Chapter 8: The Corridor

I told Kyle a patient had gone into an emergency and the office needed me.

He believed it, because he had never once asked what my days were like.

I drove to St. Luke's with my coat open and the heater on high.

Simon was in the cardiac corridor on the fourth floor, sitting on a plastic chair with his elbows on his knees.

He stood up when he saw me.

"He fell in the sunroom," Simon said. "He was trying to reach the garden door. The doctors say it was his heart, and he's stable now."

"Can I see him?"

"In an hour. They're running tests."

I sat down in the next chair, and neither of us said anything for a while.

A cart rattled by with someone's supper on it.

"You called six times," I said.

"I'm sorry. You were at their table. I should have waited."

"No. I'm glad you called."

I found that was true.

He turned his head and looked at me.

"Say it," he said. "Whatever happened today."

I took out my phone, found the photograph of the parish register, and held it out.

He read the entry once.

I watched his jaw go hard.

"J. Dunning, R.N.," he said. "The mother."

"Kyle's mother. She tucks my hair behind my ear on Sundays and touches the notch."

I heard my own voice crack on the last word.

Simon didn't speak.

He put the phone down on his knee, face up, very carefully.

"She brought a child in a yellow raincoat to the priest," he said. "And said she'd found her at a bus station."

"Yes."

"Then she waited, and when the Mackeys were gone, she brought her son to you."

"I know how it looks."

"I don't think it looks like anything," Simon said. "I think it is."

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