So she told him.
They sat in the corner of the waiting area by the aquarium, two chairs apart, and she told him about the brick row house and the hospital laundry and the dryers going round and round, and the Greyhound bus, and the woman in the camel coat, and page seven, the red caboose. She told him about changing her name. She told him about Laurel House and the automatic transfers and the flowers and the cards that Danny kept in his train book, all in order. She told him about the funeral, and the back of the church. She told it plainly, without excusing anything, the way she imagined a person would read out a logbook. When she finished, the orange fish had gone around its tank perhaps forty times.
Marcus didn't say anything for a long while.
"His mom left when he was three," he said at last. "Right after the diagnosis. She said she couldn't do it. She's in Phoenix now. She calls on Sundays. He doesn't really talk to her on the phone, he just listens, but she calls." He turned the coffee cup in his hands. "I used to get so mad at people. On the bus. At the store. You get these looks. The worst ones don't say anything. They just look at you like you're doing it wrong. Like if you were a better dad he'd be a different kid."
"I'm sorry."
"I know. You said." He took a breath. "I'm not going to forgive you right now, okay? I don't think I can. My kid's getting his chest opened in the morning, and I don't have room in me to work on you too."
"I understand."
"But you can sit here, if you want. It's a public waiting room." He almost smiled. "I can't exactly put you down in Cleveland."
She stayed.
At five-thirty a nurse came out to say Theo's labs were done and he was asking for his dad, and Marcus went, and Celeste sat alone by the aquarium. At seven she went down to the cafeteria and came back with two turkey sandwiches, a bag of pretzels, and a bottle of water, and when Marcus came out again at eight she held one sandwich out without saying anything, and he looked at it for a moment and took it. At nine-thirty she noticed him pressing his temples and asked the nurse at the desk, who knew her face by now, whether there was any ibuprofen, and there was. At ten-forty the night nurse told Marcus he could sleep on the fold-out chair in Theo's room, and he went, and Celeste went back to the hotel and lay on the bed in her clothes again and stared at the ceiling until the sky over the harbor turned gray.
At six-fifteen she was back in the chair by the aquarium.