Claire grabbed the bottle, slipped, and sprayed herself. It’s terribly embarrassing, really.”

Ten minutes later he left. He didn’t sign my admission papers. He didn’t sit by my bed. He didn’t ask the doctors whether his bride of one day might be permanently blind.

My parents arrived forty-two minutes later.

When my mother, Evelyn Hart, came through the trauma-bay curtains, she didn’t weep. She took one long look at the bandages wrapping my head, the saline drips, my trembling hands — and went very calm.

It was the stillness that had made powerful men sweat in courtrooms for thirty-five years.

My father, Robert Hart, moved to my side and cupped the unburned side of my face in his large, warm hand. He kissed my forehead. Then he turned to the triage nurse.