Nothing to Lose

can’t regenerate. This is all he will ever be. He’s like a brain-damaged lizard. He’s got the IQ of a goldfish. He can’t move and he can’t see and he can’t hear and he can’t think.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    Vaughan said, “Battlefield medicine is very good now. He was stable and in Germany within thirteen hours. In Korea or Vietnam he would have died at the scene, no question.”
    She moved to the head of the bed and laid her hand on her husband’s cheek, very gently, very tenderly. Said, “We think his spinal cord is severed too, as far as we can tell. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

    The respirator hissed and the clock ticked and the IV lines made tiny liquid sounds and Vaughan stood quietly and then she said, “You don’t shave very often, do you?”
    “Sometimes,” Reacher said.
    “But you know how?”
    “I learned at my daddy’s knee.”
    “Will you shave David?”
    “Don’t the orderlies do that?”
    “They should, but they don’t. And I like him to look decent. It seems like the least I can do.” She took a supermarket carrier bag out of the green metal cabinet. It held men’s toiletries. Shaving gel, a half-used pack of disposable razors, soap, a washcloth. Reacher found a bathroom across the hall and stepped back and forth with the wet cloth, soaping the guy’s face, rinsing it, wetting it again. He smoothed blue gel over the guy’s chin and cheeks and lathered it with his fingertips and then set about using the razor. It was difficult. A completely instinctive sequence of actions when applied to himself became awkward on a third party. Especially on a third party who had a breathing tube in his mouth and a large part of his skull missing.
    While he worked with the razor, Vaughan cleaned the room. She had a second supermarket bag in the cabinet that held cloths and sprays and a dustpan and brush. She stretched high and bent low and went through the whole twelve-foot cube very thoroughly. Her husband stared on at a point miles beyond the ceiling and the respirator hissed and blew. Reacher finished up and Vaughan stopped a minute later and stood back and looked.
    “Good work,” she said.
    “You too. Although you shouldn’t have to do that yourself.”
    “I know.”
    They repacked the supermarket bags and put them away in the cabinet. Reacher asked, “How often do you come?”
    “Not very often,” Vaughan said. “It’s a Zen thing, really. If I visit and he doesn’t know I’ve visited, have I really visited at all? It’s self-indulgent to come here just to make myself feel like a good wife. So I prefer to visit him in my memory. He’s much more real there.”
    “How long were you married?”
    “We’re still married.”
    “I’m sorry. How long?”
    “Twelve years. Eight together, then he spent two in Iraq, and the last two have been like this.”
    “How old is he?”
    “Thirty-four. He could live another sixty years. Me too.”
    “Were you happy?”
    “Yes and no, like everyone.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Now?”
    “Long term.”
    “I don’t know. People say I should move on. And maybe I should. Maybe I should accept destiny, like Zeno. Like a true Stoic. I feel like that, sometimes. But then I panic and get defensive. I feel, first they do this to him, and now I should divorce him? But he wouldn’t know anyway. So it’s back to the Zen thing. What do you think I should do?”
    “I think you should take a walk,” Reacher said. “Right now. Alone. Walking by yourself is always good. Get some fresh air. See some trees. I’ll bring the car and pick you up before you hit the four-lane.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I’ll find some way to pass the time.”

51
    Vaughan said goodbye to her husband and she and Reacher walked back along the dirty corridors and through the dismal lounge to the entrance hall. The guy in the gray sweatshirt said, “Goodbye, Mrs. Vaughan.” They walked out to the carriage circle and headed for the car. Reacher leaned against its flank and Vaughan kept on going. He waited until she was small in the distance and then he pushed off the car and headed back to the entrance. Up the steps, in the door. He crossed to the hutch and asked, “Who’s in charge here?”
    The guy in the gray sweatshirt said, “I am, I guess. I’m the shift supervisor.”
    Reacher asked, “How many patients here?”
    “Seventeen,” the guy said.
    “Who are they?”
    “Just patients, man. Whatever they