Episode 2 · Someone to Call

The second time Soles woke, he knew enough to be afraid of moving.

Something pulled inside his chest when he breathed. A tube ran beneath the blanket toward a clear container beside the bed. He followed it with his eyes and decided against finding out where it entered him.

A nurse noticed his open eyes.

— Better. Can you tell me your name?

He could. The answer came out dry and much quieter than he intended. She gave him a little water, asked him to follow her finger, and explained where he was.

Soles listened for the part that would make the room familiar. It never came.

— There was a tree, he said.

— You’ve had surgery and a lot of medication. Dreams can be very vivid.

He looked at his palm. The hand lying on the sheet was pale, with a small bruise where a needle had gone in. He remembered cold bark and light between his fingers.

— Someone shot me.

The nurse set the cup down.

— Yes. You’re in the hospital. You’re being looked after.

— My parents?

— I’ll get the doctor.

She stayed until another nurse came to stand beside him. That frightened him more than the tube.

The doctor arrived with a man Soles recognized before he could remember why he would be here. Slim, not tall; chestnut hair above a narrow, clean-shaven face and straight eyebrows. Shirt sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows. A bag folded tightly in one hand.

Varren.

They had met over a broken swimming pool. Soles had known him for a few months. Of all the people he might have expected beside a hospital bed, this one was still new enough that the sight of him felt strange.

— You’re awake, Varren said.

Soles tried to lift his head. Pain stopped him. Varren put the bag on the chair and waited while the doctor checked the dressing and spoke to the nurse.

— What happened to my parents?

The doctor drew the chair closer and sat where Soles could see him without turning.

— Your mother and father were found at the house. They had both been shot. I’m very sorry, Soles. They died before help arrived.

For a moment, he understood every word separately.

His mother. His father. The house.

Then the doctor was still sitting there, and Soles realized he was waiting for the sentence to change.

— Both?

— Yes.

— Have you seen them?

— Their deaths have been confirmed.

— But have you?

Varren moved to the side of the bed. He set one hand on the rail, close enough to take if Soles wanted it.

— I spoke to the officer, he said. It was them.

Soles stared past him at the door. His mother should have come through it carrying a bag too large for one night. His father would have followed with questions he had saved until the doctor was free.

He tried to sit up.

The pain caught so sharply that his arms stopped working. The doctor helped him back against the raised mattress while the nurse moved the tube clear.

— I need to go home.

— You can’t leave yet.

— They’re there.

The doctor said his name again. Soles turned his face away before he could finish.

Varren stayed beside the rail. After a while, Soles closed his fingers around his wrist.

Nobody asked him to let go.

When the doctor left, the window had become a dark rectangle reflecting the bed.

Soles had lost pieces of the afternoon. He remembered water, someone examining his eyes, a voice telling him to breathe slowly. Varren was still there. His wrist had a red mark where Soles had held it.

— Did you find me?

— Your neighbor did. She heard the shot and came out. She kept pressure on the wound until the ambulance arrived.

— You weren’t there?

— No. Maxim called me after the police reached him at the workshop.

Soles searched the few pictures he had left. Shoes beside his hand. A window opening. Someone kneeling on the path.

— How long?

— It’s Monday evening.

Friday had been the workshop test. He counted forward and stopped.

— They said your heart stopped here, Varren continued. The doctors got it going again. That’s all they’ve told me about that part.

Soles looked at his hand.

The tree had struck beneath his palm. He could remember the blow with a clarity that made the room around him seem briefly thin.

— Did I say anything?

— When?

— Before I woke up.

— I wasn’t allowed in then.

He wanted to ask whether a man could dream while his heart was stopped. The question would lead to the tree, and he could barely bear to have the thing explained away a second time.

Instead, he asked about the dogs.

Varren picked up Soles’s phone from the bedside table and found a photograph. Lucky sat on the kitchen floor with his head wedged beneath Maxim’s hand. Mina occupied the blanket beside the radiator.

— Your cousin’s feeding them. He’s staying at the house. He says the dogs are beginning to question his cooking.

Soles touched the screen. Mina’s white muzzle filled it.

He tried to remember whether he had fed them before going to work on Friday. His mother usually did it when she made breakfast. He had heard the bowls on the tiles and complained that she was giving them too much.

He bent forward as far as the pain allowed. Varren caught the phone before it slid from his hand and sat beside him while he cried.

Later, when his breath had settled, Soles said:

— You don’t have to stay all night.

— I can manage a chair.

— We hardly know each other.

Varren glanced at the mark on his wrist.

— You’re demanding for someone who barely knows me.

A breath escaped Soles that almost became a laugh. It hurt. He pressed the folded blanket against his chest until it passed.

— Maxim warned you.

— About the pool. He was very clear about the pool.

Varren put the phone within reach and brought the chair closer.

Beyond the door, a cart rattled past, then somebody laughed far down the corridor. The sound belonged to an evening that was continuing without his parents in it.

— Don’t go yet, he said.

Varren stayed.