“No one answered the PA,” a woman said. She sounded worried. Why? “We can’t use the enhanced medical kit.”
“Call for a first responder. A fireman would do.”
“I used to be a lifeguard.” The good father again. He took her hand.
“Let’s get the defibrillator on,” the angel said.
Couldn’t die on dirty, fake carpet, staring at a splat of gum. Couldn’t die looking at anonymous feet. Wanted, needed . . . to touch Harry’s face.
Harry. I won’t leave you, Harry.
A ray of sunlight, and her mother’s voice, singing a lullaby.
Please, Mom. Help me get home to Harry.
Hands ripped her shirt open; cold fingers stuck cold patches on her skin.
Then the world went black, silent but for an electronic echo: “Stand back. Monitoring heartbeat. Shock advised.”
TWO
“You do realize, Harry”—Felix kicked his son’s Union Jack Dr. Martens boot into the shoe cabinet, even though he’d been aiming for a nudge—“that this delightful piece of Scandinavian ergodynamic design has one job and one job only. To keep the hall clear of shoes. Hall, empty. Shoes, in here. It’s a simple rule.”
Harry, who was sprawled on the wood floor, puckered his nose and blinked repeatedly. “Don’t you mean”—he stuttered through a series of short, shallow breaths—“ergonomic?”
“No. I don’t. Ergonomic plus aerodynamic equals ergodynamic.” Felix swallowed the okay? tickling the back of his throat. Harry never challenged him, but still, his son had a touch of smart aleck that could scratch the most even-tempered person raw.
Hair flopping forward, Harry fumbled with the laces of his Converse. Sixteen, with an above-perfect GPA, and still Harry struggled to tie his shoes. To stop himself from lunging across the hall and saying, “Oh for goodness’ sake, let me,” Felix shoved his hands into the pockets of his old donkey jacket—a classic bought on London’s Carnaby Street in 1984.
Every day for the last sixteen years—Felix frowned; nearly seventeen—he’d prayed fatherhood would get easier. It hadn’t. When he looked at this person who’d stolen his heart with the first gummy smile, Felix saw nothing that made sense. Harry’s mind could leap from one subject to the next at chaotic speed while his body sparked through a rapid succession of spasms. He was a vortex of energy, the disruptive force of the kindergarten class, the only kid in first grade without the rosette that proved he had mastered the art of shoe tying. The boy who never blended in.
Before hopes and expectations had vanished, before the endless reports of inappropriate behavior had come home from school daily, Felix had imagined a future of parental bragging filled with father-son bonding. Of standing on the edge of a chilly soccer field saying, “That’s my son who scored the winning goal.” Of an annual father-son critique of the cricket at Lord’s. But Harry hated soccer and denounced cricket as boring. Of course, he had no attention span for sports unless the Tar Heels were on the basketball court. Felix didn’t understand basketball, nor did he want to. What he did understand was parental disappointment.
Had the SAT scores, combined with his connection to the president of Harvard, another Oxford man, brought a second chance for fatherly pride? Felix had always deferred to Ella on matters of Harry, and she’d been adamant that Harry couldn’t cope with the pressure of an Ivy League school. And yet . . . and yet there was that grain of hope for redemption: Oh yes, my son’s at Harvard.