Chapter 11: St. Joseph's

The waiting room at St. Joseph's smelled like burnt coffee and floor wax.

Cleo sat in a plastic chair with her coat still on and her hands pressed between her knees.

I sat beside her for four hours and watched the clock above the nurses' desk.

At noon a surgeon in green scrubs came through the double doors and pulled down his mask.

"Miss Rainey? Your father had a blockage in one artery. We placed a stent. He's awake, and he's asking about someone named Nick."

"Is he going to live?" she asked.

"He's going to live to be difficult for years," the surgeon said. "But he can't be stressed. Not for months."

She nodded.

She stood up, thanked him in a steady voice, walked down the corridor, and put her forehead against the wall.

Her shoulders started to shake.

I reached her and turned her around.

She cried into my shirt without making a sound, with her fists knotted in the cloth.

"I thought he was dead," she said. "I saw him go over, and I thought I'd killed him."

"You didn't."

"Dwayne wanted to hurt me, and he did it with my father in the room."

"Dwayne's a coward. It was his move, not yours."

"You don't know what he said..."

"I know he said something," I said. "I'll hear it when you're ready."

She pulled back and looked up at me, and her eyes were red.

"I need to tell you something about October," she began.

I put two fingers against her lips.

"After the show," I said.

"Nick..."

"Your father's alive and Garland hasn't won."

"I'll listen to anything you want to say on January fifteenth. Today I just want you here."

She searched my face.

Then she took a long breath and nodded.

Her father slept for six hours.

At nine that night the nurse told us to go home and rest, and Cleo said she couldn't go home.

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