“She d*ed in February,” Anders said. “Mom. C*ncer. Right at the end she said, ‘Go find her anyway.’ I took the job at Bellmont Regional in July. I told myself I was only going to look at the town.”
“And then I came in by ambulance.”
“The night shift paged me at 11:40,” he said. “Perforated bowel, forty-nine-year-old woman. When I saw the name on the board, I almost dropped the chart.”
He rubbed his face with both hands.
I reached across the blanket.
He took my fingers.
“You saved me,” I said.
“You saved me first,” he said. “Thirty-one years ago. You just didn’t know.”
Around midnight, Cindy slipped in with two cups of bad coffee and left them on the tray table without a word.
Around two, I asked him about the card in his wallet.
“Why did you carry it?”
“So I wouldn’t hope,” he said.
