(Lena)
Dad arrived at eight thirty.
I heard him before I saw him, his voice in the corridor asking a nurse which room and then his footsteps, unhurried and familiar in the way I had known my whole life. Cole was already awake, sitting in the same chair he had slept in, a cup of hospital coffee in his hand that he was drinking without complaint.
The door opened.
Dad came in and stopped when he saw me and for a moment he just looked at me the way fathers did when they had been worried about something all night and needed to see it with their own eyes before they could let it go.
"You look better than I expected," he said.
"You said that last night," I said.
"I meant it last night too," he said.
He came over and kissed my forehead and straightened up and shook Cole's hand and then tur
