CHAPTER ONE

Accidents

When Alyssa Waite stepped across the threshold of her childhood home on this hot muggy Thursday morning, she had no idea that the day would end in the harsh lighting of Lundston Memorial’s Emergency Room, her left index finger sliced to the bone, nor that she would sit near a man whose bloodied face seemed hauntingly familiar, and whose shock-induced behavior was oddly captivating.

Things had started off well enough with her mother. They unloaded the car, ran errands, ate lunch, shopped for groceries, and unpacked clothes in her old bedroom. At 5 p.m. they opened a cold bottle of Chardonnay, which her mother had been saving for the occasion. “A Chairman’s Select, 91 points and 4.1 on Vivino,” she said proudly. 

Alyssa pulled two glasses from the cupboard, handed one to her mother, and said, “Let’s see if it stands up.”

They sipped and chatted in the enclosed patio, the curtains drawn against the late afternoon sun, and after a few minutes her mother dozed. Alyssa was checking messages when she remembered that the broccoli salad had to chill in the refrigerator for two hours. Back in the kitchen, she took out the florets, red pepper, crème fraîche, sriracha and lime along with cotija cheese to crumble on top, grabbed the red onion from the counter and realized they’d forgotten the pepitas. Darn. Searching for a knife, she pulled from the block a Japanese Nakiri, rounded in front with a razor edge that was perfect for slicing julienne.

She washed the florets, put them in a bowl, spread the thin slices of pepper on top, and took a sip of wine. The crispy outer skins of the onion rubbed off easily, and with each slice a milky essence seeped from the inner rings, wetting her fingers. Her mother’s voice called suddenly from the patio, startling her, the blade slicing deeply into her left index finger, the cut widening before her eyes like a blooming crimson flower. In the split second before the pain reached her brain, she noticed that the color of the blood matched the flesh of the pepper. Then she let out one sharp high-pitched shriek, grabbed a nearby napkin, pressed down on the gaping wound, and leaned against the counter, feeling faint.

Her mother rushed in, snatched a towel off the refrigerator door, wet it, wrung it out, and draped it over her daughter’s head. “Let me see,” she said. When Alyssa peeled away the blood-soaked napkin, her mother nearly fainted as well. “We’re going to the ER!”

“The bleeding will stop if I hold it. Let’s wait and see.”

“There’s no wait and see,” her mother snapped. “I saw bone! It needs stitching! The sooner the better.” Opening a drawer, she grabbed a first aid kit, tore open a packet of gauze, squeezed the two parts of the finger together, then wrapped the wound and sealed it with adhesive tape. “Keep your finger above your heart,” she said as they drove to town, emergency lights flashing.

Alyssa said, “You can turn the flashers off, mom. I’m not near death.” By the time they reached the hospital, the throbbing had lessened, the flow of blood stopped, the pain was under control. She told her mother to drop her off and go to the store to buy pepitas.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m fine,” Alyssa insisted, “and what’s the salad going to be like without that extra crunch?”

Her mother reluctantly agreed, Alyssa popped out of the car, the doors to the ER slid open, and she passed through Security with her bandaged left index finger in the air as if she were about to make a point. An elderly lady wearing black was sitting in the second row toward the front of the room and observed her attentively. After checking in, Alyssa walked past the woman and sat three seats down facing the door as a man entered with dried streaks of blood on his face. He registered at the reception window and came toward her. Wonderful, she thought. A walking ghoul. She looked closer. Wait. He looks familiar.

***

The man slumped into a seat directly across from the elderly lady, then glanced at the younger woman a few seats down who sat with perfect posture, auburn-streaked hair pulled back into a loose bun, her bandaged left index finger pointing straight up in the air. Her emerald eyes were looking straight at him. He nodded, forced a smile, then fixed on the light caught in the hair of the elderly lady as she tilted her head and leaned forward intently, as though she were about to hear his confession.

Oblivious to other people in the room and the voices blaring from the television on the far wall, he relived the moments that put him in front of a bullet. It was as though he’d lost a game of Go and had to discover the misplaced stones.

“The trooper,” he muttered, half to himself.

The elderly woman’s eyes sharpened with recognition. She’d seen that look before. “Gave you the runaround, did they?” Her voice carried the weariness of someone who’d dealt with authorities before.

