“I’ve got some candy in the car,” I said. “You like Hershey’s Kisses?”

He worked his grizzled jaws like he already had that chocolate in his mouth.

“Don’t you have a family to bother?” he said.

I took down my shots and gathered the supplies from Maud. “Couch is free, kid,” she said.

“Did you expect me to pay for it?” I said.

“The drinks aren’t.”

“On my tab,” I said. “And tip yourself extra holiday bucks!” I didn’t have a tab.

In the car, Tricia was leaning back in her seat with her eyes closed. She was mutating before my eyes. “Steven?” she croaked. “You need to drive me to the hospital.”

“Take this Advil,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”

Going to the hospital would be the worst bad thing. It would be bright-lit and filled with terrible Christmas decorations and one sad paper menorah. It would be another unhappy installment of the Christopher kids story: the time they spent Christmas in the hospital from bad drugs. It would take its place next to the time Patricia passed out backstage at one of our father’s speeches, the time we missed our aunt’s funeral because we were too stoned to drive, the time Patricia broke the first-floor windows of our father’s girlfriend’s house, which was also the time she found out that our father had a girlfriend. Couldn’t this be the time that Patricia’s immune system saved the day?

“My throat is swelling,” she said, and she sounded awfully convincing. I raised an Advil up to her lips but she shook her head and closed her eyes, laid her head back against her headrest in defeat. Fine.

“Didn’t they move the hospital?” I said.

“It’s a new one,” Tricia said. “It’s off 95 by the West Trenton exit.”

“Well, I guess it’d be good to know what the new scene is like,” I said. “The more you know, right?”

I got out and guided her around to the passenger seat. I clanged the driver’s seat back and jammed out of the lot. She started wheezing in a spooky way so I gunned it to eighty on the highway and rolled down my window to let the cold winter air fill the car and drive out the bad spirits. I thought about calling our father but what was he going to say? Go to the hospital. Then he’d show up there and I’d have to deal with him.

“Okay, Trish?” I said.

No answer. I looked over and her eyes were closed, but I could hear her rasping.

I slowed down to follow the signs guiding the way to the hospital and parked in an emergency parking zone, then dragged Patricia out of the car and shuffle-stepped her to the door. Her face looked like a half-deflated basketball and her breaths had gotten shallow.