"If this is the same thing as your article, what happened to the patient?"
"The pain eased," Miles said. "Very fast. But I can't promise it will happen for you."
Hamilton stared at his rigid leg. Six weeks of uncertainty had left him exhausted and angry, and he was frightened by the possibility that the latest episode meant he might never regain ordinary movement. He looked at the children in the medical journal photographs, the small boy in front of him, and the empty stretch of patio beyond the railing. He wanted the kind of certainty that nobody could honestly give him.
"I want to try," he said.
"Greg," Victoria began, "you need a clinician to evaluate you."
"I know what I need," Hamilton snapped, then immediately softened when he saw Miles flinch. "I'm sorry," he added, surprising everyone. "I'm frightened. I want to know whether this pain can stop."
Miles nodded as if he understood more than a child should have had to understand. Leon asked James for access to the nearby handwashing station, and James moved the stacked service trays aside to make room. Miles washed his hands, working carefully because his mother had always insisted that cleanliness mattered especially when someone was sick. He looked down at the cracked skin around his knuckles and wished for a moment that his hands did not tell strangers so much about where he slept.
When he returned, Hamilton had adjusted his position with Brandon's help. The assembled guests formed a loose half circle, and Richard was filming openly now, stating the time for the recording. Victoria remained ready to tell everyone to stop if Hamilton's condition changed. Miles stood beside the wheelchair, suddenly aware that he was smaller than the chair itself.
"Please tell me right away if you feel worse anywhere else," he said. "And we still need the paramedics to check you when they get here."
Hamilton nodded. His face looked older than it had during the toast. "All right, Miles."
It was the first time he had used the boy's name. Miles noticed, though he did not answer. He gently placed a hand near the painful part of Hamilton's hip as he had seen clinicians do when locating tenderness during an examination, then paused because he understood how little practical training he had. Hamilton took a strained breath and indicated the spot where the muscle seemed most painfully tight.
"There," he said. "That's where it catches."
A series of ordinary things happened next, compressed by fear into a few memorable moments. Miles offered cautious support while Hamilton tried to ease the position of his leg without forcing it, and Victoria spoke to him steadily from the other side of the wheelchair. For several seconds there was no improvement at all. Then, quite suddenly, Hamilton felt a deep spasm release, and the pressure that had seemed to hold his hip in a vise began to lessen.