Grant looked up to find an attractive nurse about his age wheeling a man through the doorway.

“A good waiting room magazine ages like fine wine,” he said, returning it to the pile. “How is he, Angela?”

“He’s been a perfect gentleman.”

The man in the wheelchair looked older and gaunter—or maybe Grant just imagined that. His tufts of gray hair could stand a trimming. Grant noticed a bandage peeking out from beneath the nurse’s sleeve.

Asked, “He didn’t do that, did he?”

“No, we keep his fingernails trimmed now. This is from a patient who had an episode last night.”

She parked the wheelchair in front of Grant.

The man’s eyes struggled to focus on him, but they had all the control of a pair of marbles.

“Hi, Dad.”

Angela smiled apologetically. “He’s a little more sedated than usual.”

Protocol was to let them know he was coming ahead of time so they could medicate his father. Without the cocktail of depressants, antipsychotics, and muscle relaxers, his father’s outbursts were vicious. Even now as his head lolled, padded restraints kept his wrists secured to the wheelchair.

“It’s dinnertime,” Angela said. “I can bring his tray in and feed him while you visit.”

“Is it four o’clock already?”

“Early bird special. Boston clam chowder. They like their routine around here.”

“Just bring the food. I’ll feed him. Thanks, Angela.”

She smiled and left.

Grant pulled his father’s chair closer and inspected him. Decades of violent tremors had ruined his physique, the joints and angles of his body gradually becoming more dramatic, muscles ropier, until finally the fifty-nine-year-old man looked like he might have just been unearthed from a tomb.

Grant’s greatest fear had once been that he’d never get his father back. But that hope didn’t survive the first few years following the crash. Now he feared that contorted body. That his father’s mind might be a lucid prisoner inside it.

Angela returned with a rolling tray, and Grant waited until she was gone before examining the food. It was corn chowder. Not clam. And definitely not Boston.

“Well, she was right about the chowder part. Let’s see what we have here.”

Grant tasted it.

“Not bad. Your turn.”

His father’s eyes followed the spoon down to the bowl. Grant submerged it and brought it up carefully.

“It’s pretty hot.”

His father leaned forward slightly to meet it.

“What do you think?”

A dribble escaped. Grant wiped his chin with the napkin.

“They doped you up pretty good this time, huh?”

His father’s eyes were vacant and heavy.

It went on like this. The son feeding his father slow spoonfuls. When the bowl was empty, he pushed the tray aside. Through the barred windows of the visiting room, the sky was darkening fast. Grant could scarcely make out the stand of evergreen trees on the southern perimeter of the grounds.

He talked about the weather. How it hadn’t flurried yet. About the downtown Christmas traffic which he knew would be waiting for him on the drive home. He talked about work. About Sophie. A movie he’d seen last month. The World Series had come and gone since his last visit, and Grant gave a blow-by-blow of how the St. Louis Cardinals made a record-breaking comeback against the Braves in the Wild Card standings, culminating with their victory over the Rangers in game seven.

“You would’ve cried,” he said.

All the while his father watched him quietly through a glassy-eyed daze that could have been mistaken for listening.

Grant finally stood. Inevitably, in these moments of departure, the stab of loss would run through Grant like a sword. He knew it was coming—every time—but there was no bracing against it. His father had been a great man—kind and brave and a pillar of comfort to his children even through the loss of Grant’s mother, his wife, even in the face of his own private hell. Grant couldn’t help but to wonder what his life might have become if his father could’ve looked him in the eyes and spoken his mind, his wisdom? And still the question persisted that had haunted Grant since the night of the accident, that the seven-year-old boy inside of him would never let go—does something in the shell of you still love me?

He kissed his old man on the forehead. “Merry Christmas, Pop.”

Ten minutes later, he was one of thousands on the congested 520 bridge, slowly making his way home in the early December dark.

Chapter 3

The Space Needle and the cone of Christmas lights at the top made fleeting appearances between the buildings as Grant inched his way home through downtown holiday traffic. First Avenue was a parking lot. As would be the Aurora Bridge that separated him from the kitchen where an expensive bottle of scotch waited—a gift from his Secret Santa at the precinct.

Grant turned the radio off and let his head rest against the window.

Should have cut out of work earlier.

Always ended up staying late at the hospital.

As the traffic crept over Pine, he caught a glimpse of the Macy’s star, white-lit and forty feet high. Further up, the Westlake Center Christmas tree stood surrounded by glum shoppers who had been at it for too long—beat down by the eternal drizzle, Christmas Muzak, traffic noise, Salvation Army bells, and pleas for spare change.

Home was Fremont. For Grant it couldn’t be anywhere else. In a few minutes he’d be over the Aurora suicide bridge with its high iron fences and winding down the hill into that bright artsy neighborhood on the banks of the Lake Union canal. The rest of the city was a Frankenstein of retro and contemporary architecture. Charming in a schizophrenic way. But Fremont had somehow braced itself against the last thirty years of sprawl. Something timeless about it he just couldn’t get enough of.

He found a decent parking spot a block away from his building and jogged through the rain up to the front steps.

His apartment was one of ten units inside a remodeled 1920’s townhome. Like so many old houses in the city, it had been endlessly expanded over the last century, and its bloat pressed up against the property lines making narrow alleys of the space between the buildings on either side.

It looks like you’re squatting in your own apartment.

Sophie’s words on one of her few visits to his Spartan one-bedroom home.

You live like a monk.

And it was true. If he didn’t need it, he didn’t own it. There was a loveseat that had come with the place. A floor lamp in the corner. A rug—chic and clearly overqualified for the space—which had been a gift from Sophie in an effort to ease her offended maternal instinct. The only other piece of furniture was the oversized table situated between the kitchen and the dining area. He ate there, worked there, and on rain-soaked Seattle nights like this, he hung his dripping North Face coat on the back of one of its chairs on the way to the kitchen to fix a drink.

Despite his affinity for hoagies and cheap Chinese food, Grant could actually cook and often spent his evenings preparing a meal while he waited for the whiskey-glow to settle in. But he didn’t feel particularly culinary tonight. Visits with his father had that effect on him. Instead, he selected a frozen block of lasagna for the microwave, poured the last two fingers from the bottle of scotch he’d gone through in—Jesus, had it only been three days?—and sat down at the table in front of his laptop.

Dinner rotated in the irradiated light behind him.

Seven new e-mails.

All but one were spam.

The legit message was from Sophie.

Subject: Our New Facebook Friends

Guess what? Talbert and Seymour share five “lady friends.” Two of them appear to be upstanding members of the community in overlapping social circles. The other three strike me as a bit more mysterious—racy profile pics, aggressive privacy settings which keep their pages suspiciously void of detailed personal info. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I think our next step is to gain direct access to the Talbert and Seymour Facebook accounts and see if we can find anything more concrete like direct messages to these women. Hope your afternoon was OK.