That was it. The final period. The end of his private hell and the beginning of something he didn’t yet know how to name.
He threw back the sheet, trying to stand. “Alex, no, what are you doing?” Lena cried, rushing to him.
“You can’t, your stitches will tear.” But he wasn’t listening. He was a machine again, but now with one new and only purpose.
He had to see her. The duty doctor rushed in, drawn by the noise. “Mr. North, get back in bed right now.”
“Katie,” was all Alex could say. The doctor looked at him, then at Lena, and something human—not clinical—showed in his eyes.
He sighed. “All right. Five minutes. No more. Get a wheelchair.”
They rolled him down the hospital corridor, and the trip felt longer than any road he had ever traveled. Every seam in the floor sent pain through his abdomen, but he looked only ahead. At the door marked ICU Room Seven.
Lena walked beside him, holding his hand. The door opened. Katie lay in bed, her head turned toward the doorway.
She was pale, thin, dark circles under her eyes. But her eyes were open. Alive. Aware.
She looked at him. A weak, childlike smile touched her lips. “Dad,” she whispered.
And that whisper was louder than every gunshot in his life. They rolled him right up to the bed. He reached out his hand, still marked from IV lines, and took her thin, weak fingers.
They were warm. She was alive. “I’m here, sweetheart,” he said, and his voice broke.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” He looked at her, at his girl pulled back from death, and for the first time in years he cried.
Not loudly. No sobbing. Just tears running down his unshaven face. Tears washing away blood, dirt, hatred, and pain…
