Empire Falls

for his former mother-in-law to be laughing at. At first the other bed had been occupied by none other than Jimmy Minty, causing Miles to wonder if some sort of perverse hospital policy required men who’d beaten each other up to share lodgings afterward. Actually, it was more Jimmy Minty who’d beaten Miles up, which was why the policeman had been released, and Miles, with bruised kidneys and a cracked rib, two broken teeth and blood in his urine, was left behind, still groggy with medication, to be laughed at by visitors. He’d had half a dozen between last night and this morning, though the visits were a little hazy, thanks to the painkillers the night before. David and Charlene had been to see him, of course, and Father Mark had brought the news that it was at last official: Sacré Coeur and St. Catherine’s would become one parish. He himself was awaiting reassignment, he didn’t know where; someplace even colder and farther north, he was guessing. Even Janine had stopped in briefly. It was just like him, she said, to finally go and do something interesting after she divorced him. She also asked if he realized that with his two broken teeth, he was beginning to look like Max. At least she’d kept Tick away, for which he was grateful.
    An hour ago he’d asked the nurse for another of the yummy painkillers he’d been given last night, but she’d smiled and said, “Oh, no, I don’t think so,” as if she knew perfectly well that he’d been a very bad boy to enjoy it so much. By way of compensation she provided him with two entirely inferior Tylenol Threes, but his head still felt like a yo-yo suspended on the end of a malicious child’s string. A few minutes before Bea entered the room in a gale of laughter, three ambulances housed in the garage directly below his room—a design flaw, surely—screamed out of the hospital en route to God knew where—their sirens loud enough to explode his head. All of which, he knew, was pretty much what he deserved.
    “I just stuck my head in down the hall,” Bea finally explained. “You should see the goddamn rooster.”
    Walt Comeau’s name was near the top of the list of people Miles owed apologies to, of course, and the reason he was sitting on the edge of the bed rather than lying down was that he’d been contemplating whether, if he took it slow, maybe with the aid of the walker he’d used earlier to go to the bathroom, he might be able to make it down the hall to where David and Charlene had told him the Silver Fox was convalescing. Miles thought it might cheer Walt to view the sorry condition of the man who’d broken his arm and given him a concussion.
    On the other hand, why undertake such an arduous journey to apologize to one person when there was another candidate right there in front of you? “Bea,” Miles said, hanging his head, “I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.”
    “Don’t be,” she said. “He had it coming.”
    “Not that,” Miles assured her. His voice had a strange echo inside his head, like an overseas call being bounced off a satellite. “The tavern. I should’ve seen it coming. What she’d do, I mean.”
    Bea took his hand then, studying his still-swollen fingers. “Speaking of the bar, I got an offer on the place this morning.” She looked up at him. “You don’t seem that surprised.”
    “Mrs. Whiting?”
    She shrugged. “It came from a law firm in Boston, by way of a local realtor, but yeah, that would be my guess.”
    “Good deal?”
    “Probably thirty or forty grand more than it’s worth.”
    “You should take it.”
    “I know. Maybe I will.” She looked him in the eye, long and hard.
    “Do.”
    She nodded. “Still, I’m thinking, fuck her.”
    Now there was something going on out in the hall. First shouting and then a doctor, two nurses and an orderly went by at a dead run.
    “I’m not sure F. Lee Bailey could win a pitched battle against that woman,” Miles said, feeling a terrible exhaustion set in at the thought of her. “Not in Dexter County, anyway.”
    “How do you know?” Bea said. “It’s been twenty years since anybody tried.”
    “For good reason.”
    Bea got to her feet then, clearly disappointed. “Well, I better go before I tire you out. Just tell me one thing, though. Wouldn’t you rather go out in a blaze of glory?”
    He couldn’t help but smile. “Look at me, Bea,” he said, though she already was. “I just did.”
    W HEN SHE WAS GONE , Miles went over to