for two weeks since then. And before that, he had loved the pieces of her in Cynthia and Janey and even Beth.
It was best when love came quickly, however shallow that might seem to others. Others had the luxury of time that he did not. Time could not be wasted when he knew it could be snatched away from him at any moment.
Yet, he refused to be rushed by its relentlessness. Nicholas saw the future as treacherously pockmarked as the past, a rugged terrain with gaping holes for which he could give no account. Living for him was like traversing a minefield, one misstep and life and memory were blown away. It was a process in which only the present could be counted on, each foot planted firmly, awaiting the patient and careful consideration of the next step, and just as satisfied if it never came. If he could hold that step at the peak of its arc, he would be content.
Driving back to the hospital, he felt that peak, the heady rush of success that made failure seem impossible. In the parking lot, he carefully arranged the articles of clothing he had sorted out for Trissa in the shabby, little black suitcase along with the comb, brush and toiletries which her mother had not thought to provide but which he had stopped and purchased at Walgreens. He ducked into the hospital gift shop for a bunch of pink rosebuds and baby's breath. With that in one hand and her suitcase and coat in the other, he approached her room feeling as romantically high-strung as an eloping bridegroom.
He had not prepared himself to find her bed empty, to see it made up starched and white and taut as if it had never known the warmth of a human body. The plummet was dizzying and at the bottom, he had only the energy to drag himself to her bed and sit there, his back to the door, staring out the window at the blue nothing of the sky, clutching the flowers, her coat and suitcase like the last remnants of her existence.
One by one, the roses fell from his grasp to his lap. His mind snatched at possibilities and doggedly gripped the worst of them so that as the minutes wore on, he began to lose a sense of them. This was the way it started sometimes, the next inevitable step in the minefield, the lifting of the foot from the triggering device.
"Ummm -- mister -- uh -- hello."
Her hesitant, almost-whisper reached into the void and pulled him back. He jumped up, scattering the rosebuds from his lap to the floor, and turned to see her, fragile and pale and black and blue, and as welcome and wonderful a sight as he ever hoped to see.
"Hello," he answered. A silly word and all he could manage at the moment, but in that one word he wanted her to hear I love you. I'll take care of you. And please, never think that this world could go on without you again. He poured all of that into the awkward silence that followed his one silly word.
*****
God, this man frightened her. This man she did not know, yet who knew her soul better than anyone else ever had. This man had risked his life to save one she was not sure was worth saving. This man looked at her now, and Trissa felt herself melting under the unbearable warmth of his gaze. She suddenly wished she had not insisted on walking alone the few feet from the nurse's station. She wished she had let Moira wheel her all the way from x-ray as she had cautioned her would be best. She wished the room wasn't spinning and her legs weren't disintegrating and....
"Up, up, up, Little One, I've gotcha! Oops, we've gotcha!" Trissa felt Moira's sturdy presence from behind, but it was her stranger-savior who scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Moira pulled the covers aside, but he tucked her in. It was Moira who adjusted the shade to block the sun from her pillow, but it was the glare of his unwavering eyes that blinded her, making her shelter her own eyes with the palm of her hand.
Really, he frightened her more than the approaching train had. Its promise was certain, final. His was so unknown.
"I'll leave you two alone now," she heard Moira say.
"Wait!" she heard next and was not certain whether it came from his lips or her