Joe looks so small in the chair by the hospital bed. The chair has a back that’s high and straight, upholstered in teal vinyl. Framed by it, he looks like the boy king of a bleak country. His eyes are closed and he’s wearing earbuds, putting himself inside his noise music. It’s cool in the room but he looks sweaty, even in just a T-shirt and jeans. She puts a hand on his shoulder and he jumps a little.

In the bed, his mother looks startlingly bad, worse even than she did when Cate got separated from her by triage in the ER. Her affect, though, is peaceful in a doped-up way. The two sides of her face don’t match. The right side is Neale, but the left is several colors and misshapen with swelling. An ice pack is strapped against the left cheek, connected to a whirring machine on the floor next to the bed. One small stitch has escaped from under the pack, which hints at more. They’ve put her into a nightgown patterned with tiny evergreens. Cate watches the tree line along Neale’s chest go up slightly, then down. Her right wrist is held by a splint. And then Cate can’t look anymore. She loves Neale so much.

Beauty is so fragile. Neale’s isn’t just about her face, it’s part of the whole easy, open way she is in the world. Maybe everything will come back together in time, but Cate imagines from here on, fear will be part of who she is. Boldness will have to be summoned from a past, remembered place.

Joe pulls out one of his earbuds, leaving it to dangle, touching his chest, leaking steel-mill noise into the quiet room.

“I’m so sorry about this, honey.” She doesn’t know what to tell him. She can’t even think where to begin. Where to stop. The best she can come up with is, “Are you hungry? Is there any food around here for you?”

“The cafeteria part is closed. There’s a machine in the basement. It has a dead apple, a flat cheeseburger. Weird candy bars. Lucky Lady. I think they might be from another country. I didn’t have money anyway.”

“Sometimes machine burgers can be pretty good.” She pulls a wad of crumpled bills from her jacket pocket, tries to smooth them flat, then hands them over. “Also, we should probably try a Lucky Lady. I’ll meet you down there after I talk with your mom.” She stops as something occurs to her. “How’d you get here?”