than the sketch she’d seen the day before. The sketch, oddly, had looked more alive, given that the artist had presumed what Jane might look like without an endotracheal tube. In this grainy portrait Jane’s puffy eyes were glazed with lubricant, her bruised and swollen mouth distorted by bands of tape and gauze anchoring the plastic tube that connected her to the ventilator. She looked quite dead, really. Like one of those Victorian memento mori photographs of dead people.
Eric saw the look on Charlotte’s face and took the paper back, reading the article below the headline closely for the first time. “You’re in here! They quote you.”
“Not all of it, I’m sure.”
“ ‘Doing everything possible . . . Hope to find her family . . . Time is her best hope.’ Jeez, Charlotte. Come to me for copy next time.”
She had to laugh. “What could I do? Helen Seras was ready to take my badge and escort me to the street if I didn’t behave.”
“But you will do everything possible. She’s lucky she landed at Beacon. Will she make it?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Charlotte shrugged, somber again. “Miracles happen.”
“Do they?” Eric lifted his eyebrows and the light caught a look of innocence in him that belied the gray at his temples. In that moment, in that half light, Charlotte remembered the face she had fallen for, when she had first allowed herself to believe they could build a reliable world together. Would that take a miracle too? she wondered.
“Sure,” she answered. “Well, no. But if we hook all our machines up to her we might salvage enough of her brain to tell us who’s looking for her. Or who ran her over.” She thought of the message she’d left for Deputy Simpson and was tempted to check her cell phone for any missed call. Suddenly none of it seemed even mildly humorous—her distress over the photograph and her quotes, her frustration with Helen Seras. She was worried that she would lose this woman, that it might take an actual miracle to save her and she herself was not miraculous. All of it tumbled into a sad, overwhelming fatigue. “You know what? Let’s take dinner to go.”
“Leave? Now?”
“I’d rather eat in the bathtub.”
—
Charlotte first met Eric at the publication of his second book, which might as well have been his first, as his actual first book went out of print not too many years after its release. This second book was a narrative nonfiction that followed three couples through in vitro fertilization. It did reasonably well—won an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and garnered a three-line mention in the New York Review of Books .
He gave a public reading at the Elliott Bay Book Company. Charlotte saw a mention of it in the Stranger , and on a whim, she decided to go. Unfortunately, the reading coincided with a Mariners home game. Every parking place near Pioneer Square was taken; the lots were charging triple. She ended up parking four blocks north of the ferry and getting to the store twenty minutes late, embarrassed about interrupting the author and his audience in the middle of the talk. The bigger embarrassment, though, was that she was one of only five who’d shown up at all, two of whom appeared to be local homeless taking shelter from the drizzly weather. She considered pretending she’d walked into the wrong room, leaving before she was noticed, but he nodded and beckoned her in and she was stuck. She could have guessed, though she didn’t know until later, that it was his first public appearance. He read from three long passages in a nervous voice, losing his place twice. Halfway through the third selection one person walked out; Charlotte found her mind drifting to the episode of The West Wing that she was missing. And his book didn’t even cover artificial insemination. She slipped out the door the second he asked if there were any questions.
The ball game must have let out—the streets were
Eric saw the look on Charlotte’s face and took the paper back, reading the article below the headline closely for the first time. “You’re in here! They quote you.”
“Not all of it, I’m sure.”
“ ‘Doing everything possible . . . Hope to find her family . . . Time is her best hope.’ Jeez, Charlotte. Come to me for copy next time.”
She had to laugh. “What could I do? Helen Seras was ready to take my badge and escort me to the street if I didn’t behave.”
“But you will do everything possible. She’s lucky she landed at Beacon. Will she make it?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Charlotte shrugged, somber again. “Miracles happen.”
“Do they?” Eric lifted his eyebrows and the light caught a look of innocence in him that belied the gray at his temples. In that moment, in that half light, Charlotte remembered the face she had fallen for, when she had first allowed herself to believe they could build a reliable world together. Would that take a miracle too? she wondered.
“Sure,” she answered. “Well, no. But if we hook all our machines up to her we might salvage enough of her brain to tell us who’s looking for her. Or who ran her over.” She thought of the message she’d left for Deputy Simpson and was tempted to check her cell phone for any missed call. Suddenly none of it seemed even mildly humorous—her distress over the photograph and her quotes, her frustration with Helen Seras. She was worried that she would lose this woman, that it might take an actual miracle to save her and she herself was not miraculous. All of it tumbled into a sad, overwhelming fatigue. “You know what? Let’s take dinner to go.”
“Leave? Now?”
“I’d rather eat in the bathtub.”
—
Charlotte first met Eric at the publication of his second book, which might as well have been his first, as his actual first book went out of print not too many years after its release. This second book was a narrative nonfiction that followed three couples through in vitro fertilization. It did reasonably well—won an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and garnered a three-line mention in the New York Review of Books .
He gave a public reading at the Elliott Bay Book Company. Charlotte saw a mention of it in the Stranger , and on a whim, she decided to go. Unfortunately, the reading coincided with a Mariners home game. Every parking place near Pioneer Square was taken; the lots were charging triple. She ended up parking four blocks north of the ferry and getting to the store twenty minutes late, embarrassed about interrupting the author and his audience in the middle of the talk. The bigger embarrassment, though, was that she was one of only five who’d shown up at all, two of whom appeared to be local homeless taking shelter from the drizzly weather. She considered pretending she’d walked into the wrong room, leaving before she was noticed, but he nodded and beckoned her in and she was stuck. She could have guessed, though she didn’t know until later, that it was his first public appearance. He read from three long passages in a nervous voice, losing his place twice. Halfway through the third selection one person walked out; Charlotte found her mind drifting to the episode of The West Wing that she was missing. And his book didn’t even cover artificial insemination. She slipped out the door the second he asked if there were any questions.
The ball game must have let out—the streets were
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