He almost smiled. “Your father’s favorite hiding place.”
“I learned from him.”
On the way upstairs, wrapped now in a borrowed scrub jacket someone had thrust at me, I passed through the corridors of the hospital in a fugue of echoes. Nurses glanced up and then down again with the tact of professionals who understand both gossip and pain. A resident near radiology dropped her pen when she recognized me. Two orderlys stepped aside. Nobody spoke unless necessary. Institutions know when power has changed temperature.
In the locker room I stood under water so hot it pinked my skin and watched diluted coffee circle the drain. My blouse had been stained beyond saving. The blazer, when I laid it over the bench afterward, looked tired, not ruined. Tired enough that I could almost pretend it had simply lived too long.
Then my phone rang.
Home.
I answered on instinct. “Lily?”
No. Noah.
My son was sixteen and had inherited the worst features of both his parents: my distrust of nonsense and Mark’s ability to hear the emotional temperature of a room before anyone else named it. It made him far too perceptive for his own peace of mind.
“Mom?” he said.
“Hi, darling.”
There was a pause. “You sound weird.”
“Long flight.”
“Are you in the city?”
