Chapter 15: The Printed Edge

By six Saturday morning, Su had learned three things about the hospital's family waiting room. The coffee machine resented human life. The chairs had been designed as punishment. Shen Mo could sleep sitting upright without surrendering an inch of posture. His eyes were closed beside her. The charcoal coat Lili had brought lay folded beneath his head, though his head never reached it. His hands rested open on his thighs. Under the fluorescent lights, the skin across his knuckles had recovered some color. Su checked the clock, then his breathing, then the color in his knuckles again. His eyes opened. "You were asleep," she said. "I was resting." "With your eyes closed." "That is customary." His voice remained thin beneath the dry answer. "How long have you been awake?" "Since you began counting my breaths." "Which time?" A surgeon had taken Eli upstairs shortly after three on Friday morning. The…