The treatment had worked.
The doctors used words like extraordinary and fortunate.
He used the word grateful.
For the first time in years.
And meant it.
The girl visited three times.
While he was still in the hospital.
Each time in better clothes.
His wife had taken her shopping.
On the second day.
Without being asked.
Without making a thing of it.
Just — taken her.
The way you take someone.
When you have decided.
That they belong.
Even if the circumstances of their belonging.
Are complicated.
On the day he was discharged.
The girl was there.
With her mother.
Who had come.
For the first time.
They stood in the hospital lobby.
The four of them.
Awkward.
In the particular way of people.
Who have a great deal of history.
And are standing at the beginning of whatever comes after it.
He looked at her mother.
At twelve years.
And everything in them.
