pointing out that he’s done the same thing for me.” She stood up suddenly and crossed over to the coffee machine. “Want a cup?”
“No, thank you.”
When she came back she hooked a chair around so that the table was between them. “A week ago I would have dropped everything to be his therapist. I love him more than you, or he, seem to think, and of course I owe him, too.”
She paused and leaned forward. “But the world has gotten a lot more complicated in the last few days. Did you know he went to Washington?”
“No. Government business?”
“Not exactly. But that’s where I was, working. He came to me with what I see now was obviously a cry for help.”
“About killing the boy?”
“And all the other death, the tramplings. I was properly horrified, even before I saw the news. But I . . . I . . .” She started to take a drink of coffee but put it down and sobbed, a startling, racking sound. She knuckled away sudden tears.
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right. But it’s bigger than him or me. Bigger than whether we even live or die.”
“What, wait. Slow down. Your work?”
“I’ve said too much. But yes.”
“What is it, some sort of defense application?”
“You could say that. Yes.”
He sat back and pressed on his beard, as if it were pasted on. “Defense. Blaze, Dr. Harding . . . I spend all day watching people lie to me. I’m not an expert in much, but I’m an expert in that.”
“So?”
“So nothing. Your business is your business, and my interest in it begins and ends with how it affects my patient. I don’t care if your job is saving the country, saving the world. All I ask is that when you’re not working with that, you’re working with him.”
“I’ll do that, of course.”
“You do owe him.”
“Dr. Jefferson. I have one Jewish mother already. I don’t need one with a beard and a suit.”
“Point well taken. I didn’t mean to be insulting.” He stood up. “I’m misdirecting my own sense of responsibility onto you. I should not have let him go after we jacked. If I’d admitted him, put him under observation, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Amelia took his offered hand. “Okay. You beat yourself up over this, and I’ll beat myself up over it, and our patient will have to improve, by osmosis.”
He smiled. “Take care. Take care of yourself. This kind of thing is a terrible strain.”
This kind of thing! She watched him leave and heard the outer door close. She felt her face redden and fought the pressure of tears behind her eyes, then let it win.
* * *
when i’d started to die it felt like I was drifting through a corridor of white light. Then I wound up in a big room with Amelia and my parents and a dozen or so friends and relations. My father was the way I remember him from grade school, slim and beardless. Nan Li, the first girl I was ever serious about, was standing next to me with her hand in my pocket, stroking. Amelia had an absurd grin, watching us.
Nobody said anything. We just looked at each other. Then everything faded out and I woke up in the hospital with an oxygen mask over my face and the smell of vomit deep inside my nose. My jaw hurt, as if someone had punched me.
My arm felt like it belonged to someone else, but I managed to drag my hand up and pull the mask down. There was someone in the room, out of focus, and I asked for a Kleenex and she handed it to me. I tried to blow my nose but it triggered retching, and she held me up and put a metal bowl under my chin while I coughed and drooled most attractively. Then she handed me a glass of water and said to rinse, and I realized it was Amelia, not a nurse. I said something romantic like “oh, shit,” and started to black out again, and she eased me back to the pillow and worked the mask over my face. I heard her calling for a nurse and then I passed out.
It’s strange how much detail you recall from some parts of an experience like this, and how little of others. They told me later that I slept a solid fifteen hours after the little puking ceremony. It felt more like fifteen seconds. I woke up as if from a slap, with Dr.