“And the crows,” he said, evoking a concerned glance from Alyssa who was trying to figure out who he was.

The woman nodded knowingly. “They see what others miss,” she said quietly. Her accent carried traces of old country, old wisdom, reading signs that others neglect.

“Two stones,” he said, meeting her gaze.

“Yera retour,” she replied. “Go back, remember. Retrace the journey that led you here.”

* * *

He’d taken the northern route through Albany, skirted the Finger Lakes region, then headed south through Tiadaghton State Forest along the Pine Creek Watershed to Interstate 80 giving him a straight shot to the Ohio line. A string of storms was pushing north out of a tropical depression in the Gulf that would arrive the next day and he wanted to unload before they hit. The windows were down because the air conditioner wasn’t cutting it, neither was the road noise drowning out his music as he cranked up the volume, sweat soaking his shirt.

Should’ve driven at night, it’d have been cooler, he thought as traffic roared past, the jeep straining on the hills, pulling him away from Boston and the mess he left behind at Charbel University. Eight words in three seconds and his career there was over. “Charbel is a myth, so is Jesus Christ,” he stressed to his class in a misbegotten attempt to illustrate how myths sanctify institutional power. The phrase spread like wildfire. Students complained to their parents, who called the priests, who demonstrated the truth of the lesson by forcing him to resign without a hearing, without even inquiring into the sources of his blasphemy.

Steam was now rising from the hood of the jeep, the temperature gauge racing toward the red. Damn. He slowed, tapped the blinkers and pulled off the highway nearly scraping a guardrail. A convoy of semis rumbled past, the clouds of dust stifling, the noise deafening. Sidling along the edge of the road he lifted the jeep’s hood, secured it, stepped over the guardrail, and scurried down the rocky embankment toward the woods, sliding most of the way, not noticing the Pennsylvania state trooper who pulled up behind the trailer, lights twirling.

A thicket pushed him further down toward a culvert where wildflowers grew between concrete blocks. A vine maple stretched out from under a massive cottonwood. He lingered in its shade. A cardinal flitted by. He thought of his father, whose ashes he’d spread by the creek where they fished. “Stone to stone,” his father would say, “Remember we inhabit the oldest of known English names.” His mother’s voice seemed to rise from the gurgling stream. “Charbel will provide you with an opportunity for redemption,” she had said in the Arabic-inflected English he remembered so vividly from his childhood.

A cool breeze drifted up from the deep woods, beckoning him. He stepped across boulders intertwined with enormous roots to take a deep draught of it. The roar of the road receded as he squatted to rinse his hands in the trickle of the stream, tempted to go deeper. But the jeep was wide-open, and he must keep moving so he turned to see the state trooper in wide brimmed hat standing behind the trailer watching him with hands on hips. “Just my luck,” he muttered as he scrambled up the slope hunchbacked on all fours, like a bear.

* * *

The trooper yelled out over the din of the road. “Engine troubles?” It was a woman’s voice, but the body was stocky, masculine. He hesitated, climbed over the blistering guardrail, faced the sun-glassed officer still expecting to see a man then noticed the smallish hands, neatly manicured nails, full lips, and a slight coating of makeup.

“Overheated,” he shouted back.

“You’re on a recorded line,” the trooper said. “What were you doing down there?”

He wanted to say, what do you think I was doing? But caught himself. “Checking the wildflowers while my jeep cooled off.” 

“Awful steep drop just to see some flowers.” The trooper walked toward him with one hand on the butt of a Taser, a situation he’d faced before.

He backed up showing his hands, filthy from the climb. “They’re special flowers,” he said, wishing he had stayed among them.

“Special?” The officer looked him up and down.

“Queen Anne’s Lace. You can see the tops from here, the white ones with the purple bud in the middle. William Carlos Williams wrote a poem about them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, the purple bud is both its beauty and its blemish.”

“This isn’t a literature class,” the trooper said. “You are prohibited by law to leave your vehicle unattended on the side of the road, especially in a precarious place like this. You’re required to put out cones or flares and notify state police.” The trooper’s sunglasses slipped to reveal shadow around dark blue eyes, brows clipped tight. “License, registration and insurance please.”

