The girl slid off the chair. Clara took the remote from her and turned off the TV. “Take your brother to the cafeteria. I’m right behind you.”

Angela pushed Trevor through the door. Clara followed, inching past Mary on the way, then couldn’t help herself. Clara whispered, “I’m a boob.”

Mary took her hand, touched her back a little. “Thanks,” she said.

“I’ll let them know you’re here.” Clara moved toward Mary and then thought better of it. She closed the door behind her. Mary had tried to explain on the phone earlier that she just wasn’t sure she could do this first meeting with family entire present. But Clara, sweetie pie, couldn’t imagine a world in which anything wrong got handled alone.

Mary moved closer.

In such short time, so much was lost. Minus his animating fire, Frank’s body was exposed for what it was—not enough. This was the place for talk of a soul. It seemed to be pinpointed in something Clara had said doctors called the distal projections of axons, which another something called excitotoxicity from the fall had caused to degenerate. Mary put a hand, unaccountably, on his foot.

The cotton blanket had snags in it. She pulled at one a little.

“Frank,” she said.

He lay there. So much for the miracle she wanted. After a few more seconds, it was official. The sound of her voice brought no response.

A knock came on the door. She stepped back a little and opened it. A nurse was standing there in aqua scrubs. “Captain,” he said, “sorry to barge in, but Mrs. Partnoy wanted us to take care of …” He paused. He was carrying a plastic pouch. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Of course,” Mary said. She went into the hall and away from a view through the doorway. But she hadn’t had to—she heard the silvery sound of rings traveling the rod as the nurse pulled the bed curtain around Frank.

Ward 58. The neuroscience unit. Her time at Walter Reed, one consolation on the gimp floor was, at least you weren’t in 58. We may be Frankengrunts, but God help the brain bleeders. Frank might have said it too. She took a glide over that. Irony was just too easy. Dull, really. She didn’t think this war was good for it. It suited Nam. They’d tried to force global war on terror into that old boot. What had Will Holmes said? It just wasn’t a good fit. He’d been referring to her rival, but it meant another thing to her now, what with her back against a wall at Walter Reed all over again.