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It’s almost an hour later when Ella is finally allowed into Danny Coughlin’s room.

Two cops are standing guard outside his door.

She thinks this is a perfect example of locking the barn after the horse has been stolen.

Chuck the orderly is there, and a doctor.

Ella thinks it’s the one she saw on the steps during the final confrontation, but she might be wrong.

They all look the same in their green scrubs.

In his hospital johnny, Danny looks like he’s lost forty pounds.

He’s as haggard as Jalbert was at the end, but there’s a clarity in his face that’s different.

Ella doesn’t hesitate.

She goes to him and hugs him.

“I’m sorry.

I’m sorry about everything.”

“It’s all right,” Danny tells her.

He strokes her hair.

That seems like the wrong thing to do.

It also seems right.

She pulls back from him.

“Ma’am,” the doctor says, “this man has had enough excitement for one night.

He needs his rest.”

“I know.

I’ll go.

But Danny… why did you have that dream? Why? Do you have any idea at all?”

He laughs.

It’s a sorry laugh.

“Why does a man get hit by lightning twice?”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.” He points.

“I see you’re wearing your cross.”

She touches it.

“I always wear it.”

“Sure.

But belief is hard, isn’t it?” He lies down on his pillow, puts his hands over his eyes—as if to blot out both worlds, the one seen and the one behind it, so rarely revealed—and says it again.

“Belief is hard.”

He drops his hands.

They look at each other without speaking.

There’s nothing to say.