The Fall of Never(39)

Am I being ridiculous? Really, after all, am I just overreacting? She’s just a harmless old woman…

But he didn’t really believe that, and there would be no talking himself into it. Nellie Worthridge…

And what about her?

He didn’t want to think about it.

Daphne wheeled the woman over to the nurses’ station. Mendes couldn’t help but look at her then.

“Thank you, dear,” Nellie said.

God, he thought, just stop smiling like that. Please.

“My pleasure, sweetheart,” he said. Then he quickly brought his eyes back down to his paperwork. Too quickly? Maybe—he thought he caught Daphne raise her eyebrows at him. But he didn’t care. Anything to get the old woman to leave. The sooner, the better.

He only looked up again when he was certain they were at the end of the hallway and about to get onto the elevator. He saw Josh Cavey leaning down while the old woman muttered something into his ear. Daphne was standing beside them, working the elevator button like a pump in need of priming, and smiling down at the old woman. When they finally disappeared behind the steel doors of the elevator, he felt a sizable weight lift from him, and he actually breathed a sigh of relief. He looked down: his hands were shaking. His stomach was upset too—there was a damned hamster in there running laps on his little clacking wheel.

Food, he thought, realizing he hadn’t yet eaten this morning. Food will settle my stomach.

He slipped out from behind the nurses’ desk and headed down the ICU corridor. He moved quickly. And before he could even realize that he was actually headed in the opposite direction of the cafeteria, he was already pushing through the men’s room door, kicking open a stall, and dry heaving into the porcelain bowl.



On the way home from the hospital, Josh had the cab pull over so he could grab some fresh bagels and cream cheese. Back at Nellie’s apartment, he helped the old woman get settled into her motorized wheelchair before preparing them a bagel feast. Nellie disappeared around the corner and into her little bedroom where she changed her clothes. The stink of hospital, she told Josh on the ride home, clung to you no matter what. It was all she could do not to fall ill in the back of the cab during the ride back home.

He toasted some bagels, applied the appropriate amount of cream cheese to four halves, and set out two plates around the small kitchen table. Searching the refrigerator for juice, he found none and settled on two tall glasses of cold milk. Then, recalling Nellie’s penchant for hot coffee, he brewed a pot. All things aside, they would eat like kings this morning. The thought made him smile a bit.

Nellie appeared in the kitchen doorway. The motorized gears of her chair had sneaked up on him. She looked a little tired, but overall she looked good. He’d been worried about her since her accident.

“Breakfast will be ready in just a minute,” he told her. He worked quickly to get the coffee into a mug for her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him.

“Hmmm?”

“Your arm is hurt, dear.”

“What?” He finished pouring the coffee and set the mug down on the kitchen table.

“Your left arm.”

It was hurting him. It was the cold weather. Going out onto the fire escape earlier this morning had not been the brightest of ideas. There was a dull pain just below his left shoulder blade, and it ran the length of his back, nearly down to his buttocks. This was nothing unusual—dependent on the weather or a multitude of other factors, the dull throbbing pain was always popping up in some form or another—but over time, he’d gotten good at ignoring it. Most times, he didn’t even realize the pain had returned at all, his mind so busy somewhere else.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. He realized he’d been slowly rotating it in midair, working the joints. “No, I’m all right. It’s just…it’s nothing. Cream and sugar?”

“Black,” she said, inching the wheelchair closer to the table as Josh pulled up his own chair and sat down. “What happened?”

“What happened with what?”

“Your arm,” she said.

“The cold bothers it every once in a while. It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re too young to suffer from arthritis.” She was feeling him out.

“Right,” he said. “Long story. Something that happened to me some years back. Your classic case of Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.”

“And this is something you don’t like to discuss?”

“I just don’t talk about it.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows arched. “Hooligan? Chased down by some neighborhood ruffians when you were a little pup?”

“Not exactly.” There was no real harm in telling Nellie any of this. Would she even understand? “I was shot,” he said. “About a year and a half ago, I walked into a convenience store while some kid was robbing the place. Guess I scared him pretty bad. As I came through the door, he turned and shot me twice. Here,” he said, pointing to his left shoulder, “and here,” he finished, pointing to his heart. “I lost a lot of blood and nearly died. Would have, the doctors said, but Sampers—the kid who shot me—missed my heart. It was a close call.”

Nellie just nodded, as if they were discussing local politics instead of his near-death experience.