Not a name for someone with French. But then his father could have been Spanish, his mother French West Indian. Catholic on both sides; Xavier works. But the accent, it was not Caribbean. She knew those, every last one. So what could it be? Maybe African, but not a black man, no. Looked Italian to her eye. Ricco: that was Italian, not Hispanic.

So he’d been just talking a little. No doctor had asked him a thing. Truth, they probably wouldn’t, though of course they should. Should ask about how such burns came to be. Should ask about headaches. Should want to know if he was having trouble breathing. She put his file back in the clear plastic slipcase on the wall. He was going to have major surgery, scheduled for—let’s see— tomorrow, and she didn’t even have to ask to know that not a doctor or nurse had bothered to tell him or call his family. Nothing. He probably didn’t have insurance. She pulled the chart back. No, he did. Wife had a job as a secretary in a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge. So did the sister.

She would call them. Worried sick, they most likely were, and not a doctor on any floor who gave a thought to them.

But first she wanted to take a look at those burns.

At the doorway to the room, she heard one of the old men trying to talk to him.

“Cat got your tongue?” he was shouting.

A pause. She looked in the room.

“You speak up, I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.” It was the man farther from Xavier, right by the door.

The other man, whose bed was between them, said softly, “Good Christ almighty, would you keep it down?”

Then Xavier replied, “Keeptown.”

“What?” bellowed the belligerent.

“Kweepown.”

He was without a scrap of English. She had done the same thing when she had first come. They had called her parrot.

“Now, Mr. Richardson,” she said, glancing at his wrist, “you need to get some rest.”

“That fella speaks like a faggot, and I won’t have it.”

“Dumb as a post,” said the middle man, who was speaking so softly, she was sure Mr. Richardson and Xavier heard not a word. He looked at Osana. “You’re a good woman,” he said flatly.

“I’m going to move you over that way, give you a little more privacy.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“You comfortable?”

“No. I’ve got burns on my hand.” He raised up a paw of thick dressings.

She made a show of adjusting his pillows, took five seconds with his IV. “Looks good,” she said.

“Turn on that radio there.” It was a weather station. “Keep the volume low,” he said.

She pulled a curtain around him.

Xavier was asking her something, a thought she nearly guessed, but then it was out like a candle. He was looking toward the window.