He’s pretty sharp for the morning after a surgery like that! Kind of a tough guy, huh? Doc Terano should be by soon.”
“Great.” He took a swig of his coffee, his headache fading as the caffeine kicked in. He saw Nora down the hall and waved her over, not liking how fatigued she still looked. They’d talk to the doctor, visit with Jonah until he needed sleep again. Will could call one of the other neighbors to come sit for a while, get Nora back to her place to rest.
Easy.
But nothing was easy when they got into the room, not once Nora saw Jonah for the first time: the angry purple bruises on one side of his face; the hard, overly large line of his recently repaired leg beneath a thin blanket; the elaborate, mechanical-looking splint and sling keeping his hand perfectly set until his next surgery. She went stiff and she stayed that way, even though she was working to seem calm—greeting Jonah with a big smile and an apology, promising to bring him anything he needed from his apartment, gently arranging the pillows behind his head and looking over the equipment that surrounded him as though she needed to memorize it.
“Nora,” Will said, because Jonah had just sent him a look that he could’ve sworn meant, Help me out, Beanpole. “You want to take this seat here?”
She shook her head, taking out her phone. “Let me make this list,” she said. “I assume you’ll want your tablet and charger, and . . .”
Will knew what this was, had seen it a hundred times. When you weren’t used to being around it all the time, seeing someone like this—banged-up, groggy, the particular sort of pale and weak the hospital made a person look—it was more than simply stressful. It was panic holding you in a loose grip, its fingers forever poised to tighten right around your middle and take the breath right out of you. Some people cried, some people pressed a call button until they found somebody to yell at, and some people, like Nora, tried to take total control.
But it didn’t matter so much that Will had seen it before; he hated seeing it on Nora, and he felt panic start to get a hold on him, too, tentative and cruelly teasing. While they waited, he felt useless, impractical, unsure, and unlike with Marian and Emily last night, Nora kept her distance from him in front of Jonah, standing beside his bed and barely looking Will’s way.
He felt, suddenly, like he entirely didn’t belong.
When the doctor finally came in, Will was suffused with relief: finally, some way he could be useful. Dr. Terano was clearly a great surgeon, delivering information clearly and succinctly, confident in Jonah’s odds for a full recovery but straightforward about the challenges ahead. On a sheet of scrap paper he’d snagged from the patient whiteboard behind him, he scribbled notes in his usual way, phrases he hoped would make sense to him later.
When the doctor said the name of a facility he was familiar with, he lifted his head, his brow furrowing. “Is that the only option for rehab?”
Dr. Terano turned toward him, letting out a knowing sigh. “It’s got open beds, especially for the length of time he’ll need to be in. Obviously we can check again after he gets the hand done, but . . .” She shrugged in that frustrated, overburdened healthcare system way that Will had done a thousand times himself.
“I could make a call.” He had a facility in mind where a former coresident worked. It was farther away but better equipped, a place he thought would be more comfortable.
“Wait,” Nora said. “Open beds?”
“At his age,” Dr. Terano began, and Jonah made a snort of offense. “And with the injuries he has, a few weeks of residential rehab is the right move. He can do therapy during the day, and have twenty-four-hour care at other times.”
“I live across the hall from him.” Her voice was high, nervous. “If the therapists could come there, me and my neighbors—”
“It’s a third-floor unit,” Will said, which was absolutely his first mistake. Nora’s eyes snapped to his, her expression hard. He cleared his throat.
Dr. Terano looked to Jonah. “Third floor, huh?”
“How else do you think I keep this physique?” Jonah said, which would’ve been funny had Nora not been vibrating with tension beside him. Even Jonah seemed a bit nervous when he looked over at her.