He strode to the jeep, slid in, found the papers nestled in the console, and retrieved his license. The engine needed more time to cool, so he quenched his parched throat with two gulps of water, exited the jeep and regarded the tableau unfolding in the far lane. Vehicles had slowed to a crawl. A child in a van laughed and waved, nose pressed against the side window. A woman in a passenger seat did a double take, her curiosity piqued by a man who appeared to come straight out of a Matrix movie. A smirk appeared on the face of a man behind the wheel of a pickup truck. A biker pumped his fist in the air. It was like schadenfreude on parade.

The trooper hollered, “What’s the holdup?!”

As he approached, he asked, “may I see your badge please?”

“What? Hand me the papers so we can get this show off the side of the road.”

“I have a right to see your badge, then I’ll cooperate fully,” he insisted.

The officer pulled the badge from a side pocket, flashed it and replaced it in a single motion.

“I didn’t catch it,” he said. “Your name and number, please. Just a precaution.”

The officer held out the badge again. The name Casey Cline was written in bold letters. He noted the number, then studied the photo. An image of a man appeared, which turned into a woman, then a man, a reversible figure whose identity shifted each time he blinked his eyes. “Thank you,” he said and handed the trooper his Massachusetts license and papers.

The trooper stared at him. “What’s your destination?”

“Ohio.”

“Where in Ohio?”

“Lundston.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Teaching.”

“Teaching what?”

“Have I violated any laws?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” Officer Cline returned to the patrol car, lights twirling red and blue, headlamps streaming white pulses. He stood at the back of the trailer in partial shade, intrigued. A woman transitioning to a man, or a man transitioning to woman? It was the first time he’d fully grasped what non-binary meant, neither man nor woman because both male and female. A doubling. He’d never thought of it that way. He knew that in the natural world individuals displaying both sexes were common. Spotted hyenas, bearded dragons, clown fish, some birds, male plants that appear feminine to attract insects. Even some trees. The officer emerged from the car. “You have a record.”

“Arrests at peaceful protests.”

“What happened?”

“I laid on the ground; the cops carried me away.”

Officer Cline said, “Charlottsville, Virginia.”

“Protesting fascists,” he said.

A slim smile curved at one corner of the trooper’s mouth, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “What’s in the trailer?”

“My stuff,” he said.

The trooper paused and considered his predicament. “There’s a truck pull-off in a couple miles. Get it out of here or we’ll have to call a tow.”

No need for that! He took the papers and license, tossed them in the jeep, grabbed a small towel, ambled to the front of the vehicle and slowly loosened the radiator cap. A piercing hiss forced him back but there was no eruption of coolant. He tightened the cap, slammed the hood, got in the cab, and started the engine. The temperature needle rose rapidly, quivered slightly as if it were about to lurch forward, then held steady. Heaving a sigh, he put the rickety vehicle in gear and pulled onto the highway. Bigger mountains ahead, steeper climbs. When the cities lie at the monster’s feet, there are left the mountains. He’d memorized the Jeffers poem in his youth. Corruption has never been compulsory. “Ha. Not anymore,” he muttered. Shine Perishing Republic.

* * *

He’d shifted into third gear while coasting down the western slope of the Alleghenies, foot off the accelerator, the engine whining, when deer movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Then three small ones stood directly in his path. He slammed on the brakes, horns honking behind him as the jeep swerved and the trailer jackknifed. His heart hammered, the deer leapt into the woods as he regained control, his chest pounding. He pulled into the next Rest Area and entered the men’s room, staring into the distorted, foggy mirror. The flickering light made him look older, worn. With a sigh, he washed his hands and arms, splashed cold water on his face, and combed back his hair that was beginning to show speckles of white at the temples. He bought a bottle of water and strode out back seeking respite from the oppressive heat. He found it under the shade of a white oak, its branches outstretched over a picnic table. Brushing off crumbs and avoiding the remnants of dried guano, he sprawled on the weathered surface and dozed fitfully, haunted by restless dreams.

He awoke sweating, disoriented. Leaves hung limp above him in the stagnant humid air as he swung his legs around and reached for the water bottle. On the other side of a nearby fence, two large crows approached from a field of rolled bales of hay. Crows were omens for him, not always good, but at least they listened. He welcomed them. One perched on a fence post while its companion flew overhead and defecated, the dark dollop splatting on the table as the bird settled on the branch above, calling to the other, who laid out a staccato caw as it glided off the post and hopped toward him.

