Chapter 8: All Night

The surgeon met us at the doors with a mask pulled down around her neck.

"Mrs. Lorne? Her heart stopped for forty seconds. We got it back, and the valve can't wait."

"Then do it."

"The payment is cleared," she said. "I'll operate now."

She turned and went through the doors, and they swung shut behind her.

It was one in the afternoon.

I sat in a plastic chair in the surgical waiting room and looked at my hands.

Harvey sat beside me.

He did not tell me it would be fine.

He got coffee, set it on the arm of my chair and sat back down.

At two, I asked him whether he'd ever been this afraid.

"At nine," he said. "My grandfather took me to a lake. I couldn't swim, and he let go of my hand."

"What happened?"

"I swam."

"That's not comforting."

"No," he said. "But he was standing in the water the whole time."

I laughed, and the laugh turned into something else, and I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes.

He put his arm around my shoulders.

It was careful at first, and then it wasn't.

I turned into his chest and cried against his shirt for a long time, and his hand moved slowly over my hair.

He smelled like soap and wool and the cold air of the parking garage.

I could feel his heartbeat under my cheek, steady and a little fast.

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