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We charged up the stairway. When we reached the open door to Mommy and Daddy's suite, I stepped back. Daddy was up, leaning on his crutches, his leg in a cast. He stopped and looked at Mommy for a moment. "Ruby," he said, teetering.

She rushed forward, and he embraced her, the crutches falling to the floor. She held him firmly, and they stood there clinging to each other for a long moment. Their embrace sent my fugitive tears flowing freely down my cheeks. After another moment I picked up Daddy's crutches and held them out to him.

"What are you wearing?" he asked me with a quizzical smile.

"These are Jack's clothes, Daddy."

"Why?" He looked at Mommy.

"It's a bit of a horror tale," she said. "Let her shower and change. I need to shower, too. Then we'll go to the hospital, and Pearl will tell you all of it."

"But where have you been, Ruby? What have you been doing?"

"I'll tell you everything, too, Beau. Just give me a chance to catch my breath."

"Are you in any pain, Daddy?" I asked.

"Nothing I can't endure now," he said, shifting his eyes away shamefully. He knew I was aware of what had happened, but this wasn't the time or the place to blame anyone for anything. None of that seemed important anyway.

I kissed him quickly on the cheek and hurried to shower and dress, praying that it wasn't too late to help Pierre._

Mommy wasn't prepared for the sight she would see in the ICU. Even I, who had seen Pierre here before, was frightened by the pallid skin and the way his ashen complexion almost turned his hair gray. His lips were colorless. The skin on the back of his hands looked wrinkled. He lay so still he resembled a mannequin. The nurse explained that he had just had a dialysis treatment.

Mommy stood staring at Pierre. She was a few feet from the bed. It was as if the last twenty or thirty inches were impassable after the emotional journey she had just taken. Daddy stood beside her, leaning on his crutches.

"He looks as if he's shrinking," Mommy moaned. "I don't remember him being so small."

"It's just because he's in such a big bed, Mommy," I said. "Come, talk to him. I'm sure he'll hear you."

She nodded and finally stepped up to the bed. I got her a chair and she sat down, holding Pierre's hand in hers.

"Pierre, my darling. My sweet baby, please get well. I'm here now, here to help you," she said. "We need you to get well, Pierre. Please try."

The tears were streaming down her cheeks. She leaned over and kissed Pierre's cheek, but it must have been like kissing a corpse. His eyelids didn't flutter; his lips didn't move. All we heard was the beep, beep, beep of heart monitors and other hospital machinery.

Mommy turned desperately to Daddy. He bit down on his lower lip and shook his head.

"Where's the doctor?" Mommy asked me.

"I'll go see." I went to the nurses' station. Dr. LeFevre wasn't expected until midafternoon, but Dr. Lasky expected to visit his patients in about an hour.

"We can go downstairs to the hospital cafeteria and have something to eat while we wait, Mommy," I told her. She was just staring at Pierre.

"No, you go ahead, dear,"

she said. "Take Daddy. I must stay here now."

I thought the nurse might not like it, but this ICU nurse was more compassionate and

understanding. She just nodded. Daddy and I went to the cafeteria. After I got us some sandwiches and drinks and brought them to the table, I began to tell Daddy about my near tragedy in the bayou and what had happened to Buster Trahaw.

Daddy sat listening with his mouth open. "I let you down," he said. "I let everyone down by drinking myself into a stupor and falling down the stairs, breaking my leg. There you were, doing the things I should have been doing and endangering yourself, while I lay in a stupor. I don't deserve any good luck or happiness."

It was as if a transfusion of iron had been shot through my veins and into my spine. I straightened up quickly and snapped at him. "Stop this right now, Daddy. I don't want to hear another note of self-pity from your lips. Mommy desperately needs us to be strong for her, and Pierre will need us more than ever. There isn't any time to sit around bemoaning all the tragedy."

He looked up, surprised at my harsh tone, but I couldn't help speaking to him that way.

"When I was alone in that canoe, drifting from one canal to the other, lost and exhausted, I could think of only one terrible thing: I had let you and Pierre and Mommy down. If we just dwell on ourselves, we will become pitiful, and whatever evil looms around us will have its day with us," I concluded sternly.