“He was the one who called the ambulance from the neighbor’s driveway,” Gable said.
He stepped aside, his hand resting near his radio as he pointed toward the second corridor on the left.
The hallway smelled of hospital bleach and damp winter coats, a sharp combination that made my throat dry as I walked past the vending machines.
I reached the pediatric corridor at exactly four-thirty-two, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing at a low, sixty-cycle frequency.
Mark pushed the door to room four open, his shoulders dropping as he stepped into the hallway.
He was not wearing his watch, and his left hand immediately went to his bare wrist, rubbing the pale band of skin where the silver link strap usually sat.
“Jennifer,” he said, his voice sliding into that smooth, practiced tone he used when a sales pitch was failing. “You do not need to hover.”
“What did the triage nurse say, Mark?”
“He fell at Lisa’s, and the doctors say head trauma can cause confusion.”
He took a deep, slow breath, and for a fraction of a second, his mouth curved into something that looked like a quiet sigh of relief.
“Confusion,” I repeated, my mind calculating the distance between the floor of Lisa’s living room and the wooden staircase landing. “A fall from five feet does not typically cause retrograde amnesia unless there was a secondary impact.”
“They are running a scan now,” Mark said, his eyes scanning the hallway instead of looking at my face. “The doctor thinks he might not remember the actual fall at all.”
“Why would you look pleased about that?”
Mark stopped rubbing his wrist, his fingers freezing against his skin.
“I am not pleased, Jennifer,” he said, his voice dropping an octave as he stepped closer. “I am simply glad our son is not lying in there traumatized by his own clumsiness.”
