Joseph nodded his head slowly. He broke a long silence by asking, "And that man of yours? Where is he?"
Renie fought down irritation. Why did men always ask that? It was like they needed to know whose protection she was under—to make sure that a suitably responsible transfer had been made. "He's okay, Papa. I'm going to meet him later. We're going to look for a flat. I have enough left in my bank account. I think I might even be able to get my old job back—called the chancellor's office and apparently some of them have been watching the newsnets."
He nodded, but he wore an odd expression. "So that's why I am here? So you can find a place with your new man?"
It took her a couple of heartbeats to understand what was bothering him. "You think. . . ? Oh, Papa, I only left you here because there wasn't anywhere else for you to go. !Xabbu and I stayed at his old rooming house last night, sleeping on the front room floor." Despite her sadness, a little smile surfaced. "The landlady wouldn't let us stay in his room because we're not married."
"So?"
"So of course you're going to live with us," she said, although it made her feel heavy and cross to have to say it. "I wouldn't leave you on the street. We're family." She darted a glance at the time display in the corner of the darkened wallscreen. "I'd better go." She stood, then remembered the bag clutched in her hand. "Oh, I brought you something."
He balanced it against his chest to open it with his working hand. He lifted the bottle out and peered at it for a long time.
"I know it's not your old favorite," she said, "but they told me at the store that it's good. I figured you might as well drink something decent—you know, to celebrate." She looked around. "I don't think you're supposed to have anything like that, so you'd better hide it."
He was still staring at the bottle. When he looked up at her, his expression made her a little uncomfortable. "Thank you," he said. "But you know, I don't think I drink it here. Maybe when I get out." He smiled, and again she was struck by how old he looked, bony and . . . scoured. Like rocks in a windy valley. "When you find the new place. We will have a little celebration." He handed her back the bag,
"You . . . you don't want it?"
"When I get out," he said. "Don't want to get in trouble here, do I? They might keep me longer."
She took a long time trying to fit the bottle back into the bag. When she had finished she stood for a moment, fighting the urge to walk straight out the door, to avoid confusion and difficult feelings and simply get on with things. It was only as she looked at him, at the way he was looking back at her, that she realized what she wanted to do.
She bent and kissed his cheek again, then wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a squeeze. "I'll be back tomorrow, Papa. I promise."
He cleared his throat as she stood up. "We can do better, you and me. You know I love you, girl. You know that, right?"
She nodded. "I know that." It was hard to talk. "We'll do better."
!Xabbu was not in the waiting room for the children's wing. Renie was a little surprised—it was not like him to be late—but her brain was too full to spend much time wondering about it. She left a message for him with the receptionist, then went to see Stephen.
She found !Xabbu sleeping in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed, his head back, his hands open in his lap as though he had held and then released some flying thing. She felt ashamed. If she was tired and out of sorts, how much more exhausted must !Xabbu be, after those last hellish minutes holding open the line of communication with the Other? And now I'm going to drag him out looking for some miserable little flat. Her heart twisted in her breast.
But it will be our miserable little flat, she reminded herself. That's something, isn't it?
She gently stroked his head as she stepped past him to the side of her brother's bed. Stephen's little arms were still curled against his chest as if in mantis-prayer, his body terrifyingly bony under the thin hospital blanket, his eyes. . . .
His eyes were open.
"Stephen?" It almost came out a scream. "Stephen!"
He did not move, but she thought his eyes followed her a little as she leaned in. She took his head in her hands, terrified by his frailty. "Can you hear me? Stephen, it's me, Renie!" And all the time a voice in the back of her brain was saying, It means nothing, it's just something that happens, their eyes open, he's not there, not really. . . .
!Xabbu had begun to stir at the sound of her voice. He sat forward, but seemed still to be partly asleep. "I had a dream," he murmured. "I was the honey-guide . . . the little bird. And I was leading. . . ." His eyes finally came all the way open. "Renie? What is happening?"
But she was already at the door, shouting for a nurse.
Doctor Chandhar had taken her fingers from the pulse in Stephen's neck, but she was still holding one of his bony hands in hers. "The signs . . . are rather good," she said, the smile on her face a fine counterweight to professional caution. "There is definitely improvement, the first we've seen since he's been here."
"What does that mean?" Renie demanded. "Is he coming out of it?" She leaned in to stare at Stephen again. Surely that was a flash of recognition deep in his brown eyes—surely it was!
"I hope so, yes," the doctor said. "But he has been comatose a long time. Please listen, Ms. Sulaweyo. Do not get your hopes up too high—the odds against full recovery are very long. Even if this means he's awakening, there might still be brain damage."
"I'm here," Renie told her little brother firmly. "You can see me, can't you? You can hear me. It's time for you to come back to us, Stephen. We're all waiting for you." She straightened. "I have to tell my father."
"Not too much all at once," said Doctor Chandhar. "If your brother is truly waking up, he may be disoriented. Soft voices, careful movement."
"Right," Renie said. "Of course. I'm just . . . God, thank you, Doctor. Thank you!" She turned to !Xabbu, threw her arms around him. "His eyes are open! Really open!"
When the doctor had left to go call a specialist at one of the bigger hospitals, Renie sagged into the chair and wept. "Oh, please let it be true," she said. "Please, please." She leaned forward and reached between the bars at the side of the bed to hold Stephen's hand. !Xabbu came and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her neck as they both looked at the shrunken shape. Stephen's eyes had closed again, but this time in what Renie felt unprovably sure was something closer to normal sleep.
"I had a dream," he said. "That I was a honey-guide bird, and that I was leading Stephen to honey. We came a long way. I could hear him behind me."
"You led him back."
"Who knows? Perhaps I felt him coming up and it touched what I was dreaming. Or perhaps it was just chance. I am not so certain of anything as I was." He laughed. "Was I certain of things once?"
"I am certain of something," she said. "I love you. We belong together. With Stephen, too. And even my father." Now she was the one to laugh. "My ridiculous father—he wants to do better. Wants to start over with me. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've heard?"
"I think it is a fine thing."
"It is. A fine thing. I'm just laughing because I'm tired of crying." She reached up to touch !Xabbu's hand, then pulled it against her mouth so she could kiss it. "If everything is a story, do you think we could actually have a happy ending?"