Raymond marched us to the elevator, which we took up to the second floor. When the doors opened, we turned right, passing the maternity ward, where a recently delivered mother, in robe and slippers, proceeded at half speed, touching the wall gingerly as she walked. Raymond was on his best behavior, moving quickly, his gaze front and center. I could see Luis's eyes flick into an occasional empty room. I did likewise, unable to resist, though there wasn't that much to see. The air already smelled of lunch.

The wing designated 2-South housed Intensive Care, Coronary Care, the Cardiac Surgery Unit, and Intermediate Care behind closed double doors. A sign said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, with a wall-mounted telephone nearby. Apparently, you had to call in and get permission to enter the department itself. Four women sat in the adjacent waiting room, variously conversing and reading magazines. I could see a public pay phone, a magazine rack, a color television set. In the hallway, there were a water fountain and, in a niche, a statue of a male saint supporting baby Jesus by his bare bottom. The floor was made up of polished marble chips in squares with thin metal seams between.

Luis took a seat on a beige leather bench, his knee jumping. A lab tech walked by with a fat tube of dark red blood. Luis got up and moved to the wall, where he studied three lines about the visiting hours. It was the first time I'd seen the two of them in a situation they couldn't handle with machismo.

Like Luis, Raymond was apparently one of those people made uneasy by illness. He was subdued, respectful. The ticcing had started up, the head jerk reminding me of the sort of startle reaction I sometimes experience when I'm on the verge of sleep. Hospital staff, catching sight of him, seemed to diagnose him in passing, thinking no more about it than I did at this point. From Raymond's manner, I had to guess he'd been hospitalized as a child, subjected to medical processes that had left him edgy and alert. Almost imperceptibly, he slowed, shoving his hands in his pockets while he decided what to do next.

He was just picking up the telephone when the double doors opened and a nurse emerged. She was a redhead, in her thirties, white pants suit, thick-soled white shoes, wearing a nursing school pin but no cap. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, uhm, I got a... my fiancée was brought in last night. She was in this automobile accident? The cops said she was here. It's Diaz, the last name... I was just wondering, you know, if I could see her."