Chapter 86

Ew. Tav grimaced at the thought.

Most of the ward was open, but the curtains were drawn around Luca’s bed, and Tav hesitated, uncertain of how to announce his presence. Was Luca asleep, or was there a doctor, or—

“Knock it off.”

Mr. Jensen’s voice was a deep and—for all he didn’t talk much—familiar rumble. Tav relaxed, and tugged on the curtain to find Luca’s bald father sitting with his elbows propped on the mattress by Luca’s knees, and both Tomas and Angelo, dressed in school uniforms, sitting around the other side of the bed, and chattering in full Italian flow.

Then—like every other time he had come here—he was distracted. By the patient, whose head rolled towards the movement of the curtains in a lolling, dazed fashion. Luca’s smile was still fuzzy at the edges, the look in his eyes distant, but he was wearing a T-shirt from home, and was fractionally elevated from the flat-on-his-back coma-pose he’d been in yesterday.