He stepped away from my bed, did a slow model’s catwalk turn while gesturing to his crisp white lab coat. The one that held his nameplate: dr. timothy seibert, detroit receiving hospital, director, thoracic surgery.

I started to applaud, but Seibert pressed a forefinger to his lips, then pointed to the visitor’s chair next to my bed: Tatina. Curled up, asleep, her bloodstained silver bubble coat draped over her.

“Been here for thirty-six hours,” Seibert said. “Had one of my meanest, most ornery nurses—Nurse LaDelma Jackson—try to get her the hell outta here after visiting hours. Delma came back to me with her dragon tail between her legs. Since then we’ve brought your lady friend chicken soup, sandwiches, coffee and cookies. When she wakes up, apologize to her for the coffee, okay? It’s always been shit here. Maybe your next donation could take the form of a cappuccino machine.”

Tatina stirred.

“Your ‘junk’ suffered second-degree burns,” Dr. Seibert whispered. “But according to my ER assistant, Dr. Michelle Ozier, your, quote, ‘eight-pound trout’ should be swimming upstream in a couple weeks. Would you like to know about your other injuries or just about your bath buddy?”

Cracked ribs, fractured jaw, fractured right orbital, collapsed lung (reinflated), cardiac arrest and laceration trauma. He’d stitched the lacerations so there would be minimal scarring. “Instead of a B and an M, when it heals it’ll just look like a small E and a V. Which could simply mean you’re a guy committed to electric vehicles. Did you know chicks dig guys with scars? Clinical fact!”

Tatina, slowly awakening, mumbled something in German.

“I’ll let you two get reacquainted,” Dr. Seibert said with a nod to Tatina. “By the way—considering the kind of life I’m pretty sure you sometimes lead and the friends I’m sure you don’t make—I’ve registered you here as a homeless John Doe found under the Warren overpass last Tuesday. You’ve been generous to the hospital, Mr. Snow. Seemed the least I could do. I mean besides saving your life through unparalleled surgical skills.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

Tatina stood over me. Even with swollen and bloodshot eyes, she was transcendently beautiful.

“I’ll let you two catch up,” Dr. Seibert said, walking to the door of my room.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I said to Tatina.

Considering I was lying in a hospital bed with tubes snaking into my arms and nose and half of my body mummy wrapped in white gauze, the last thing I expected from her was a stinging slap across my already-fractured chops.

Then, with equal ferocity, she kissed me.