Winter Moon

suspected they were delaying the bad news. To the surgeon, she said,

"He came through without brain damage. You were worried about that,

but he came through."

"He's not aphasic," Procnow said. "He can speak, read, spell, do basic

math in his head. Mental faculties appear intact."

"Which means there's not likely to be any brain-related physical

incapacity, either," Walter Delaney said, "but it'll be at least a day

or two before we can be sure of that."

Emil Procnow ran one slender hand through his curly black hair. "He's

coming through this really well, Mrs. Mcgarvey. He really is."

"But?" she said.

The physicians glanced at each other.

"Right now," Delaney said, "there's paralysis in both legs."

"From the waist down," Procnow said.

"Upper body?" she asked.

"That's fine," Delaney assured her. "Full function."

"In the morning," Procnow said, "we'll look again for a spinal

fracture. If we find it, then we make up a plaster bed, line it with

felt, immobilize Jack from below the neck all the way past the filum

terminale, below the buttocks, and put his legs in traction."

"But he'll walk again?"

"Almost certainly."

She looked from Procnow to Delaney to Procnow again, waiting for the

rest of it, and then she said, "That's all?"

The doctors exchanged a glance again.

Delaney said, "Heather, I'm not sure you understand what lies ahead for

Jack and for you."

"Tell me."

"He'll be in a body cast between three and four months. By the time

the cast comes off, he'll have severe muscle atrophy from the waist

down. He won't have the strength to walk. In fact, his body will have

forgotten how to walk, so he'll undergo weeks of physical therapy in a

rehab hospital. It's going to be more frustrating and painful than

anything most of us will ever have to face."

"That's it?" she asked.

Procnow said, "That's more than enough."

"But it could have been so much worse," she reminded them.

Alone with Jack again, she put down the side railing on the bed and

smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead.

"You look beautiful," he said, his voice still weak and soft.

"Liar."

"Beautiful"

"I look like shit."

He smiled. "Just before I blacked out, I wondered if I'd ever see you

again."

"Can't get rid of me that easy."

"Have to actually die, huh?"

"Even that wouldn't work. I'd find you wherever you went."

"I love you, Heather."

"I love you," she said, "more than life."

Heat rose in her eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of

him. Positive thinking. Keep the spirits up.

-His eyelids fluttered, and he said, "I'm so tired."

"Can't imagine why."

He smiled again. "Hard day at work."

"Yeah? I thought you cops didn't do anything all day except sit around

in doughnut shops, chowing down, and collect protection money from drug

dealers."

"Sometimes we beat up innocent citizens."

"Well, yeah, that can be tiring."

His eyes had closed.

She kept smoothing his hair. His hands were still concealed by the

sleeves of the restraining jacket, and she wanted desperately to keep

touching him.

Suddenly his eyes popped open, and he said, "Luther's dead?"

She hesitated. "Yes."

"I thought so, but . . . I hoped ..."

"You saved the woman, Mrs. Arkadian."

"That's something."

His eyelids fluttered again, drooped heavily, and she said, "You better

rest, babe."

"You seen Alma?" That was Alma Bryson, Luther's wife. "Not yet,

babe.

I've been sort of tied up here, you know."

"Go see her," he whispered. "I will."

"Now. I'm okay. She's the one ... needs you."

"All right."

"So tired," he said, and slipped into sleep again.

The support group in the I.C.U lounge numbered three when Heather left

Jack for the evening--two uniformed officers whose names she didn't

know and Gina Tendero, the wife of another officer. They were elated

when she reported that Jack had come around, and she knew they would

put the word on the department grapevine. Unlike the doctors, they

understood when she refused to focus gloomily on the paralysis and the

treatment required to overcome it.

"I need someone to take me home," Heather said, "so I can get my car.

I want to go see Alma Bryson."

"I'll take you there and then home," Gina said. "I want to see Alma

myself."

Gina Tendero was the most colorful spouse in the division and perhaps

in the entire Los Angeles Police Department. She was twenty-three

years old but looked fourteen. Tonight she was wearing five-inch

heels, tight black leather pants, red sweater, black leather jacket, an

enormous silver medallion with a brightly colored enamel portrait of

Elvis in the center, and large multiple-hoop earrings so complex they

might have been variations of those puzzles that were supposed to relax

harried businessmen if they concentrated totally on disassembling

them.

Her fingernails were painted neon purple, a shade reflected slightly

more subtly in her eye shadow. Her jet-black hair was a mass of curls

that spilled over her shoulders, it looked as much like a wig as any

Dolly Parton had ever worn, but it was all her own.

Though she was only five three without shoes and weighed maybe a

hundred and five pounds dripping wet, Gina always seemed bigger than