“What is it?” He looked from one to the other, getting curious glances from a family nearby. “What do you want?”

The larger crow on the ground began a rhythmic barking call. The other swooped down, picked up an acorn in its ample beak, and dropped it in his lap.

“Danger ahead?” he asked.

The two corvids barked in unison.

“Danger behind too,” he replied.

Once on his feet, he put the acorn in his pocket, grabbed the water bottle and ambled toward the parking lot as the crows flew back into the field, mission apparently accomplished.

The rig that had pulled alongside the jeep cast a shadow that offered refuge from the unforgiving sun. He sat on the trailer’s wheel-well, thinking he’d rather be following a tractor or Amish buggy than jockeying for position in heavy traffic. After charting a new route, he kicked the trailer’s tires and tightened the hitch then climbed into the sweltering confines of the jeep. The engine coughed to life; the temperature gauge rose and held steady. Desperate for relief, he tried the air conditioner. It kicked in. He smiled for the first time that day. In several miles he exited and merged onto a state highway, the landscape unfolding before him in layers of history and conflict.

* * *

He remembered wanting to enter the city through its bowels, so he turned off the state  highway, crossed a bridge over a small river, and headed northwest on a county road that ran along the river’s banks. Unimpeded by traffic, he saw in the distance a vehicle coming toward him that morphed into a black jeep like his own, pulling a U-Haul trailer the same size as his. Both vehicles slowed and the drivers’ eyes met, each peering through their rear-view mirrors until all that remained were two orange dots in the distance.

Traffic picked up, trucks of every size and shape. He passed manufacturing facilities, an industrial park with massive, abandoned factories whose silent smokestacks stood behind razor-wire fences. Large expanses of fenced-off, browned-out landscapes, dilapidated warehouses, broken-down loading docks, rusted heavy machinery scattered across vacant lots. Welcome to Lundston, Ohio, pop. 63,416, the sign read as the jeep crept across railroad tracks and coasted into a freshly paved parking lot of a refurbished warehouse, tires crackling on scorching blacktop. The hangar doors were ajar, an open padlock dangling from a hasp. He scanned his surroundings. At the front of the building next to the dock sat a Ford F150 truck with an empty gun rack in the back window. A slight breeze wafted through the driver’s-side window as he eased it down and glanced back to make sure the trailer was off the road. He pressed the brakes. The engine sputtered. The jeep juddered to a stop.

As he thumbed his new address into the phone’s GPS, what sounded like a cacophony of firecrackers reverberated from within the warehouse. He leaned forward to restart the engine when a clang like a cymbal rang out and the passenger-side window collapsed into a shower of micro shards that stung the side of his face, the projectile passing behind his head. “Fuck!” He yelled.

For a second he sat paralyzed, mind struggling to process what had happened. The sting of glass on his cheek. The reality that a bullet had passed through the space that his head had just occupied. He scrambled from the vehicle and squatted on the searing asphalt, hands trembling as he fumbled for his phone. The 911 dispatcher said, “Stay where you are.”

In less than a minute two squad cars appeared. One drove to the warehouse, the other pulled up beside him. A female police officer put down her window and asked, “Are you okay?” Her voice sounded genuine, concerned. He stared at her, the full weight of the event hitting him. His brains could have been splattered across the dashboard. “I’ve been shot at.” His voice quivered.

She was squatting next to him now, checking the side of his face. “The bullet missed but the window glass didn’t.” She stood and peered over the hood of the jeep to see her partner pull up beside the pickup, blasting a bullhorn. The shooting stopped and she watched as he walked up the loading dock steps, checked the hole in the tin siding, and slid open the hangar door. Voices boomed. The policewoman nodded.

“Probably a ricochet,” she said.

He stood and leaned against the jeep; legs unsteady. “A ricochet?”

“Yeah, guys use that warehouse for target practice.”

“Target practice? They could kill someone! Who are they?”

Her partner’s voice came over the radio. She walked to the car, listened, spoke briefly, then returned. Her demeanor had shifted; she was more aloof, calculating. “You’ll need to come downtown with me.”

“Why?”

