Chapter 12: Term Two

At three in the morning the corridor outside the cardiac unit smelled like floor cleaner and burnt coffee.

My father slept behind the glass with a monitor ticking green numbers over his bed.

Rhiannon had gone home for four hours of sleep.

On her way out, she had told Quentin to move his car from the ambulance bay.

He had moved it.

He had not left.

He sat on a bench across from me, with his tie in his pocket and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Neither of us had said anything for an hour.

"Gilbert has sat at every table of my life," Quentin said at last, to the floor. "I'm going to find out what he wanted at that one."

"My father says Gilbert cried in his study."

"He cries at everything." He pressed his palms together. "He cried when I made partner."

I turned my paper cup in my hands.

"He phoned me yesterday, minutes after I found the letter," I said.

Quentin's head came up.

"Nobody knew I had it, Quentin. Not you, not Gretchen, not the receptionist. He knew."

His face did something terrible.

It went still, and then it went gray, and I watched him do the math in his head and not like the answer.

"I'll find out how he knew," he said.

"How?"

"I don't know yet. But I will."

He stood up and walked to the window at the end of the hall.

He stood with his back to me, looking out at a parking structure.

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