Chapter 9: Visiting Hours

Donald Harrowgate was alive.

That was what the doctor said at four in the afternoon, after nine hours.

We were in a family waiting room on the fifth floor of Hartford Hospital, and the coffee machine had been out of cups since noon.

"He's had a cardiac event," the doctor said. "We've placed two stents. He's stable, and he's asking for his wife."

Constance made a sound and sat down hard on a vinyl chair.

I was already beside her.

She turned into my shoulder without thinking, and I put my arms around her and held on.

It was the strangest thing I had ever done.

She smelled of the same powder as in the alley, and her whole body was shaking, and I thought: this is my aunt.

I had an aunt, and she was crying on my good navy dress.

"He can't hear another shock," she said into my collar. "Rhea, he can't."

"I know," I said.

"You'll stay? Please? Don't go back to the diner tonight. I know I've no right."

"I'm staying."

Sabina came through the double doors at five with her apron still on and flower stems in her hair.

She had run from the shop.

She stopped when she saw us, a man's daughter and a woman's niece wrapped together in the plastic chairs, and her face crumpled.

I opened one arm, and she crashed into the other side of Constance, and for a moment the three of us held on together.

Behind us, Garner cleared his throat.

He stood in the doorway in his overcoat with a handkerchief in one hand.

His eyes were red.

"Constance," he said softly. "My dear. I think it might be better if the family had this room to itself."

I felt her shoulders go rigid.

"Rhea has been here since noon," she said.

"Of course, and we're all grateful," Garner said. "But Donald's condition is delicate, and strangers..."

"She is not a stranger."

"I only mean that people are watching," he said. "The press is in the lobby. If it's known that a waitress who..."

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