Samaritan

Ray was lying there today as if awaiting his embalmers, his head wrapped in pristine cotton, eyes shut, mouth agape, spaghetti-thin nasogastric tubing running into one taped-down nostril. “We had to drill,” the neurologist said, sidling up to Nerese, arms crossed over his chest. “The bleed was starting to fill the cranial cavity, put pressure on the brain, so we needed to open her up, clip the site and evacuate the buildup. But when we got in? There was nothing to do . . . The site had closed on its own and the bleed had drained itself off into the vault. I mean, better safe than sorry, but as it turned out he needed the procedure like a hole in the head.”