Alex Donovan wasn’t the kind to give up, and neither was she. There was always a chance he would live.But as the hours crept past, the chance seemed more and more remote. At ten o’clock, he slipped into a coma. At midnight, his condition remained the same. At 2:00 a.m., Julie sat in the hall outside his door silently weeping.Patrick had just gone in.He came out a few minutes later. “The doctor says he’s resting peacefully, which is exactly what you need to do.”“I’m not leaving. I couldn’t sleep, anyway, even if I tried.”Patrick stayed up, too, sitting beside her on the sofa Mario had ordered placed in the hall, his shoulder solid and comforting beneath her cheek when she finally did fall asleep. She wondered what he was thinking. She remembered how devastated he had been by his father’s first stroke, the guilt he had suffered for not being there when his father needed him. He had been nearly unable to function.This time he seemed far more in control, resigned in some way to accepting whatever fate Alex might suffer.
