Part 3
Graham unlocked the phone and handed it over. Mara read his messages, then held the screen toward him.
“I was waiting for her. Did you know that?”
“I thought you needed to sleep.”
“You told me you’d reached her. I kept looking at the door.”
He glanced toward June, who was standing by the sinks with both their bags. She was looking down, giving them what privacy she could.
“I didn’t want you having to explain what happened,” he said.
“Neither did I. I wanted my friend.”
Ellis’s nurse came around to check the IV in his foot. Graham moved his chair to give her room, and Mara waited until she had gone before speaking again.
“Is that what you did after Ada?”
He kept his eyes on the screen. “Yes.”
Mara looked toward June. “I thought she stopped calling because she didn’t know what to say.”
Graham rubbed his palms against his jeans. At the time, he had told himself he was sparing Mara the doorbell and the flowers and the people who would cry in their kitchen. He had been grateful when the phone became quiet.
“She asked if she should come,” he said. “I told her to wait.”
“How long?”
“I didn’t say.”
Mara lowered the phone into her lap. Graham waited for her to raise her voice, and when she didn’t, he tried to fill the silence.
“I couldn’t keep telling people about her. Every time somebody asked, I had to start from the beginning.”
“I worked with those people. June knew them. I went back thinking they all wanted to leave me alone.”
He hadn’t considered that part. He’d seen Mara getting dressed for work, driving to the county office, coming home with a bag of takeout. He had taken that for evidence that she was getting through the day.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“You didn’t ask me.”
She called June over. Her friend approached cautiously, still holding the bags, and Mara took one from her so she’d have a free hand.
“Would you stay a while?” Mara asked.
“Of course.”
“I’m probably going to cry.”
“Okay.”
June sat on the other side of her. Graham had expected to be told to leave, but no one asked him to. He moved his chair away from the wheelchair’s footrests and stayed while the two women talked.
June wanted to know whether Mara had eaten. She produced a pear from her purse, then a spoon she couldn’t explain. Mara laughed once, unexpectedly, and the laugh broke into crying. June set the pear down and put an arm around her shoulders.
Graham went to get tissues. When he came back, he handed the box to June and sat without trying to stop either of them.
The three days of cooling ended Thursday morning. Ellis was warmed slowly; later, when the breathing tube came out, he made a rough sound that brought Mara out of her chair. He still needed the feeding tube through his nose. A few swallows from a bottle wore him out, but when the nurse let him rest, he woke to protest.
“He’s got opinions,” Mara said.
Graham smiled at the crease above the baby’s nose. He could see Mara in it now.
On Friday, Dr. Malik brought the MRI images to the bedside and turned the screen toward them.
“These areas show injury,” she said. “It’s more pronounced on the right side of his brain. That fits with the weaker movement in his left arm and leg.”
Mara had a finger beneath Ellis’s bare foot. His toes curled around it as Dr. Malik moved the cursor across the image.
“Will that side stay weak?” he asked.
“It may. He’ll need early therapy, and we’ll follow him closely. We’ll learn more from his development over time.”
“Walking?” Mara asked.
“I can’t tell you yet. Or what other difficulties he might have.”
Graham looked from the gray shapes on the screen to the foot resting on Mara’s finger. He wanted the doctor to point to something repairable.
“Who do we call first?” he asked.
Dr. Malik explained the therapy referral. Mara found a pen in her bag and began writing the clinic’s name and number. When her hand cramped, Graham took the pen and finished.
Afterward, he stood inside a locked bathroom stall until he could wash his face without being asked whether he was all right. When he returned, Mara was holding Ellis. He sat close enough to touch the baby’s feet.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.
Mara looked at him. “I don’t either.”
He stayed until Ellis needed to go back into the bed, then refilled both their water cups.
Over the next several days they learned that Ellis hated being changed before a feeding and sometimes sneezed three times in a row. A voice close by helped him settle. His left hand often stayed curled when the other one opened.
Mara called people herself. She sent her coworkers a picture, saying Ellis had been very sick and they were waiting to find out what help he’d need. Graham took the next one she asked for, moving a chair out of the background and making sure she was in it.
June came after her last salon appointment. Before leaving for a weekend wedding with her own mother, she asked what she could bring. Mara wanted clean pajamas.
“Those I can do,” June said.
By the following Wednesday, Ellis could take enough milk by bottle to have the feeding tube removed. Mara cried as the tape came off his cheek; Ellis sneezed at the nurse.
They might go home the next afternoon. Graham asked whether it was too soon. The nurse went over his breathing, feeding, and weight gain, then watched Graham give him a bottle. He got milk on his shirt and stopped twice to let Ellis rest. She showed him how to support the baby’s head, and he tried again.
Owen came that evening. He’d been keeping Birdie at his house and bringing Graham clean clothes from home. Now he sat beside him in the waiting area, with the partnership folder on his knee.
“I need to know what we’re doing,” he said.
Graham knew the voice. Owen used it when a customer changed a staircase design after they’d cut the stringers.
“I haven’t had time to read it.”
“You’ve read it. We went through it in your kitchen.”
“Then I haven’t had time to think about it.”
Owen looked at the doors to the unit. “I know. But I can’t start the second shop without someone running it. Lena’s interested in buying in if you aren’t. She can give me a full week and take the Saturday work.”
Graham had trained Lena. He pictured her in the new workshop, laying out tools on the benches he’d designed.
“I thought I had until Friday.”
“You do. But if you take this, I need you there. I can cover the first few weeks. I can’t keep running both places.” His brother laid a new key on the folder. Graham had cut the little wooden tag for it himself and written the workshop’s address on the back. “Tell me by Friday morning,” Owen said. “If you can’t commit, I’m taking these papers to Lena…”
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