Life Expectancy

had a comforting air of experience and authority.
        "Considering how terrible her injuries were," Dr. Cornell said,
        "everything went as well as I could have hoped."
        He had removed her damaged spleen, which she could live without. More troubling, he removed a badly ravaged kidney; but, God willing, she would be able to enjoy a full life with the one that remained.
        Damage to the gastroepiploic and mesenteric veins required much careful work. He had employed grafts using lengths of another vein taken from her leg.
        Punctured in two places, the small intestine had been repaired. And a two-inch torn section of the descending colon had been excised.
        "She'll be on the critical list for at least twenty-four hours,"
        Cornell told us.
        With the intestinal damage, she faced some possibility of peritonitis, in which case he would have to operate on her again. She would be put on blood thinners to minimize the risk of stroke from clots forming where vein walls had been stitched.
        "Lorrie's not out of the woods yet," he cautioned, "but I'm a lot more confident about her now than when I first opened her up. I suspect she's a fighter, isn't she?"
        "She's tough," Mello Melodeon said.
        And I said, "Tougher than me."
        After they brought her to the I.C.U and settled her, I was allowed to visit in her cubicle for five minutes.
        She remained sedated. Even with her features relaxed in sleep, I could see how much she had suffered.
        I touched her hand. Her skin felt warm but perhaps because my hands were icy.
        Her face was pale but nevertheless radiant, like the face of a saint in a painting from a century in which most people believed in saints, artists more than anyone.
        She was on an IV, hooked up to a heart monitor, with an oxygen feed in her nostrils. I looked away from her face only to watch the steady spiking of the light that traced her heartbeat across a graph.
        Mom and Grandma spent a couple minutes with Lorrie, then went home to reassure the kids.
        I told Dad to go home, too, but he remained. "There's still some cookies need eating in that tin."
        In those pre-dawn hours, we would have been at work if we'd not been at the hospital, so I didn't grow sleepy. I lived for the brief visits that the I.C.U staff allowed.
        At dawn, a nurse came to the lounge to tell me that Lorrie had awakened. The first thing she'd said to anyone was "Gimme Jimmy."
        When I saw her awake, I would have cried but for the realization that tears would blur my vision. I was starving for the sight of her.
        "Andy?" she asked.
        "He's safe. He's fine."
        "Annie, Lucy?"
        "They're all okay. Safe."
        "True?"
        "Absolutely."
        "Beezo?"
        "Dead."
        "Good," she said, and closed her eyes. "Good."
        Later, she said, "What's the date?"
        I almost didn't tell her the truth, but then I did. "December twenty-third."
        "The day," she said.
        "Obviously, Grandpa missed it by a few hours. He should have warned us about the twenty-second."
        "Maybe."
        "The worst is passed."
        "For me," she said.
        "For all of us."
        "Maybe not for you."
        "I'm fine."
        "Don't let your guard down, Jimmy."
        "Don't worry about me."
        "Don't let your guard down for a minute."
        My father went home to take a three-hour nap, promising to return with thick roast-beef sandwiches, olive salad, and an entire pistachio-almond polenta cake.
        Later in the morning, when Dr. Cornell made his rounds, he pronounced himself pleased with Lorrie's progress. Those woods she hadn't been out of the previous night were still around her, but hour by hour there were fewer trees.
        People with tragedies of their own had come and gone from the I.C.U lounge. The two of us were alone when Cornell sat down and asked me to take a seat, as well.
        At once I knew that he had something to tell me that might explain why my grandfather had identified the twenty-third as the day to dread.
        I thought of bullets puncturing intestines, ripping up kidneys, tearing through blood vessels, and I wondered what other damage might have been done. Suddenly I thought spine.
        "Oh, God, no. She's paralyzed from the waist down, isn't she?"
        Startled, Dr, Cornell said, "Good