Free Edge by Michael Cadnum Page A

and he would say, ‘hang in there,’ and rattle on to the nurses about battery technology.”
    â€œI didn’t have any trouble, did I,” I asked. “Breathing?” Becoming alive, I meant.
    She understood why I needed to know. She put out her hand, although she was sitting across the waiting room from me, touching the place where my hand would have been if I was sitting beside her.
    Why can’t I remember how the nurses looked? Each word they spoke was so important. But they dashed in quietly, hovered, and flashed softly out of the room.
    He looked the same as he had before, a man being choked by tubes. A part of me wanted to cry out that he was worse than before, shrunken. But there was a presence to him, now, without a single movement on his part.
    One eyelid struggled to open. The eyeball beneath it made a rapid-eye-movement dance. The lashes parted, dark iris glittering.
    â€œHe can hear you,” said a nurse, a little inappropriately, not seeing what we saw, too busy at the foot of the bed.
    â€œYou’re doing so well,” said Sofia, leaning over the bed. “So fantastically well, Teddy.”
    His mouth was stuffed like a deep-sea diver’s with the air tube. We could all see stupefied curiosity in his eye, wonderment, almost fear.
    â€œYou’re in the hospital,” said my mother, the just-the-facts words contradicted by the softness of her voice. “You were shot, but you’re going to be all right.”
    I didn’t feel as awkward as I had the first time. Maybe one part of me sensed that my father would remember our first visit and find the sight of us less like the vigil for someone who was not likely to survive. But why didn’t I say something more articulate? Why were my words so insipid? “I’m here, too,” was all I could say.
    Dr. Monrovia wore new white running shoes and a zipper jacket. “Pneumonia is going to be a threat,” he said. “Infections are always—” He made his hand go this way and that: you know how germs are. “But—” he added emphatically, upbeat, in a hurry to leave, meaning a great deal with one syllable.
    Mom looked innocent without her makeup, her hair rust red, her face, which was naturally pink cheeked, all the more ruddy in the warm air of the hospital. The doctor could see the unasked, impatient but what? in her eyes.
    He smiled, not looking like my father just now. My father’s smile is infectious, while Dr. Monrovia smiled like someone having his picture taken, just enough to look pleasant. He said, “The crisis is over,” like he was letting us in on a secret, just don’t tell anyone else.
    And it didn’t sound like good news, the way he said it. He meant that the crisis was over, but something else wasn’t. My mom and Sofia seemed to want to cooperate, smiling with wan relief. I was the one who said, “So he’s going to be all right?”
    â€œIt’s really out of our hands,” said the doctor. It was one of those moments when an authority figure makes the appeal: remember I am a person, too. Remember I have feelings.
    â€œHe’s not going to die,” I said, a croaking little voice.
    The doctor said, “The odds are in his favor now.”
    â€œHe’ll recover,” I said. “He’ll be the same as ever.” My mother took my arm, trying to pull me away.

F OURTEEN
    Detective Unruh was lifting a garment from the backseat of his Toyota Camry and carrying it to the open trunk. He stretched the robe carefully on the gray carpeting, smoothing the plastic dust covering carefully, straightening it so it covered the garment completely. I was hurrying back across the parking lot with a bag full of blueberry bagels, my mother’s request, the Sunday paper wedged under my arm.
    Morning sun dazzled, the sort of light that made me wish I wore sunglasses more than I do. I had approached the detective, but now I