on the wall Another sixty seconds of eternity clicked past

Finally a tall, white-haired ical scrubs pushed into the tiny roo loosely around his neck Blood splattered his clothing in red-black splotches She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think of Francis’s blood

The hed heavily, glancing from Madelaine to Lina and back to Madelaine “You’re Mrs DeMarco?”

It was strange how the question hurt She shook her head, wringing her hands together andfor answers, pleading silently for hope “No, I’ist, St Joe’s,” she added uselessly, wondering why she’d said it “This is hter, Lina We are Francis’s … family”

“I’m sorry, Dr Hillyard…”

She didn’t hear anything else Blood roared in her ears, and she couldn’t breathe For a horrifying second she thought she was going to vo room floor

“The injury was too extensive…”