She assessed the wounds. “Standard procedure when someone gets welcomed to town like this.”

“Funny,” he said.

“You’re going to see a doctor, then we’ll write up an incident report. Can you drive or should I call paramedics?”

He touched the side of his face, then bent to look in the driver’s side mirror to see red streaks of blood, stains on his shirt. “I can drive,” he said, and crawled into the jeep, found some wipes and cleaned up. From his daypack he pulled out a shirt and changed into it when the officer reappeared.

“Are you passing through?’ The question came with a different tone now. Casual, but probing.

“I’m m-moving here,” he said.

“Well,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “let me be the first to welcome you to Lundston. I’m Officer Mary Brentano. Usually, we save the fireworks for 4th of July.”

“Not funny,” he said. “But thanks for getting here . . . so fast,” he managed.

“May I see ID please?”

He fumbled for his wallet and handed her his license. “What will happen to the guy who shot at me?”

“We’ll bring him to headquarters and see if it amounts to reckless endangerment. Depends on what we find.” She handed back his license, her expression unreadable.

“Depends?”

“We’ll see. Let’s go.”

“What about the broken window?”

“We’ll take care of it. City’s got a fund for this sort of thing. Happens more than you’d think. Follow me.”

* * *

Alyssa googled ‘shock-induced psychosis’ while watching him out of the corner of her eye, remembering that she saw him during her visit to campus a few weeks earlier. That’s it! He’s the one they hired. Stone. Yes! Sam Stone? No. Sid? Close. Slade? An Arabic name, with an “S” and a “D.” After a few moments of pondering, the name came to her. Saeed. Saeed Stone. She looked to see him hunched over, hands clasped, the old woman humming, rocking, her eyes locked with his in an alarming mind meld. Say his name, she thought. No. Walk between them. It’s not my business. Cough loudly. It’s not my business!

For Saeed, the elderly lady had morphed into a crow, sitting as a crow would sit if it could, feathery wings resting on the arms of the chair, its beak pointed toward the floor, bushy brows fluttering over penetrating eyes. His shock-addled mind was playing tricks on him. Through his confusion, he thought he heard the crow whisper, the creep in the jeep. He repeated, “the creep in the jeep.” The nurse appeared and called the name Edna Crowly. Saeed’s vision began to clear as the old woman, who was now just a woman again, stood with her cane and shuffled off.

The cop, the crows, the creep in the jeep. He sat up. Television characters on the far wall were forming comprehensible utterances. His head pounded. His mouth was like cotton. He adjusted his position on the hard plastic seat and breathed in the antiseptic smell of the room. Reality reassembled itself piece by piece. He looked around, scanning the room for a water fountain or restroom. Across the aisle, three seats down, the woman with the bandaged index finger was scrolling on her phone. She caught his eye and said, “hello.”

He forced a smile. “Hi,” he said, then looked away.

She wanted to confirm who he was without being cheeky. “What happened to you?”

He contemplated the question. “Well,” he began, then he didn’t know what to say. I was harassed by priests. That’s what happened. Hounded by cops, delayed by crows, and passed through the mirror of my future into a post-industrial wasteland. “Car accident,” he heard himself say.

“It looks like you put your head through a window.”

He tried to unfold. “The window went through me.”

“My goodness. Sorry to hear.”

Say something. “What happened to your finger?”

“Oh . . . um . . .” She looked at the bandage. “My boyfriend’s a knife thrower. I’m his target; you know, the girl they tie to the wall while he throws knives all around her.”

“What?!” Her words broke through the fog of his confusion.

“Yes. And they don’t have a category for that on the intake form,” she continued. “I checked other.”

He fixed on her laughing eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“Oh no, I’m quite serious,” she replied.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You were slicing a pepper julienne.”

That startled her. He saw it and smiled. She composed herself, scrutinized him with a piercing look, eyes narrowing, her head tilting slightly. “Red onion.”

They stared at each other across the narrow aisle, both sensing they’d stepped into something neither anticipated nor quite understood.

The nurse reappeared and began to call Alyssa’s name when her mother burst into the waiting room. “Why hasn’t she been seen? The finger must be stitched while the cut is fresh!”

