"I was in a bucket truck," he said. And then, because that wasn't true, not really, not the way she meant: "No. I was in a bucket truck when it came. I didn't answer because I forgot. I forgot because I wasn't paying attention. I hadn't been paying attention for a long time. That's the real answer."
Dani nodded slowly, like he'd confirmed something.
"Thanks," she said. "For the real answer."
* * *
Lakeview Medical Center was a tower of glass on the side of First Hill, above the freeway. Visiting hours were over, but the woman at the front desk looked at Dani's medal and Rosie asleep on Tom's shoulder and the expression on Tom's face, and made a phone call, and said, "Fourth floor. The nurses' station will show you. Just keep it quiet."
On the fourth floor, in a small waiting area with a vending machine and a television showing the weather with the sound off, a woman in pink scrubs and a puffy coat was sitting with her feet up on a chair, eating peanut butter crackers. She looked up when they came in.
"Oh, thank God," she said, and stood up. "You're Tom. You're the husband. I'm Marisol. From the office." She looked at Dani and put her hand over her mouth. "And you're—oh, honey. Oh, you won. You won, I saw it. We all saw it."
"You saw it?" Dani said.
"Your mom watched the whole thing. On my phone. They brought her back to her room around four, and she was still pretty loopy, and she kept saying, 'What time is it, what time is it, is it six yet,' and the nurse—Dee, she's wonderful—the nurse propped my phone up on the tray table with a box of tissues so she could see." Marisol's eyes were wet. "When you were on the bottom in the last period, she put her hand up. Three fingers. She held it up at the phone the whole time. Dee asked her what it meant, and she said, 'It means three seconds,' and Dee said, 'Three seconds till what,' and your mom said, 'Till the next three.' And then you did the thing, the flip thing, and she started crying so hard Dee had to check her blood pressure."
Dani made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
"She's awake," Marisol said. "Go. Go on. Room 412." She looked at Tom. "I'll take the little one if you want. She can sleep on the couch here."
Tom looked down at Rosie, heavy and warm and drooling slightly on his jacket. He thought about it.
"No," he said. "Thanks. She'd want to see."
* * *
Lena was lying on her side in the hospital bed, facing the door, with an IV in the back of her hand and a thin blanket pulled up to her shoulder. The room was dim except for a lamp over the sink. Her hair was flat on one side and her face was gray-pale in a way that made Tom's stomach drop, and when she saw Dani in the doorway, she started to push herself up, and her whole face twisted with pain, and she stopped.