Sitting up in bed, a pillow under my leg. There's a journal open on my lap, but I'm not really reading it. There's music on -- Mozart's 40th -- and I'm listening to that. Somehow the Andante makes it a little easier to think about the events of the day, lets me approach them from an oblique angle instead of crashing into them face-first. Like Cuddy, lying to me. Like Wilson, lying to me. About a patient! And all... for what? For my own good? They used to yell at me because I was miserable, because my successes didn't make me happy. Now they're yelling at me because I'm too happy, that if I'm happy and successful I'll think that I'm God.

I suppose it's easier to be miserable. At least they didn't think I was suffering from delusions of grandeur; they just thought I was an ass.

And now.... I glance to the side. Propped against the nightstand, my cane is waiting for me.

Just as it always was. Cameron probably took custody of it and then gave it to Wilson. Wilson brought it down to my hospital room; I used it for a day or two, brought it home with me, and stuck it in the closet. But I never really forgot it was there.

I don't know what was worse tonight: coming home and having to stop and think about how I was going to take the steps up to the condo door? Having to stop and lean on the desk before I could even make it across the living room? Feeling my muscles respond to the paresthesias by starting to cramp -- with all their newly regained strength?

Was it the moment that I realized I was going to have to get out a cane if I was going to make it to the bedroom?

Or was it that small ripple of relief at knowing that the cane was there? At seeing its handle and knowing those last steps down the hall would be a little more bearable?

Once I got myself the thirteen steps down the hall and into the bedroom, the old routine came back so easily it was like getting back on a bike: jacket over the small chair; watch, phone, and newly-filled pill bottle next to the alarm clock; make sure the remote's within reach; start the slow process of undressing and getting into pajamas. And then just wait for the relief brought by rest and Vicodin.

I become aware of the music again. The last movement is winding up, in all its sober, stoic splendor. The final chord sounds; a pause, and then the next playlist starts.

My stomach lurches as I realize what's coming up next, and I start to reach for the remote. But then I think better of it. Might as well face this too.


When I was in rehab, there were only a few hours a day when I wasn't thinking about rehab. Some of those hours were devoted to sleep and, sometimes, to meals; some of them were devoted to catching up on my TiVo; the rest were mostly spent on the Internet. I kept up with my journal habit, and then there was all that music to download. I also tried out a couple of podcasts and checked out the freakshow that is YouTube.

I also Googled a lot. Cuddy, Wilson... Not much on Robert Chase, but still plenty on Rowan (who is still dead.) Foreman's name is plastered all over the site for his medical school's alumni association. If Cameron has a MySpace page I couldn't find it. I tried to look up a few old classmates but it was difficult; I could usually remember a first name or a last name, but not both. Not unless they'd done something that had especially pissed me off, like old von Lieberman, who I discovered has a new clinical trial going. Something small. Even he should be able to manage that one.

I moved on through the select group of people whose first and last names I do know. It's a small group; some of its members got to join it the easy way, by being related to me. I looked up my mother and was amused to find her name in her retirement community's website, on the page for the garden club. Then I looked up my brother Mark. At first I couldn't find much on him, just a bland-looking page in some obscure federal agency announcing its assimilation into a bigger agency. I had better luck when I looked him up as M. House: I found links to his chess articles, including an archive of his columns for Chess Nerd News.

Chess Nerd News. I stared at the screen for a long moment.

And finally I looked up Eileen.

She has a website. I looked all around, clicked most of her links. She's in a couple of thousand different ensembles and I looked at them all. She has an "About Me" section; I skipped that one. She has a "Contact Me" link; I skipped that one too.

She has a page where you can buy CDs. Most of them are by her couple of thousand different ensembles; I didn't buy any, but I listened to all the sample clips. It was hard to pick out her voice.

She also has a page with a few complete tracks: early music, baroque music, folk music, opera. Solo tracks. Downloadable.

So I downloaded them all.

And that's what's playing now.

Her voice has changed a little without really changing: a bigger range, more power, but still Eileen. I make myself listen. It's dark out, and the only light in the room is the bedside lamp. The recording is of a Bach cantata.

I visited her site every night that week. It was out there on the Web, wasn't it? Like an invitation. Contact Me.

And I was feeling good, and I was feeling hopeful, and I was beginning to get my old life back, my life before the infarction, and if I could be the person I was in some ways, why couldn't I be the person I was in other ways? Why couldn't I turn the clock back?

And every time I clicked away from her site, I heard the voice from the hallucination -- not the fun ketamine flight hallucination, the other one, the exsanguinating-on-a-gurney one. The voice of the guy who shot me, whispering in the back of my memory: Would anybody care that the world lost that wit?

And finally, one night, I decided I'd do it. I'd get in touch with Eileen.

I didn't email her. Instead, I Googled again and found a couple of phone numbers. I called her work number first, in the middle of the night when she wouldn't be there, just to see if I'd really found her. I ended up calling it a few more times just to listen to her voice mail announcement, preparing myself for when I'd go live.

I thought about what I wanted to say, how I might say it. I thought about the best time to reach her. Finally I decided it was time.

It was around eight o'clock on a Sunday night, the day after I'd run my first mile. I stared at my handset for a long time and then started pressing the numbers.

The first ring, and it suddenly hit me: what if Eileen wasn't the one who would pick up the phone? The second ring: what if it was? I hung up before it got to the third ring.

A week or two later, I called again, and this time I even made it to three rings. But not to four. I hung up again.

I made it to five miles on a Tuesday morning, and that afternoon after lunch I called her. I held on until the answering machine picked up. But I did not leave a message at the sound of the beep.

I told myself I'd try it again. But it was easy to put it off as I got ready to go back to work. Six miles, seven, eight miles....

And now here I am, back where I was before. My gaze flits to the cane and to the pill bottle, and the assassin in my head starts to whisper again: ...they know that their actions have consequences, and they know that those consequences are their fault....

It's better that I didn't call her. It's silly to look back; there's nothing I can say to her anyway. She doesn't want to hear from me.

The cantata is over and the next track begins. Che farò senza Euridice? she sings. ...Che farò senza il mio ben....

Eileen isn't singing to me. This is just a recording of her singing for somebody else, and I'm just kind of eavesdropping. And that's enough.


I lean back into the pillows.