She got a visitor’s pass and learned that Tom was now in room 530. She walked to the bank of elevators and entered a car already half full, mostly with hospital personnel-doctors in white jackets with the telltale pen and notebook in their breast pockets, attendants in green scrub suits, a couple of nurses.

Two weeks ago, Catherine thought, Tom was making his rounds at St. Mary’s in Omaha, and I was Christmas shopping. That evening we took the kids out for hamburgers. Life was normal and good and fun, and we were joking about how last year Tom had had so much trouble getting the Christmas tree in the stand, and I promised him I’d buy a new stand before this Christmas Eve. And once again I thought Tom looked so tired, and I did nothing about it.

Three days later he collapsed.

“Didn’t you push the fifth floor?” someone asked.

Catherine blinked. “Oh, yes, thank you.” She got off the elevator and for a moment stood still, getting her bearings. She found what she was looking for, an arrow on the wall pointing toward rooms 515 to 530.

As she approached the nurses’ station, she saw Spence Crowley. Her mouth went dry. Immediately following the operation this morning, he had assured her that it had gone smoothly, and that his assistant would be making the rounds this afternoon. Then why was Spence here now? she worried. Could something be wrong?

He spotted her and smiled. Oh God, he wouldn’t smile if Tom were… It was another thought she could not finish.

He walked quickly around the desk and came to her. “Catherine, if you could see the look on your face! Tom’s doing fine. He’s pretty groggy, of course, but the vital signs are good.”

Catherine looked up at him, wanting to believe the words she heard, wanting to trust the sincerity she saw in the brown eyes behind rimless glasses.

Firmly he took her arm and ushered her into the cubicle behind the nurses’ station.