Chapter 22: The Stairs

Alexander lay on the landing of the stone stairs with his right leg bent under him and did not try to get up.

The cane had gone down another flight and lay by the wall.

He could hear the board's voices in the corridor above, and he knew they were coming.

He had been walked down stairs by men before, in the months after the accident, with a nurse on each side.

He had sworn then that it would never happen in front of anyone again.

The leg had given out three steps from the bottom, as it had been going to do for a year.

It did not hurt as much as the other thing.

Footsteps ran down toward him.

"Alexander!"

Clara reached the landing and dropped to her knees on the stone.

Her hands went to his face, his shoulders, his ribs, the bad thigh.

"Don't move it. Where does it hurt?"

"It doesn't." He heard his own voice come out flat. "I tripped. Go back up. They'll want your signature."

"They can wait."

"Clara. There are directors on that stair."

"Then let them step around us."

She sat down on the cold step with her skirt in the dust, and took his hand in both of hers, and stayed.

Above them, the footsteps stopped.

Then a pair of shoes turned and went back up, and another, and a door closed on the corridor.

Margery's cane sounded once on the landing above, and then went quiet.

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