“Yeah, I think we’ll toss you out. You’re recovering well from your injuries. Traveling isn’t going to be easy on you, but if you’re determined, you can leave. No driving, of course, not until your arm is well.” The doctor hesitated. “I’m afraid you’ll leave our town with a bad impression.”

A serial killer, an attack out of the blue, and a rude awakening…why would I get a negative picture of Doraville? But I had manners and sense enough to say, “Everyone here has been very kind to me, and I couldn’t have gotten better treatment in any hospital I’ve seen.” It was easy to see the relief pass across Dr. Thomason’s face. Maybe he’d been concerned that I was the kind of person who slapped a lawsuit on anyone who looked at me cross-eyed.

I’d been thinking of the good people I’d met here, and the fact that Manfred and Xylda had come here expressly to see us. That had made me wonder if we shouldn’t spend the rest of the day here in town to wind up our loose ends. But after the scare the night before, I was twitching with my desire to get out of this place.

Of course, there was the usual long wait while the paperwork made its way around the hospital, but finally, about eleven o’clock, a nurse came in with the mandated wheelchair, while Tolliver bundled up and went out to pull our car around to the entrance to pick me up. There was another wheelchair waiting just inside the front door. A very young woman, maybe twenty, was perched in it, her arms full of a swaddled bundle. An older woman who had to be her mother was with her. The mother was herding a cart loaded down with pink flower arrangements, a pile of cards that were also predominantly pink, and some gift boxes. There was a pile of pamphlets, too. The top one was titled “So You’re Taking Your Baby Home.”

The new grandmother beamed at me, and she and my nurse began chatting. The young woman in the wheelchair looked over at me. “Look what I got,” she said happily. “Man, the last time I was in the hospital I left my appendix. Now I get to leave with a baby.”

“You’re lucky,” I said. “Congratulations. What have you named her?”

“We named her Sparkle,” she said. “Isn’t that cute? No one will ever forget her.”

That was the absolute truth. “It’s unforgettable,” I agreed.

“There’s Josh,” the grandmother said and wheeled her daughter and granddaughter through the automatic door.

“Wasn’t that the cutest little old girl?” my nurse asked. “The first grandbaby in that family.” Since the grandmother had been in her late thirties, at the most, I was relieved to hear it.

I wondered if my lightning-fried body could produce a child.