7.

      ALEX SAT FOR A WHILE just holding his mother, trying to imagine what madness haunted her. She no longer seemed to know that he was there.

      The worst part was that he had no hope. The doctors had said that she would never get better, never be her old self again, and that he needed to understand that. They said there was brain damage that couldn’t be reversed. While they weren’t exactly sure what had caused the damage to her brain, they said that, among other things, it caused her to sometimes become violent. They said that such damage was not reversible. They’d said that she was a danger to herself and others and always would be.

      After a while Alex gently laid her back on her bed. She was as limp as a doll—just a bundle of bone and muscle, blood and organs, existing often without conscious awareness, without anything other than a vestigial intellect. He fluffed up the pillow under her head. Her empty eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. As far as Alex knew, she didn’t know where she was, or that there was anyone there with her. She was for the most part dead to the world; her body just hadn’t fully caught up with that fact.

      He pulled her shawl off the mirror, folded it, and replaced it in the wardrobe before sitting again on the edge of the bed.

      When his phone rang he pulled it out and answered.

      “Hey, birthday boy,” Bethany said, “I have a big surprise for you.”

      Alex made an effort to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

      “Well, I’m afraid that—”

      “I’m sitting outside your house.”

      He paused a moment. “My house.”

      Her voice turned flirtatious and lilting. “That’s right.”

      “What are you doing there?”

      “Well,” she said in an airy, intimate whisper, “I’m waiting for you. I want to give you your birthday present.”

      “Thanks for the thought, Bethany, but I really don’t need anything, honest. Save your money.”

      “No money involved,” she said. “Just get your tail home, birthday boy. Tonight you’re going to get yourself laid.”

      Now Alex was really getting annoyed with her. He thought it easiest not to say so, though. He didn’t want to have a fight with a woman he hardly knew. There was no point to it.

      “Look, Bethany, I’m really not in the mood.”

      “You just leave that to me. I’ll get you in the mood. I think you ought to get lucky on your birthday, and I’m just the girl to make it special.”

      Bethany was an attractive woman—in fact she bordered on being voluptuous—but the more he got to know her the less and less attractive Alex found her to be. She had nothing more than a superficial allure. He couldn’t talk to her about anything meaningful, not because she wasn’t intelligent enough, but because she didn’t care about anything meaningful. In a way, that was worse. She was a living, breathing example of superficial, and willfully so. She seemed to have no interests other than that she had a kind of odd, narrow focus on him and the two of them having a good time—or, at least, what was a good time by her definition.

      “I can’t, right now,” he said, trying not to sound angry, even though he was getting angry.

      She let out a low, breathy chuckle. “Oh, I’ll make sure you can, Alex. Don’t you worry about that. You just get yourself home and let Beth take care of everything.”

      “I’m visiting my mother.”

      “I think I can throw a better party. Promise. Just come give me a chance to make your birthday something you’ll never forget.”

      “My mother is in the hospital. She’s ill and not doing well. I’m going to be sitting with her.”

      That finally threw Bethany into silence for a moment.

      “Oh,” she finally said, the sexiness gone from her voice. “I didn’t know.”

      “I’ll call you later,” Alex said. “Maybe in a few days.”

      “Well,” she said, sounding uncertain and reluctant to end the conversation so quickly, “I’m sure your mother is going to need to get her rest. Why don’t you call me later today, after your visit?”

      Somehow, it didn’t sound quite like a question. It sounded more like an instruction. He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation—not at the moment, not sitting there with his mother—but Bethany was giving him no choice.

      “Look, the truth is I don’t think I’m the guy for you. You’re an attractive woman, you really are. There are a lot of guys who like you. I think you’d be better off with one of them instead of me. You’d have a lot more fun with them, with guys who are interested in the same things that interest you.”

      “But I like you.”

      “Why?”

      “I don’t know.” She paused a moment. “You get me hot,” she finally said, falling back on her lusty voice, as if lust was magic that could banish any objections. He imagined that it very well might with most men, but he wasn’t most men.

      “I’m sorry, Bethany. You’re a nice enough person, but we’re just not right for each other. It’s as simple as that.”

      “I see.”

      He didn’t say anything, hoping that she would leave it at that and not decide to make it ugly. It wasn’t like they’d been seeing each other for any length of time. There was no reason to make a big deal out of it. It had been a couple of dates, nothing more. He’d kissed her a few times. That was it. She’d made it clear that he was welcome to go farther, to go as far as he wanted, but something had made him keep her at arm’s length. Now he was glad he had.

      “Alex, I’ve got to go. I need…I need to think about this.”

      “I understand. You think about it, but I think it’s best if we go our separate ways.”

      He could hear her breathing for a moment; then, without a further word, she hung up on him.

      “Good,” he said under his breath as he used his thumb to push the phone back into the pocket of his jeans.

      He glanced over at his mother. She stared unblinking at the ceiling.

      Alex picked up the TV remote when he saw another report about the two murdered Metro officers. The place they’d been found was a good dozen miles from where he had met Officers Tinney and Slawinski earlier that day.

      It shook Alex to realize that the two men were dead. If he found it shocking, he could only imagine how horrifying the news had to be for those close to them.

      Both men had seemed so competent, so in control. He’d seen them for only a few minutes, but it seemed impossible to think that both of those men could be dead. The swiftness of such a thing left Alex feeling shaken and even more depressed.

      He envied people who enjoyed their birthdays.

      Just then his phone rang again. He was reluctant to answer it, thinking it would be Bethany with a list of grievances over her hurt feelings and wanting to rant at him, but when he checked the small exterior display window it said OUT OF AREA.

      Alex