He’s sent along. In the hall outside Tom’s room a nurse stops him. “Are you here to see Tom?” Accusation in her eyes. “I’m glad someone finally came. He’s been having a hard time.”

“What’s this?” Jim says, alarmed.

Hard glance. “His respiration has gotten a lot worse. I thought he was going into a coma last week.”

“What? Why wasn’t his family told about it?”

The nurse shrugs, the gaze still hard. “They were.”

“The hell they were! I’m his family, and I wasn’t told.”

Another shrug. “The front desk makes the calls. Don’t you have an answering machine?”

“Yes, I do,” Jim says sharply, and moves by her to Tom’s door. He knocks, gets no answer, hesitates, enters.

Inside it’s stuffy, the bedsheets are rumpled. Tom is flat on his back, his breath harsh and labored, his skin gray, his freckled bald pate yellowish.

His eyes slide over in his motionless head to look at Jim. At first there’s no recognition, and this sends a stab of fear so far down into Jim that nothing else in the past miserable week bears any comparison to it. Then Tom blinks, he shifts awkwardly on his bed, says, “Jim. Hello.” His voice is a dry rasp. “Here. Help me up.”

“Oh, man, Tom, are you sure? I mean wouldn’t it be better for you if you stayed flat, maybe?” Desperate fear that Tom will overexert himself somehow, die right here in front of him.…

“Help me up. I’m not a Q yet, no matter, evidence to the contrary.” Tom tries pulling up onto his pillow himself, fails. “Help me, boy.”

Jim holds his breath, helps Tom up so that his shoulders are on the pillow and his head leaning against the wall behind the bed. “Let me get the pillow behind your head.”

“No. Bends my neck too far forward. Need all the airspace I can get.”

“Ah. Okay.”

They sit there and look at each other.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while,” Jim says. “I—well, I’ve been busy, Mom’s been busy too. I was supposed to come last week but I forgot. I’m really sorry. The nurse says you haven’t been feeling well.”

“Got a cold. Almost killed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Stupid to die from a cold. So I didn’t.” Tom chuckles and it makes him cough, all of a sudden he’s hacking for breath and Jim, heart pulsing right there in his fingertips, helps him back down onto the bed and turns up his oxygen flow to maximum. Slowly, painfully, Tom regains control of his breathing. He stares up at Jim and again his eyes don’t register any recognition.

“It’s Jim, Tom.”

“How are you, Jim?”

“I’m fine, Tom, fine.”