So as the sun fell faster, they rode the trolley southeast to Branch Staffords Hospital, three blocks of red brick cubes with tall curtained windows. As they descended to the curb Matt saw a ripple in the top-floor curtains and looked up into a face staring down: dark eyes and an open mouth. Claire led him across the street. An orderly in the first building directed them to a second, who directed them to a building back behind the parking lot. Crossing the parking lot, Matt watched his feet. He did not want to see the dark eyes and the open mouth again.

“Are you okay?” Claire said.

Fine is what he meant to say, but what he did was, “My mother passed here, three years ago. That was her room.” Third floor from the top, second from the left, north wing. “We expected it, but she didn’t go clean.”

“I’m sorry.” She held her hands in front of her skirt.

The east wing orderlies consulted a book heavier than most scriptures Matt had seen.

“Relation?”

“I’m his daughter,” Claire said. “Matt is a friend of the family.”

They rode up three floors in a white lift that smelled of alcohol. Matt leaned against the rail to the rear of the lift. Claire touched nothing.

Rafferty lay in a bed. He did not move. “He had a rough night,” the nurse said. “He’s unconscious, but you can watch him if you want.”

“Thank you,” Claire replied. “This is all we need.”

The man left them in the room together. There were no bags and drips, no tangled wires, and fewer of the foul smells Matt remembered from his last visit.

“I don’t need you,” Claire said. “Go, if you want. I know the bus route back to your place.”

Matt’s mother had not known where or who she was when she died. There had been love in the room, but bile and blood, too. It was a bad echo of birth, her eyes dark as the inside of her mouth. She did not understand what was happening. For Matt, the memory was one more weight to carry, and there was no place in him where it could rest easy, this ungainly thing that clunked and rattled but would not break.

“I’ll wait,” he said.

30

30

Raz opened the captain’s cabin door on Cat’s third knock. He paused when he saw her and shook his head as if she’d slapped him. “Who let you on board?”

“Davis,” she said.

“Davis.”

“Don’t blame her. I’m on official business.” She raised the scroll Tara gave her. “Salvage agreement for the Dream. We need to sign it there.”

“Let Davis sign it. She’s co-captain.”

“She wasn’t in command when the salvage took place. We don’t want any loopholes.”