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“Did you know this would happen?” I try to sound nonjudgmental, but I fail.

“No, but in the two years since it happened I’ve been trying to prepare for it.”

I’m about to suggest that we go in to warm up when Alba says, “There—” and I see what she sees. At the far end of the backyard there is a muffled thud and a spray of snow, as though a heavy body has fallen a short distance, like a skier wiping out in fresh powder. Alba and I wade through knee-high snow and sure enough, there’s Oliver.

He lies curled on his side, his arms crossed protectively over his chest, his knees drawn up, his hair splayed like black lace over the snow. Oliver doesn’t move. His eyes are almost closed. We roll him onto his back, he is limp, wet blood smears his torso and seeps into the snow. Alba applies a handful of towels to Oliver’s right arm, where the blood is oozing slowly. His left arm gushes bright blood in arterial spurts, and I press towels as firmly as I can against the wound, bracing his arm against my thighs. The towels become saturated and sticky. I add more and look at Alba across Oliver’s unconscious body. “Call an ambulance,” she says. Then I realize I have forgotten my phone.

Alba gestures for me to take over from her. I reach across and wrap my hand around hers on Oliver’s wrist, our fingers overlap as Alba releases her hold and I apply pressure. She gets up and struggles to run back through the snow, gaining speed as she goes. I’m not sure at first where she’s headed until she disappears into the house. I watch Oliver. His breath is shallow, uneven: I suddenly wonder, Does he make it? Of course, he must—otherwise why am I here? Why is Alba so desperately determined that we both be here? I remember Alba saying to me once, not long after we’d met: Don’t be too sure you know what’s going to happen just because you have part of the story or you think I told you how it’s going to be. The future won’t magically take care of itself. You have to act. As I kneel in the snow clutching Oliver’s bloody wrists, I realize that I’ve never seen the scars this will surely leave; I’ve never seen him old. The bleeding has slowed. My hands are bloody and freezing and stuck to the soaked towels. The sun is up, birds sing. It’s a brilliant clear morning, the sky is fiercely blue, there is no wind. Oliver shivers violently but I can’t let go of his wrists long enough to warm him. Now Alba is beside me again, she is wrapping Oliver in blankets, enfolding my hands in the blankets, too. She straps a bandage around Oliver’s right wrist, the one that isn’t bleeding so profusely, and I let go of that arm and place it across his chest. She reaches under the blanket to keep Oliver’s feet warm. Now there is nothing to do but wait. Sirens wail in the distance.

Alba says, “This is like when my dad died.”

I say, “Is he going to live?”

She looks confused, then says, “Yes. He’s going to be okay.”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be. Sooner or later. You, too. You’ll be okay.” She pauses, listens. “I hope the ambulance doesn’t get blocked by our car.”

“Don’t you know?”

“I only know what you told me. Oliver won’t remember any of this.”

My hands rest on Oliver’s rib cage. I can feel his heart pumping. I can’t tell where his skin and mine begin and leave off; it’s as though all the blood has fused us, as though my circulatory system can keep Oliver going. I imagine us as conjoined twins and I think, What does it matter, him or me? Perhaps for her we are the same man, or variations of the same theme. Perhaps her love for him feeds her love for me? The sirens are close now. Alba has that inward look on her face, the concentrating look she gets when she’s trying very hard to stay in the moment. I don’t dare say anything to her. Don’t disappear on us, Alba. Don’t go now and leave us here, not knowing.

“Help him, Zach,” Alba says. “Please.”

“I’ll do that,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of him.”

Alba smiles, and then she’s gone.

Minutes later the sirens arrive. I hear car doors slamming, boots crunching on snow. A paramedic reaches in to take Oliver’s wrist, and I stand up, shaky and relieved. Paramedics and EMTs surround Oliver; police arrive. Everyone is strangely quiet as they take Oliver’s vital signs, bind his left wrist, start an IV. I realize that they must be communicating via Interstices. I feel sad at the thought of my quiet future, minus the sound of human voices. An EMT is shoveling the walk, and soon a gurney is wheeled through the gate. A policeman grips me gently by my shoulder and I touch the back of my neck and shake my head the way I have seen a few people do to indicate they don’t have the implant.

“What happened?” the policeman asks me.

“He slit his wrists.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s his name?”

“Oliver Thornton-Yang.” As I say his name, the EMTs position Oliver carefully, then straddle him and lift him onto the stretcher.

“Is this his house?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?” My sense of self-preservation finally kicks in and I imagine how this looks: two men, one naked, bloody and unconscious, the other clothed and bloodied, surrounded by medical supplies and a pile of women’s clothing. I want to give a fake name, but my real ID is in my wallet, which is in my jeans pocket. Then I remember a piece of advice Caralora once gave me, during a protest that went sideways: Always be a blood relation to anyone who’s injured, so you can get in to see them at the hospital. “I’m his brother,” I say. “Zach Purcell.”

The police all look skeptical. “I’m Mae West,” says the one asking questions. “His grandma.”

“He’s my half brother. My mother remarried.” I don’t think he’s buying it, but then that vacant, Interstitial expression passes over his face, and he says, “Come with us, we’ll take you to the hospital.” I tell them I can drive myself, and they meekly wait while I maneuver my car out of the snowdrift and get turned around. The EMTs are loading Oliver into the ambulance. They drive away, not very fast, lights flashing, down narrow, icy Ravenswood. I follow the police car. We end up at Swedish Hospital. Oliver is taken into surgery almost immediately.

I sit in the empty waiting room, wishing I could call someone. Then I remember David Kendrick. I tell the nurse that Kendrick is Oliver’s doctor. I hope David will come—I have no idea if he knows of Oliver’s existence. An hour goes by. Then David arrives, along with Clare and Beck, the Gomolinskis, and, to everyone’s amazement, Caralora with Nick and Nadia. Clare says, “Alba told us you’d be here. We didn’t want you to be alone.” Clare and Beck sit next to me. Everyone starts talking at once—about Oliver, about Nadia and Nick, about Alba—no one seems to know where Alba is. “1978,” I tell them. David is whisked through the automatic doors to wherever Oliver is. It feels so amazing to be surrounded by people who care about me. Around two o’clock, the surgeon comes out to tell us that Oliver is stable, and that on David’s advice, he is in a medically induced coma in the ICU.

In the days that follow, we make sure that at least one of us is always with Oliver. On the third day after his surgery, Alba arrives. I’ve been reading David Copperfield out loud to Oliver because some coma patients can hear, even if they can’t respond. I suddenly become aware of Alba standing in the doorway, listening. “Don’t stop,” she says. She comes to me and kisses me. “Thank you.” She hesitates, then kisses Oliver. Alba settles into the only other chair in the room. “Please keep reading,” she says, and I do.