Winter Moon

changing, but there were never fewer than three, as many as six or

seven, male and female officers in uniform, plainclothes detectives.

Other cops' wives stopped by too. Each of them hugged her. At one

moment or another, each of them was on the verge of tears. They were

sincerely sympathetic, shared the anguish. But Heather knew that every

last one of them was glad it had been Jack and not her husband who'd

taken the call at Arkadian's service station.

Heather didn't blame them for that. She'd have sold her soul to have

Jack change places with any of their husbands--and would have visited

them in an equally sincere spirit of sorrow and sympathy.

The Department was a closely knit community, especially in this age of

social dissolution, but every community was formed of smaller units, of

families with shared experiences, mutual needs, similar values and

hopes. Regardless of how tightly woven the fabric of the community,

each family first protected and cherished its own. Without the intense

and all-excluding love of wife for husband, husband for wife, parents

for children, and children for parents, there would be no compassion

for people in the larger community beyond the home.

In the I.C.U cubicle with Jack, she relived their life together in

memory, from their first date, to the night Toby had been born, to

breakfast this morning.

More than twelve years. But it seemed so short a span. Sometimes she

put her head against the bed railing and spoke to him, recalling a

special moment, reminding him of how much laughter they had shared, how

much joy.

Shortly before five o'clock, she was jolted from her memories by the

sudden awareness that something had changed.

Alarmed, she got up and leaned over the bed to see if Jack was still

breathing. Then she realized he must be all right, because the cardiac

monitor showed no change in the rhythms of his heart.

What had changed was the sound of the rain. It was gone. The storm

had ended.

She stared at the opaque window. The city beyond, which she couldn't

see, would be glimmering in the aftermath of the day-long downpour.

She had always been enchanted by Los Angeles after a rain--sparkling

drops of water dripping off the points of palm fronds as if the trees

were exuding jewels, streets washed clean, the air so clear that the

distant mountains reappeared from out of the usual haze of smog,

everything fresh.

If the window had been clear and the city had been there for her to

see, she wondered if it would seem enchanting this time. She didn't

think so. This city would never gleam for her again, even if rain

scrubbed it for forty days and forty nights.

In that moment she knew their future--Jack's, Toby's, and her own--lay

in some far place. This wasn't home any more. When Jack recovered,

they would sell the house and go . . . somewhere, anywhere, to new

lives, a fresh start. There was a sadness in that decision, but it

gave her hope as well.

When she turned away from the window, she discovered that Jack's eyes

were open and that he was watching her.

Her heart stuttered.

She remembered Procnow's bleak words. Massive blood loss. Deep

shock.

Cerebral consequence. Brain damage.

She was afraid to speak for fear his response would be slurred,

tortured, and meaningless.

He licked his gray, chapped lips.

His breathing was wheezy.

Leaning against the side of the bed, bending over him, summoning all

her courage, she said, "Honey?"

Confusion and fear played across his face as he turned his head

slightly left, then slightly right, surveying the room.

"Jack? Are you with me, baby?"

He focused on the cardiac monitor, seemed transfixed by the moving

green line, which was spiking higher and far more often than at any

time since Heather had first entered the cubicle.

Her own heart was pounding so hard that it shook her. His failure to

respond was terrifying.

"Jack, are you okay, can you hear me?"

Slowly he turned his head to face her again. He licked his lips,

grimaced. His voice was weak, whispery. "Sorry about this."

Startled, she said, "Sorry?"

"Warned you. Night I proposed. I've always been . . . a little bit

of a fuck-up."

The laugh that escaped her was perilously close to a sob. She leaned

so hard against the bed railing that it pressed painfully into her

midriff, but she managed to kiss his cheek, his pale and feverish

cheek, and then the corner of his gray lips. "Yeah, but you're my

fuck-up," she said.

"Thirsty," he said.

"Sure, okay, I'll get a nurse, see what you're allowed to have."

Maria Alicante hurried through the door, alerted to Jack's change of

condition by telemetry data on the cardiac monitor at the central

desk.

"He's awake, alert, he says he's thirsty," Heather reported, running

her words together in quiet jubilation.

"A man has a right to be a little thirsty after a hard day, doesn't

he?" Maria said to Jack, rounding the bed to the nightstand, on which

stood an insulated carafe of ice water.

"Beer," Jack said.

Tapping the IV bag, Maria said, "What do you think we've been dripping

into your veins all day?"

"Not Heineken."