Chapter 20: On His Knees

Mrs. Koehler was sitting up in bed by seven, with her hair pinned and a tray of toast she refused to eat.

"Don't you dare cancel," she said when I came in.

"I wasn't going to."

"You were going to ask me if I was well enough for February."

"Yes."

"I am. The doctor says rest, and I intend to rest in the second row of Hawthorne House." She patted the blanket. "Sit."

I sat.

Kirk stood at the foot of the bed with his arms folded and a stubborn look on his face.

I had caught that look on him twice since midnight.

"Say it," I said to him.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you're holding."

He met my eyes.

"She asked me to keep something from you. It isn't about us, and it isn't dangerous. It's part of the plan. I'll tell you the day of."

"The day of what?"

"The twenty-sixth. Before the doors open."

"Kirk."

"I know. I hate it too."

I looked at Mrs. Koehler.

She looked back, composed and unrepentant.

"I put it on him," she said. "Take it out on me when I'm well."

My jaw set.

Everyone I had ever trusted had kept something from me, and this was the first time the one doing it had told me he was.

"Okay," I said. "The day of."

Kirk's shoulders came down.

He crossed the room and kissed my hair, quickly, in front of his patient.

"Vulgar," Mrs. Koehler murmured, and closed her eyes with the ghost of a smile.

The shouting started in the corridor a few minutes later.

I knew the voice.

Kirk put his hand on my back, and we went out together.

Preston stood in front of the nurses' station in yesterday's suit, unshaven, with his mother on one side and two of his cousins on the other.