Four
   
   A nun in a white habit was waiting by his bed when he awoke. 'Mr. Woods?' she said in 
the sweetest of voices. Her face was as smooth as a saint's. Her eyes were green and her 
lips were pale and her eyebrows were unplucked. The sun shone through the starched, 
upswept wings of her wimple. 'Mr. Woods?' she said again, and reached out and held his 
hand.
   Her fingers were cool and reassuring. He wanted to squeeze them, but couldn't. He 
couldn't move his hand at all.
   'Was it a dream?' he asked, his speech still thick with drugs.
   The nun shook her head. 'It was a terrible tragedy, Mr. Woods, and terrible tragedies 
sometimes seem like dreams.'
   'Then she's dead.'
   A long silence. Outside the window, the sounds of the world going by. Airplanes and 
traffic and birds perching on the guttering. The nun squeezed his hand. At last she said, 
'She's gone, Mr. Woods, yes.'
   His dream of opening the bedroom door had been so vivid that John had already 
suspected that it was real. But the confirmation that Jennifer was dead burst like a bomb 
inside his mind. A dark, silent bomb that blotted out everything with panic and grief and 
self-pity.
   'I thought it was a dream. I thought it was nothing but a bad dream.' The tears poured 
down the sides of his face and onto his pillow.
   'In a way, Mr. Woods, it was. You'll have to think of it like that.'
   'Is my son all right?' asked John. 'He wasn't -?'
   'Your son's fine. He's staying with your friend Mr. Felling. Now that you're awake, 
you'll be able to have him to visit.'
   Again John tried to move his arm, but couldn't. 'And me? What about me? I feel so 
damned numb.'
   The nun smiled at him sadly. 'You were lucky not to have been killed, Mr. Woods. You 
were also lucky that Dr Freytag was still here when they brought you in. He is one of the 
most skilled neuro-surgeons in the country.'
   John sniffed. 'If he's so skilled, why do I feel so numb? Look -1 can't even move my 
arm.'
   'Mr. Woods, you've suffered some very serious injuries.'
   'How serious?'
   'Well...' Here she licked those pale lips. 'Your spinal cord has been damaged, and I'm 
sorry to say that...'
   She paused, lowering her head so that all he could see of her was her wimple, like a 
snow-white seagull dipping toward the ocean.
   'I'm sorry to say that you may not walk anymore,'
   John closed his eyes. This was more than he could take. He didn't want to be here; he 
didn't want any of this to be really happening. He wanted to be right back in Jack 
Felling's house with his hand on the doorknob, turning around to Jennifer and smiling and 
telling her that it was nothing but squirrels.
   He didn't realize as he lay there that he was sobbing out loud.
   The nun held his hand tightly. 'I'm sorry,' she repeated. The way she said it, it 
sounded almost like an Ave Maria. 'I'm sorry.' 'Oh, God,' he wept. 'Oh, God.'
   The nun leaned over the bed, rustling and white and smelling of soap. She brushed away 
his tears with a tissue, and then unexpectedly she kissed him on the forehead. 'Dr 
Freytag thinks that with one or maybe two more operations, you should be able to move 
your arms. And we have a wonderful physiotherapy unit here. You have life, Mr. Woods, 
think of that. And even the saddest life is full of possibilities.'
   John opened his eyes. 'How - how long have I been -?' he asked. He was so miserable 
that his throat felt as if it were gripped by a tourniquet.
   'Four days. They brought you in Friday morning, about four o'clock. It's Tuesday now.'
   John lay for almost ten minutes in silence, trying to make sense of what had happened. 
His mind began to clear; and even though this was accompanied by the gradual worsening of 
a gripping pain in his back, he suffered the pain so that he could think straight.
   ...He remembered the scratching noise in the corridor outside the bedroom. He 
remembered opening the door. Instantly, something black and huge and powerful had raged 
into the room, ripping his chest open and crushing his pelvis. Then he had heard Jennifer 
screaming, and blood had spattered him like warm rain.
   Then what? Lenny. He remembered Lenny. Just standing there, saying nothing.
   'Save me, Lenny. Save me. Lenny, for God's sake.'
   'Who's Lenny?' the nun asked.
   John focused his eyes. He suddenly realized that he had been calling out loud.
   'Lenny's my son. My son by my first wife.'
   The nun said, 'Would you like me to call Mr. Felling and have him brought down here?'
   John nodded. 'Yes, I'd like that. What time is it?'
   'Almost lunchtime. Are you hungry?' 
   He glanced up at the dextrose drip that was hanging above the head of his bed. 'I 
think this'll do me for now. I'm feeling a little sick.' 'Any pain?' the nun asked.
   'A sharp twinge in the back, that's all. It feels exactly like somebody's clamping my 
spine in a vise.'
   The nun said, 'I'll find Dr Freytag and tell him you're awake.'
   She went toward the door, but then she stopped, came back, and said, very gently, 'I'm 
sorry I had to tell you such terrible news. They teach us to be direct, you see, and to 
tell our patients the truth. There's no torture so bad as not knowing.'
   'Yes,' said John.
   To lose your lovely wife, though, and to suffer such injuries ...'
   John was unable to speak. He was crying again. This time, the nun cried with him. She 
bent forward to hold him close, giving him the comfort of starched cotton and human 
warmth. 'Oh, my poor man, you've lost everything,' she cried. 'But God will help you; God 
will protect you.'
   They clung together for a long time. At last John said, 'I'm okay now. Thanks. I'm 
going to be fine.'
   'Well, if there's anything you want...'
   'Who do I ask for?'
   'Sister Perpetua. That's me. I'm always on duty at this time of day, and if I'm not, 
well, Sister Clare will help you just as well.'
   'And you'd better call me John.'
   Sister Perpetua smiled. 'John,' she said. "The best of names.'
   John lay there and looked at her. She was no beauty, but her love and charity made up 
for that.
   'God will be with you,' she said.
   John shook his head. 'I don't think so.'
   She touched his cheek with cool fingertips. "If I take the wings of the morning, and 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right 
hand shall hold me."
   She turned and left, and he lay on his back staring at the ceiling and pouring out