Chapter 24: Walk With Me

The hospital put a plastic wristband on Daniel's left wrist at six in the morning.

Johnny stuck a sticker on it.

It was a small round one, orange, with a carrot.

"You can't do that," said the nurse.

"It's Monday," said Johnny.

The nurse looked at the chart, then at the wristband.

Then she looked at the two men in the pre-op room, one in a gown and one with soil under his nails.

"Leave it," she said, and wrote nothing down.

Daniel lay on the trolley and watched the ceiling lights slide past.

His mother and father had come, and his grandmother, and Donna Brownie in her straw hat.

The nurse had given up telling them the waiting room was down the hall.

"Count with me," Daniel said, as the doors opened.

"Count what?"

"Anything. Backwards. From fourteen."

"Fourteen," said Johnny, walking beside the trolley with one hand on the rail. "Thirteen. Twelve."

He got as far as eight before they stopped him at the double doors.

Daniel did not hear the rest.

He woke to a dim room and a hand in his, with a thumb pressed on his pulse.

"Seven," Johnny said, hoarse, red-eyed, and smiling. "I never finished. It went fine. Your legs are still attached."

Daniel laughed, and then cried, and neither of them minded.

The tower stood in the afternoon sun on the first Saturday in October, and the field beside it was full.

Twelve beds, and every one planted.

Squash had climbed the fence, there were beans on poles, and the leeks stood in a tall row.

A hand-painted sign on the gate said BROWNIE & SILVER, SAT 8-1.

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