What he heard the nurse say was “Alice,” then, after the interruption, “wait.” He suddenly felt detached from the scene that was unfolding around him, as though they were actors rehearsing their lines in choreographed motions. She stood, saying hers perfectly. “Nice talking to you.” When there was no immediate response, she walked swiftly toward the nurse.

Only then did his words tumble out. “Yes . . . hope that . . . my name is . . .” Too late. He’d dropped his lines. Or maybe those were his lines. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He rose from the seat, steadied himself, found a water cooler, drank long draughts, and went to the men’s room. Looking in the mirror, reality rushed back with startling clarity. The right side of his face was oozing blood and pus. Grabbing a paper towel, he wet it and dabbed the wounds, finding pieces of glass in the towel. He lingered, drank more water from the faucet, patted the wounds until the seeping stopped, then returned to the waiting room. As he neared his seat, Alyssa emerged with a band-aid on her finger.

“Looks like I’ll live,” she said to her mother, who was sitting near the nurse’s station. “Three stitches and a lecture on kitchen safety.” She twirled her wounded finger in the air and looked at him.

“Good to know . . .,” he said. “The kitchen safety part.”

She seemed not to hear him as the nurse appeared and called his name. He was staring at the two women who were approaching the exit, hearing Alyssa say that she knew who he was.

The nurse repeated, “Mr. Stone?”

He turned to face the tall brawny man standing in front of him, who had the gentlest countenance Saeed had ever seen, white as snow, brown scruffy hair, jowls that belied his physique, blue eyes that looked at him sympathetically. Nurse Braun cranked his head toward the opening of the door, and Saeed passed through.

* * *

Alyssa was glad she didn’t have to keep her finger in the air anymore, even though it throbbed when she dropped her arm. The doctor had given her a prescription for opiates, but she had a high threshold for pain with no plan to fill it.

“So, who is he?” Her mother asked, looking over the roof of the car, the distress about her daughter’s finger having evaporated.

“Dr. Saeed Stone, new faculty member in the department,” Alyssa replied as they got into their seats and strapped on seatbelts.

“Small world, Lundston,” her mother said as she started the car. “What are the odds?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it. Camella said I’d be assigned part time to Dr. Jones. But he left, so I might work for this guy.”

“Well, you’ve met your new colleague.”

“Not a great first impression,” Alyssa said.

“It’s only a cut finger for heaven’s sake.”

“No mom, me of him. And there was this elderly lady, she was humming and rocking, he was muttering, they were staring at each other like they were having some kind of . . . séance.”

Her mother glanced at her as she steered onto the freshly chipped county road that led to their property. “Sounds like he was in shock. People act strange after accidents.”

Alyssa said, “He guessed how I cut myself.”

“He what?”

“He guessed I was slicing vegetables julienne when I cut myself. He said julienne, which is exactly what I was doing.”

“That’s . . .unusual.”

There was silence between them for a few minutes as Alyssa watched the late afternoon light filter through the windshield, then said, “I sure didn’t expect this kind of excitement when I left Pittsburgh this morning.”

“Any regrets about coming back?” Her mother asked.

She considered this as they drove, remembering her ex-husband standing in the kitchen with fistfuls of her jewelry, scattering it across the floor as she found her voice, how she forced him out of the house, the marriage shattering in that instant. Then her father’s sudden death. “No. I don’t regret it, mom. I needed a change and time with you,” she finally said. “I’m mostly concerned about my clients.”

“I’m sure they’ll miss you,” her mother said, and then, “I forgot to tell you I saw Nicole and Stefan at a Shriners event last weekend. They asked about you, are excited to see you.”

“Nice. Me too,” Alyssa responded. “Stefan will have some zany theories about these coincidences.”

“No doubt about that,” her mother said. “Let’s get back to that bottle of wine.”

“I’m ready for a cocktail!”

The magnolia bushes on either side of the paved driveway lifted as the muggy heat of the day dissipated. Alyssa found herself thinking about the old woman. Something about her had been unsettling. As they approached the garage, a large crow landed on its apex, hopped along then stopped and looked down at them, letting out a staccato string of caws before lifting off into the dusk.

* * *

Sitting with the bright light on his face made his head throb harder, but there was nothing he could do about it. Nurse Braun checked his vitals, washed his wounds, then carefully tweezed out the smallest pieces of glass embedded in his skin, each fragment dropping into the metal tray with a tiny ping. The man worked with methodical precision, the patience of someone accustomed to mending what violence had broken.

