“Where was the accident?” he repeated. Marie could see fear creeping through his eyes. “What kind of question is that?” he asked.

The fact that his answer was another question bolstered her. “I want to know what you know about the accident,” she said. Her armpits were wet, her heart rate higher than it should be for simply laying in bed.

“You were in a car,” the golden man said. He tilted his head and his neck bones cracked. “What more is there to say?”

“I remember being in the car,” she said. She wondered if her intonation would make his believe she was confused. “I remember…was it raining?” she asked.

The golden man pulled back from her just a hair. He narrowed his eyes. “It was raining,” he said.

If she was going to outwit him, she needed to think faster. “Sprinkling,” she said. “Not very much.

He didn’t reply. She tried not to smile.

“But what happened?” she asked, continuing the pretense. “Were we hit?”

“An accident does involve two objects colliding, usually,” he said. He sounded almost bored. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Your car veered off the road.”

“Those are two different things,” she said. She sucked in her cheeks to keep the smile from spreading across her face. He hadn’t seen the accident. There was no deal. He was only here to take advantage of it.

“You veered off the roadway,” he said. His words oozed from him.

It was true, but she suspected it was a guess. “And what did we collide with?” She summoned her most earnest expression, and willed tears into her eyes. “I remember being so afraid we would crash. We couldn’t see anything. There was so much water.”

He hesitated. “There was,” he agreed.

She had him trapped. She knew it, and he knew it. She did smile then, leaning forward, stretching all the bones in her neck to put her face closer to his. “You weren’t there,” she said. “You didn’t come because I called you.”

He backed away from her, towards the window. “Give me the name of the baby,” he said, almost pleading. “I’ll make a real deal with you this time. Whatever you want.” She shook her head. “You want Ned to walk again? It’s done. You want your child to be well enough to sleep in your arms tonight? I can make it happen. Just give me her name.”

Marie could taste the hope. She shut her eyes against the impossible promise. Nothing he offered came without a price.

“I want you to go,” she said.

The door opened. Marie glanced away, watching as Margaret and another nurse came into the room. She glanced at the clock. 6:45. It was shift change. “Hi, Marie!” Margaret said. Cheery again. This time it was genuine. It didn’t mask any dread. “This is Vanessa. She’s gonna be taking over for you. I’ll be back in the morning.”

Marie let them attend to her. Vanessa took vitals, charted, changed her pad. The two nurses whispered softly at the computer for a moment. Marie looked towards the window, but the golden man was gone.

Vanessa came close to the bed. “Marie, I don’t want to get your hopes up too soon, but your baby is doing very well right now. If she does well overnight, I think we can bring her to you tomorrow, to room in.”

She thought about the promises the golden man had offered. “Oh, that would be great,” she said. “And… is there any news about Ned?”

Margaret and Vanessa looked at one another briefly. “Ned is awake now, but he’s in a lot of pain still.” Margaret said.

“Can I see him?” she asked. For the first time, the reality of where she was, and what had happened to her family settled over her. Tears leaked from her eyes. Vanessa offered her a tissue.

“Let’s see if you can get you out of bed tomorrow, and then we’ll see about taking you and the baby upstairs,” she said.

She thought back to the wish, to go back to the hospital, and get it over with. Even knowing the accident wasn’t her fault, she still felt the guilt of wishing time away slide through her guts. Time she could have spent with Ned. Time she could have prepared. She wiped her eyes with the tissue. “Ok,” she agreed.

The nurses left her, and she closed her eyes. As she lay in the stillness of the descending night, she made another wish. I want all of us to go home. She opened her eyes, half expecting to see the golden man standing at the foot of her bed again. She smiled to herself. She outwitted him once. She could do it again.