"Dan!" Nora's smallness, her curviness, was accentuated next to the rangy angularity of her husband. Nothing about Nora was anything but soft. She had a dark head of wavy hair, a round face and rosebud mouth. Her skin was the color of cafe au lait, warm and brown, perfectly smooth. Her wide brown eyes shone like glass pierced with sunlight, sparkling and knowing. Nora moved with a graceful self-assuredness, her muscles supple and capable beneath a figure like an hourglass. Dan grinned. She was cute in scrubs.
"Dan, you aren't going to believe this, but. . . well. . ." Nora took a deep breath. She paused for a moment. Then the story bubbled out of her, Dan's eyes growing wider and wider with each new revelation.
"God," he murmured, several times. "That's unbelievable." When Nora explained to him what she intended to do, he nodded. "I think we should help, if we can." Then he paused. "Nor, what did you just suggest?"
Nora smiled. "Come with me," she said. "You'll see what I mean."
Dan's first impression of the boys was that he had seen better-nourished looking kids in poverty stricken areas of Appalachia. "Shoot," he murmured to himself. "Three cents a day and you can feed this child for a year."
He wasn't exaggerating. Isaac, especially, was painfully skinny, almost gaunt, although this was due to bone structure as well as poor diet. His blond hair curled gently around his forehead and the nape of his neck, badly in need of cutting. It was the only thing about him that was childish.
Isaac had the eyes of someone who had been in a war zone, dark-circled and haunted. Sitting with his dirty hands clasped between his knees, his body hunched over as if against a cold wind, he felt as if a black hole had opened just below his lungs. It was taking all of his resistance not to be sucked into it. He wasn't sure how long he could last; all his energy was being drained away and a weakness was settling over him. He wanted to sleep for a long time, but was scared of what would happen if he did.
Taylor wasn't asleep, but he was lying with his eyes closed. The lights were too bright in here. As long as Isaac was around, he'd be all right. Because Ike always knew what to do, Taylor thought, hazily. He wasn't aware of much, except the aching in his chest and his struggle to breathe.
There was an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, and his skin was flushed a deep red, but there was still something beautiful, almost angelic, about Taylor. His eyes were deep blue, Crayola crayon blue, almost. In spite of everything, they held a calm, little Buddha expression. He was someone, Nora thought, who would never be able to hide what he was thinking. His eyes would always give him away.
There was a shyness about him, something tentative. Maybe it was the combination of his eyes and his mouth, which was small and delicate, the lower lip fuller than the upper. He looked like he expected someone to hurt him, but seemed surprised when anyone did. A nurse would insert a needle in his arm to draw blood or give him a shot, and he'd open his eyes, startled and confused. "Ooh," one nurse murmured to Nora as she left. "I'm not going to be able to live with myself for the rest of the night."
Zac was the sturdiest of the three. Small and stalwart, he had been holding himself together with quiet resolve, a resolve that didn't come from being too young to understand what was going on. He had long lashed brown eyes and a mischievous smile, a round baby face and golden blond hair. One of Dan's step-sisters had gotten her little boy into child modeling; Zac was far and away cuter than Harry. Nora lifted Zac out of his chair and held him in her lap, feeling his small body relax against hers, his head tucked beneath her chin. He fingered the plastic ID that was clipped to her pocket, mesmerized. "This is Zac," she said to Dan, "and Isaac, and this is Taylor."
Dan smiled. He liked kids, but he wasn't sure what to say right now. "Hi. I'm Dan." He sat down next to Nora. "Are you guys hungry?"
"Um." Isaac studied a hangnail. He was hungry. The last time he'd eaten was Thursday night. But he didn't want to say that to Dan or Nora. He didn't trust them. There wasn't a reason to. Isaac had learned that no one was ever nice to you unless they wanted something. He didn't have any idea what Nora and Dan wanted.
Zac, however, was less inhibited. "Yes!" he exclaimed, smiling broadly and throwing his arms around Nora's neck. "We are really hungry!" Nora and Dan exchanged a smile. "Really hungry?" Dan asked.
"Really really hungry," Zac assured him.
"We're okay, though," Isaac whispered, quickly.
"No we aren't," Zac corrected him.
"Do you guys want to go to McDonald's?" Dan asked.