A brittle light filtered through rain-streaked windows, casting a jaundiced pall across the peeling linoleum floor. A single set of footsteps drifted from the hallway, then faded, leaving only the rattle and whoosh of the persnickety fan and the patter of raindrops pelting the window. Judge’s vigilant ear seized upon the noises and mistook them for a familiar and terrible sound. In his half sleep, he was transported to another hospital room, this one in Brooklyn, not Heidelberg, and he saw a younger version of himself standing next to a monstrous metal box someone had cheerfully decided to call an iron lung. His son was inside the box, lying on his back so that only his head protruded beyond a plastic collar. The rushed intake of breath, the labored wheezing that had brought father to son’s side, belonged to him, or rather to the machine that breathed for him, its constantly regulated air pressure taking the place of paralyzed muscles, forcing the four-year-old’s lungs to expand and contract.Judge reached out to touch his boy.
