finger lightly over his cheek from time to time, shaving him with cautious tenderness when shafts of morning light pierced the shade of his dead sleep, kissing his eyelids when they fluttered in dreams.
"Wake up, Nicholas. We're waiting for you."
But they waited for Nicholas. The other. And not for Cole at all.
In his dreams, he saw an old woman, bent and ragged, hunched against the cold of a November day. She offered Cole a drink from her treasured silver flask.
"Be thankful you're alive, if nothing else," she croaked at him. "There'll be long cold years ahead when you're not." Clouds hung low around them, the sky dipping to man-height. They drank and smoked and she gave advice in a raspy singsong. "When you scrape bottom, the only way to go is up, I always say."
"Or out," came his quick and sensible suggestion. "There's always out."
"Yeah, that too, I guess. Up or out, either way." She started to walk away, into the fog that thickened with the billows of smoke she puffed from the stub of her cigarette, then turned and shook a crooked finger at him. "But you can't stay here, Sonny. Up or out. Out or up. But move along. Move along."
The clouds became snow and he slogged along, the drifts coming up to his chest, clumping down his boots. The wind threw pelts of ice against his face, slivering into his ear and down his neck like jagged spikes. And he cried out with the shattering pain of it. "Out! Out. I choose out."
"I'm here, Nicholas," a silver voice called through the snow and the pain. "It's all right. I'm here."
But he is not, Cole thought. Nicholas is not here. It is only Cole.
*****
Every afternoon, Augusta arrived bringing Trissa the bounty of Ruth's morning labor, treats and tidbits to tempt her to eat. To please her and to appease Ruth, Trissa ate, pretending enthusiasm when she really had no appetite at all. Augusta would stay and force Trissa to rest until Bryant Edmonds arrived for his evening shift and come to talk to both of them about Nicholas.
"The hemorrhaging has stopped, but we have to be careful of uremic shock. Abdominal swelling has decreased, but the right kidney still has not returned to full functioning, which is the reason for continued fluid build up. The collar will come off in a few days, but we are not sure that hearing has not been affected." Edmonds' reports had a clinical balance, for every silver lining, a cloud.
"And when will he regain consciousness?" Trissa always asked.
"We don't know."
The police came three times to question Nicholas, quick to walk away when he proved beyond questioning. On the third visit, Trissa broke away from Augusta's restraining arm to chase after them.
"If you want to know who did this to him, if you really care to find out, ask me! You think you can dismiss this like he -- like he was some stray hit by a car. It was m-murder, pure and simple. Ask me! Ask my father, Robert Kirk. But you'd better ask soon. Before I get the chance."
"Trissa, don't" said Augusta. "Go stay with Nicholas, honey. I'll talk to the police." She walked with them to the elevator and gave the necessary information.
When the police returned, it was with the news that Robert Kirk was missing. No one had seen him since the day of the alleged assault.
"Have you looked under any rocks?" was Trissa's bitter response.
On Sunday, Augusta and Roger brought a stranger with them. He was little taller than Trissa, a round gnome of a man with a shiny pate and eyes that were licorice dark and deep with sparkles like those of a curious child.
"Trissa, this is Dr. Lorenzo Fitapaldi from Michigan. He's come to see Nicholas. He has known Nicholas -- he calls him Cole -- a long time."
"Mrs. Brewer, I am so sorry we have to meet under such sad circumstances. When I heard of Nicholas' marriage, I was so hopeful... ah, it gave me great joy. But now this." The doctor's black, wooly-worm eyebrows met in the middle when he frowned. His stubby-fingered hand grasped hers and held it as he peered into her eyes. "Yes, you are one Cole might choose. Let us see if we can bring him back to you."
Hope seemed to flow in the warmth of his grip and it ignited a glimmer of a smile in her. "He... sometimes, he seems so close and other times... Doctor, I'm so