The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon(58)

He put the cap in her hand, and when she closed her fin-gers on the visor, he kissed them. Trisha began to cry at that, as soundlessly as her mother and brother.

"All right," the nurse said. "That's it. You'll really have to - "

Trisha looked at the nurse and shook her head.

"What?" the nurse asked. "What now? Goodness' sake!"

Trisha slowly transferred the cap to the hand with the IV needle in it. She looked at her father as she did it, making sure he was looking at her. She was tired. Soon she would sleep.

But not yet. Not until she had said what she had to say.

He was watching, watching closely. Good.

She reached across her body with her right hand, never taking her eyes from her father, because he was the one who would know; if he understood, he would translate.

Trisha tapped the visor of her cap, then pointed her right index finger up at the ceiling.

The smile which lit his face from the eyes down was the sweetest, truest thing she had ever seen. If there was a path, it was there. Trisha closed her own eyes on his understand-ing and floated away into sleep.

Game over.