Hardy, possibly leaving the actual ridges of his fingerprints in the telephone at his ear, asked, “When’s that going to be, the surgery?”

“Probably pretty soon, maybe by the morning. They’ve got him stuck with a couple of catheters in his head to measure his cranial pressure. It gets above fifteen, whatever that means, they’re going to have to go in. And it’s at thirteen now, up from ten when he got here, so…”

“Do you need us to do anything?” Frannie asked.

“Watching Rachel is enough. I don’t see either of us leaving here for a while.”

“Take whatever time you need, Trey.” Frannie’s eyes were locked on Hardy’s as they nodded together. “Don’t even think about that. It’s no issue. She’s wonderful and we love having her. Both of us.”

“Both of us,” Hardy repeated. “So what’s next?”

“I think probably the surgery.”

“What are they going to do?”

“They take a couple of bones out of his skull to relieve the pres sure.”

“Not permanently?” Hardy asked.

“No,” Treya said, “I don’t think so. But I’ll ask now for sure. Anyway, then they make some slits in the dura.”

“What’s that?” Frannie asked.

“Oh, you’ll like this.” Treya obviously wearing herself down trying to keep a positive spin on things. “It means tough mother.”

“What does?”

“Dura mater. It’s the outer layer of the brain. Tough and fibrous. They make some small slits in it to let the brain expand.”

Silence collected in the line as this bit of horrifying, yet perhaps good, information began to sink in. Finally, Hardy cleared his throat. “So how’s Abe?”

Treya hesitated. “Quiet. Even for him.”

“It’s not his fault,” Frannie said.

“I know that. It might not be so clear to him.” Again, a stab at an optimistic tone. “He’ll get to it.”