Mark and I had gone downstairs for coffee. We sat in the little cafeteria for nearly half an hour, talking about ordinary things for the first time in weeks. Whether we’d need a ramp at the front door. Whether Daniel could manage the stairs to his apartment. Whether Emma might move in to help him once he was discharged.
“She’d do it in a heartbeat,” Mark said.
“I know,” I said. “That girl is a saint.”
I still think about that conversation. About how certain we both were. We were halfway down the corridor on our way back when we heard shouting.
Emma’s voice.
In seven years, I had almost never heard Emma raise her voice.
“Stop saying that!”
Then Daniel: “So go! Nobody’s stopping you!”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Then admit what this is really about.”
“What it’s about? Daniel, listen to yourself!”
