Chapter 8: The Corridor

Elias's POV

At three in the morning the ICU corridor smelled of hand sanitizer and old coffee.

Imogen had fallen asleep upright in a plastic chair, with her glasses still on.

I stood at the window of the waiting room and watched the helipad lights go on and off.

My grandmother's heart was failing, and they had put a tube down her throat to help her breathe.

Behind that door she was ninety pounds of stubbornness, and nothing I did could help her.

That was the one thing I had never learned to survive.

Soft footsteps came up behind me, and I knew whose they were without turning.

"I brought tea," Leona said. "The vending machine only had that."

She held out a paper cup.

She was wearing my gray coat over the green dress, with her short hair flat on one side from the car seat.

I took the cup, and I couldn't make my hand close around it.

It tipped.

Hot tea ran over my knuckles and onto the floor.

"Oh," she said, and took it away. "Elias."

I wanted to say it was nothing.

My mouth didn't make the words.

I stood there looking at my own hand, the big scarred hand with the thick knuckles, and it was shaking so hard I put it behind my back.

"These are my father's hands," I said.

She set the cup on the windowsill.

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