The doctor entered quickly, greeting him. “Mr. Stone. I’m Doctor Shields.”

Still half-dazed from shock, he imagined her as the Queen of Hearts, dispensing medical verdicts. “Hello,” he said.

She examined his face with practiced speed. “You’re fortunate.”

“You have no idea what that means,” he said.

“I mean you could have lost your head,” the doctor said.

His eyes widened. Nurse Braun smiled.

She moved through the examination with clinical efficiency. ”Keep these areas clean. It’s okay to apply antibiotic ointment but call your PCP if there are signs of infection. There’s nothing to stitch, probably no permanent scarring.”

“Too bad.”

“Apply Vitamin E to make sure.”

“I want the scars,” he said.

“Why in the world do you want scars?”

“To sue whoever shot the window out of my car.”

“No amount of money will compensate for a scarred face. Vitamin E.” She made quick notes on his chart. “Leave the small bandages on overnight then remove them in the morning. Let the wounds scab up. Avoid sleeping on the right side of your face for a few nights.” She was already moving toward the door. “Questions?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Have a nice evening.”

“It’s off to a great start,” he replied.

Nurse Braun handed him discharge papers. “You’re good to go.”

“Thanks.” He slid off the examination table, legs steadier but his mind processing the encounter. He’d been cleaned, catalogued, and cleared for departure, the day’s madness reduced to aftercare instructions.

* * *

Officer Mary was standing by the door talking to the Security guards when she saw him emerge. She walked toward him. “Hello again, Mr. Stone,” she said cheerfully.

“Hello officer. My car’s okay?”

“We cleaned it up, taped plastic over the window opening. It should be fine until you get it repaired,” she said.

“Super,” said Saeed.

“We want to help you get settled after this unfortunate incident. I can take your statement here. You don’t have to go to the station.”

“Great.”

“. . . and we have the boys who shot out the window.”

“They’re boys?”

“Young men, teenagers, 18 or 19. We’re holding them downtown and the chief’s talking with the DA about bringing charges.”

“Felony charges?”

“Reckless endangerment isn’t a felony in this state, unless there’s intent to harm.”

“That’s a contradiction,” Saeed said.

Officer Mary smiled. “I know. Think of it as a flagrant one foul. You’re charged, but you don’t get suspended from the game.”

“This isn’t basketball.”

“The Lundy boys, Charles and Robert, are responsible for the accident,” she said. “Their father owns that warehouse. Robert Lundy is the one who shot out the jeep’s window. Here’s the form.” He sat, wrote, signed, and handed it back. “Ok, that covers it,” she said. “I see your address is on Strand.”

“Yes.”

“The Martelli house; I know it. Follow me. I’ll get a couple guys to come over first thing in the morning to help unload the trailer.”

“That’d be great,” he said as they walked together into the parking lot toward the damaged vehicle. Something’s up, he knew for certain now. She’s bending over backwards, too helpful. She knows these boys. And their father.

* * *

Sitting in the jeep, anger rose in his chest. The bullet had missed him by inches. The recklessness of it, the casual violence. White men with guns and no sense of consequence. He’d seen it before, and he’d see it again.

He drove behind the police car in the sultry evening, streetlights flickering under limbs of giant maples whose canopies covered the entire street. The humid dust-filled air of the city receded. The breeze through the open windows blew lighter as he passed one Victorian house after another. The cooler air brought clarity as well.

Images of the ER scrolled through his mind. The old woman who seemed to recognize him, to know him, who’d understood what he’d been through. And the woman with the sliced finger, whose wit had cut through his muddled mind. She knows me. What did the nurse call her? He replayed the scene. Alice? No. Close though. Alyssa? Yes, Alyssa. Her mother had burst in, demanding attention. Alyssa . . . what? The nurse had said her last name too, something that sounded like . . . wait. Waite. Yes. Alyssa Waite.

He smiled, remembering her playfulness. Tomorrow he’d start a new position, in a new place, trying to rebuild what he’d lost. Ironically, for the first time in months, the future didn’t feel entirely bleak. A chance encounter in an emergency room had shifted something. He followed the police car through the tree-lined streets, toward whatever came next.