She gestured toward the plastic chairs without meeting my eyes. I stood there for a moment, my hands curling into fists at my sides. I wanted to reach across that counter and make her understand. I wanted to say something that would change the rules, that would make her see that I had more right to be back there than anyone.
Instead, I found a seat in the corner and sat down to wait.
The clock on the wall read 10:47.
I watched it like it might tell me something useful. The second hand moved in small jerks, each tick a tiny violence, and I counted them because counting gave me something to do besides imagine Red on an operating table with his hand opened up.
At 11:32, a group of men came through the main entrance. Big men, athletes, moving with that particular awareness of their own bodies that hockey players carried. I recognized a few faces from games I'd watched. Teammates.
They went straight to the desk. I watched the woman shake her head, watched one of them lean forward and say something I couldn't make out, watched her shake her head again. Family only. The same words she'd given me.
After a few minutes, they left. I didn't have what they had. I had stolen hours in hotel rooms and texts at two in the morning, and nothing I could show anyone.
At 2:17, the main doors opened, and a man walked in.
He was taller than Red but built the same way, compact and solid, with the same jaw and the same way of holding his shoulders. He had a carry-on bag over his shoulder and exhaustion written into every line of his face.
He went to the desk first. I caught fragments of what he was saying. Brother. Robert Piper. Flew in from Albuquerque.
The woman made a call, then nodded and pointed toward the double doors. He had a right to be here. He could walk through those doors whenever he wanted.
But he didn't go through. Not yet.
He turned and scanned the waiting room, and his eyes found me in the corner. Something clicked behind his expression as he took in my face.
Derek crossed the room and sat down in the plastic chair next to mine.
For a long moment, neither of us said anything. We just sat there, two men in a hospital waiting room at two in the morning, both of us too tired to pretend.
"He's out of surgery," Derek said finally. "They called me on the way from the airport."
My throat closed up. I nodded.
"Deep cut, tendon damage. They think he'll recover full function, but it's going to take a few months."
I nodded again. The words weren't landing right, weren't making it past the static in my head.
"He's on the fourth floor," Derek said. "Room 408. They said he'll be groggy for a while, but he can have visitors."
"Thank you," I said.
"He's my brother." Derek stood up, shouldering his bag. "I'm going to go see him. Give me ten minutes, and then you can come up."
He walked toward the double doors. At the threshold, he paused and looked back at me.
"He talks about you," Derek said. "Not by name. But I know my brother."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the waiting room with the clock still ticking and a cold coffee in my hands and permission I hadn't known I needed.
The elevator was slow, or maybe time had just started moving differently. The fourth floor was quieter than the emergency department, dimmer, the overhead lights turned down for the night. A nurse glanced up from her station as I passed, but she didn't stop me.
Room 408 was at the end of the hall. The door was cracked open, the blue glow of monitors visible inside, the soft beep of machines marking time.
I pushed the door open.
Red was in the bed, propped up slightly, his left hand bandaged and elevated on a pillow. The wrapping was thick and white and went halfway up his forearm. An IV ran into his right arm, and his face was slack in a way I'd never seen before, the sharp edges of him softened by whatever painkillers they'd given him.
Derek was in the chair by the window. He looked up when I came in, then stood and gathered his bag.
