Chapter 1

The home's automatic doors slide open, revealing a wide entrance de-signed to accommodate stretchers and tethered instruments of life.

Dwarfed by the gaping berth, Tom steps inside, and the glass doors sigh shut behind him, their cushioned closing sealing out the brilliant August morning. The air-conditioned chill evaporates the light sweat he worked up on the ride over. For a moment, he stands just inside the doors, half blinded, his blinking eyes struggling to adjust to the interior's dim light.

"Morning Tom," greets Nancy, the desk nurse. She writes a note in a file, then stands, exposing the watermelon curve of her pregnant belly.

"How're you two doing this morning?" Tom asks.

"The kid's sleeping, but I'm on the countdown." She blows a strand of brown hair from her forehead and pats the arc of her stomach. "Nineteen days, but I have a feeling this one wants out early."

Marcus, the lineman-wide orderly, sets down his copy of Sports Illustrated."Want in on the pool, Tom?" Marcus retrieves a folder from the station's counter. "We've got bets on weight, day and time, and labor hours."

"Charming, isn't it?" Nancy asks.

"Didn't stop you from placing your bet," Marcus says.

Tom fishes five singles from a wallet fattened by loose change and ancient

receipts, and Marcus jots down his predictions: 2:25 p.m. on September

fourteenth, seven pounds on the nose, three hours labor.

"Bless you," Nancy says. She shuffles from behind the desk. "Let me walk you to her room."

"I'm going to the kitchen and fixing lunch, Nancy," Marcus says. He smiles at Tom. "My wife whipped up a big pot of chicken soup. She's worried about our girl here not getting all the right stuff she needs. You want some, Tom?"

"Maybe next time," Tom says. "Thanks."

Normally he'd say "Sure, why not?" but Tom can tell by Nancy's tone there's some trouble. They begin to walk down one of the long hallways that radiate from the reception area's hub, Tom's stride shortened to match

Nancy's shuffling gait. He glances into a room and sees half a bed, a pair of sheet-covered feet. How cut off this place is, a universe unto itself, the sunshine of a beautiful day meaningless, the rooms populated by barren planets pirated from their orbits and set adrift in an infinite black sea.

"She had a rough night, Tom," Nancy says. "A couple seizures. Her fever's up and down."

Tom nods, absorbing the information: the details of the doctor's last visit, the new drugs pumped into her system. Their shoes squeak on the freshly mopped floor. The reflected shine of overhead fluorescents on the still-damp tiles reminds him of the misty skylights in the natatorium where he and Karen once swam.

Grace wheels a chrome cart piled with freshly laundered sheets from one of the rooms. She and Tom exchange hellos before she bends down to retrieve a new set of linens. Tom enjoys his talks with Grace. How pretty she is, golden hair and blue eyes, her beauty enhanced by her lack of makeup and pretense, by her sincere smile and the radiant, untested optimism of youth. She has appeared recently in Tom's unguarded thoughts, a welcomed trespasser, and before being sabotaged by pangs of guilt, he has imagined the warmth of her hand in his, the husky whisper of her nurse's whites brushing against his body.

Blushing slightly, Tom follows Nancy into the last room on the right. A gagging gurgle-choke percolates from Karen's trach. Her skin stretches like papery wrapping over her protruding bones and blue, branching veins. Athin feeding tube snakes beneath the covers. Tom cups her splinted hand and rubs his thumb over the IV-pockmarked skin. He uncurls her stiff fingers and thinks of how she used to dive, the rhythmic tucks and twists, the plumb symmetry of her body knifing into the water.

Nancy's rounded belly grazes Karen's shoulder as she sucks out the trach's secretions. A tiny drop spots her green scrub pants when she removes the tube. Nancy places a hand under Karen's neck.

"She's sweating again. I'll change the sheets so she doesn't get a chill. If she gets warmer we'll put the cooling blanket down again." Nancy presses her palms into the small of her back and arches her shoulder blades. "Let me ring for Marcus."

"I'll do it," Tom says. "He's busy."

"You shouldn't--"

Tom slides one arm under Karen's shoulders, another beneath her match- stick knees, and before Nancy can argue, he lifts Karen from the bed. How frail she is, a limp, unprotesting mass. Her trailing nexus of tubes forces him to hold her at an awkward angle that triggers an unexpected trembling in his arms. The rhythm of her ventilator rides into his feet, a current of faint expansions and compressions. When, he wonders, does hope become foolishness? At what point does faith crumble into delusion? Here, captured in the type of telling image the artist in him yearns for, is the life he's chosen for Karen and himself, and who is to say whether he's made the right decision or not? Nancy hurries around the bed, stripping the old sheets andtucking new ones in place. Tom waits silently, his muscles aching as he gazes into his wife's blank eyes.