Chapter 5: Backup Contact

By six that evening Dean could sit up against two pillows and keep a thought for longer than a minute.

The nurse told me this.

"He'll want to talk," she said. "They always do, after."

I let Patty in first, and then I went to the hallway and asked Mandy, who was still in the plastic chair.

"Do you want to hear it?"

She looked up at me with her mascara cleaned off and her face gone plain.

"Hear what?"

"What he says. I'd rather he said it once, to everybody."

She stood without a word and followed me in.

Room 412 was too small for four people and what we had brought with us.

Dean's eyes went from his mother to Mandy to me, and I watched him work out the seating chart.

"Claire," he said, hoarse. "I wanted to see you first."

"You're seeing everyone at once."

I took the chair at the foot of the bed.

Mandy stayed standing by the window with her arms crossed over her sweater.

Patty held her rosary and didn't pray.

"I was going to drive to your house Friday," Dean said.

"I know."

"I was going to ask you to call off Monday."

"I know that, too."

He winced, and not from the ribs.

"I'm not asking you now. I just." He stopped, started again. "I need to say it, and I need to say it right."

He looked at the blanket.

"Mom. I left her. She didn't give up on anything."

Patty's hands went still on the beads.

"I stopped going to the counselor after the first appointment. She booked eleven, Mom. I went to one."

"Dean Michael," Patty whispered.

"It started last November. I was seeing Mandy while I still lived in Claire's house, eating Claire's food."