Conversation ran out before the end of the first hour. I wanted to ask Amelia over and over, do you think he’ll be all right? Do you think he’ll lose his eye? She was the sister most tolerant of my anxieties. But it would have driven her and Jep nuts. So I got up and took a long walk. Another hour went by. I checked my phone when I got back and saw a text from Julie, on her way, and one from my mother—Please call and let me know how he is. A third text was from the girl with the crying voice, ever a presence. It was as if she had some kind of uncanny ability to catch me in moments of maximum stress.

I have to tell someone, she wrote. I deleted it. Then I prayed.

Now, I was never really a believer. The sounds and scents of the Orthodox Church in which my parents raised me were precious childhood images, but I had never felt the presence of God. Still, helpless, I now prayed to the blank, impassive universe, offering my sight in exchange for Stefan’s. That night in Black Creek three years ago, I had offered my life in exchange for Belinda’s—but not Stefan’s life in exchange. Perhaps that was the turn of the key. Maybe they don’t listen on high unless you offer up what is most precious to you.

After three hours, one of the doctors emerged, looking just as an eye surgeon should look—thin, ascetic, gentle. “I hope we got lucky,” he said. “I hope so. We won’t know how much of a genius I am until the healing is complete, and that’s going to take a while. A good while.” Briefly but not unkindly, he explained that Stefan’s eye socket and nose were broken and that the nail had pierced the eye. There had been some muscle damage, which the surgeon was reasonably sure he had addressed. The worries were function and nerve damage. The best was a full recovery, which the doctor thought we could honestly hope for. The worst was diminished vision and lingering pain. The eye would not “look funny” long-term, he explained, adding that young people cared about that, and they were right to care. Either way, Stefan would be able to drive and do most things and if there were lingering nerve pain, that could possibly be addressed with another operation. “For now, let’s hope that’s something you folks never have to consider. Tell him to stay out of bar fights after this!”

A bar was where we all went after Stefan was moved from recovery to a private room. We looked in on him, but he was sound asleep, lost to the world for the moment, gauze covering both his eyes.