He paused.
“You've got one.”
Her face crumpled.
She covered her mouth.
Bear smiled.
“Don't cry.”
“You'll ruin my reputation.”
That made her laugh through tears.
Richard stared.
“Mr. Callahan.”
Bear looked up.
“Yes?”
“You cannot represent yourself as her family for discharge purposes.”
The gentleness left only Bear’s eyes.
His voice stayed calm.
“She asked me to sit with her.”
“That is different.”
“Yes.”
“Then we're clear.”
“We're clear.”
Richard looked toward Margaret.
“He cannot sign as a relative.”
Bear stood.
“Nobody said I would.”
“He cannot assume responsibility merely through verbal—”
Bear's jaw tightened.
Margaret touched his wrist.
Gentle.
He looked down.
She whispered:
“Don't.”
He nodded.
Richard continued:
“This hospital has obligations.”
Bear turned.
“I understand obligations.”
“Then you understand why strangers cannot simply—”
“Strangers.”
The word came differently.
Richard stopped.
Bear looked at Margaret.
Then at the plastic band around her wrist.
MARGARET HOLLOWAY.
His face changed.
Again.
Margaret noticed.
“What?”
Bear reached slowly into the inside pocket of his leather vest.
Richard stiffened.
Bear saw.
“You can relax.”
He pulled out a wallet.
Old leather.
Thick.
From behind several cards he removed a photograph.
Not phone.
Not copy.
Actual photograph.
Creased.
Edges white with age.
Bear stared at it before handing it over.
His hand shook.
Margaret looked down.
Black-and-white image.
A young nurse in a white uniform.
Hair pinned beneath a small cap.
Sitting in a hospital chair.
Holding a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket.
The nurse was smiling down at the infant.
Margaret stopped breathing.
Richard looked over her shoulder.
Bear's voice became rough.
“Look familiar?”
Margaret touched the photograph with one finger.
“Where did you get this?”
Bear swallowed.
“It was in my foster records.”
Margaret looked at him.
He continued.
“June 1968.”
“St. Catherine.”
“The old emergency wing.”
Margaret's eyes widened.
Bear said:
“I was six hours old.”
The corridor disappeared for her.
Not literally.
Memory simply replaced it.
Summer 1968.
Thunderstorm.
A teenage girl found unconscious behind a bus station.
Baby already born.
No family.
No identification except a first name.
Margaret had been twenty-two.
New nurse.
Terrified of doing everything wrong.
The infant had cried whenever anyone set him down.
Social services could not arrive until morning.
Hospital administration wanted him moved to the nursery.
He kept screaming.
Margaret picked him up.
He stopped.
She held him for hours.
Fed him.
Changed him.
Walked the hallway.
At sunrise, a photographer from the hospital newsletter took a picture because someone thought the story was sweet.
Margaret had forgotten the photograph.
She had not forgotten the baby.
She whispered:
“Jonathan.”
Bear closed his eyes.
Nobody had called him that in decades.
Margaret stared.
“Your mother wrote Jonathan.”
“They changed it in foster care.”
“To Jack?”