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Show 19 a sliding noise, and then the heavy thump of a body falling to the floor. He turned quickly; it was Theresa, her leg bent back double beneath her body. He lurched over the seat to help her, but then he realized it made no difference. No difference. And he realized that Maia had not moved during the accident, not at all; she sat unmoving, her eyes glassy and hollow. At the same moment Boaz saw a car pull off the road behind them, to help. He leapt out, strangely alarmed, as the car pulled up toward them. No, he thought, go away, and he ran toward the approaching car, "I'm all right," he yelled, his voice cracking, to the would-be Samaritan, "I'm all right," his arms flailing, "go away, I'm all right,1 flailing, beating off the Samaritan, and then, just for a moment, he saw himself: a madman, protecting an almost catatonic girl and three half-dead dogs. Then he caught himself. "Thank you," he said to the Samaritan, a bewildered student. "I think I can get it out of the ditch myself." The record does not show how they got to the surgery lab: whether the Samaritan towed them out of the ditch, or whether Boaz scraped together branches from the woods and forced them into the mud under the wheels for traction; it is not important whether they took the usual route or another, back behind the pond, it is not clear how long Maia's state lasted, or when Boaz' hands stopped shaking, but the chief physiologist, a severe woman, said later that they were both present for the perfusion and termination procedure. She did say, when asked, that they were both rather quiet during the procedure, that she had expected Boaz, in particular, to be more interested in |
