Deadline by Randy Alcorn Page B

warned about him. Jake groaned, managing a slight smile himself.
    “Hello, Rainy. This is Sharon from second floor. Would you do me a favor and give me an update on Dr. Lowell? It would be a big help to a patient of mine…yeah, that’s the one.” She smiled again at Jake. “Yes, right, we’re keeping a close eye on him.”
    Jake looked out the window and pretended he was interested in three twelve-year-old boys on bicycles, weaving through the hospital parking lot in the clear cool of late October, wearing their winter coats, dreaming already of holidays and escapades in the snow. Jake remembered playing hide and go seek on countless snowy days with Doc and Finney. It was all a matter of following footprints in the snow. You’d try to hide your tracks by climbing trees or crawling on fences or walking on wood piles or luring the seeker down some trail where you could lose him. Sometimes Jake would see both of his friends footprints in the snow, diverging from one another, going their different paths to make them harder to find. Then he’d have to choose between them. Would he follow Doc’s path or follow Finney’s?
    Life had been so simple, so innocent once, Jake told himself, as he looked at the boys on bikes. So little behind, so much ahead. Childhood and the friends of childhood. It would never be again.
    The nurse kept nodding and saying “Uh huh” to what Jake assumed was a technical explanation of Doc’s condition. “And the prognosis? Best guess? Okay, that’s what I needed. Thanks, Rainy. Yes, I’ll tell him,” she laughed.
    “Rainy wanted me to tell you two things. First, she loves your column.”
    “And?”
    “They’ve posted killer Dobermans outside ICU and given them a scrap of your hospital gown to expose them to your scent.”
    “Very funny. How’s Doc? I mean, Dr. Lowell?”
    “Still critical, but vital signs are steady. He’s stabilized enough they’ll probably upgrade him to ‘serious’ in the morning.”
    “That means he’ll live?”
    “Probably. No guarantees, but they won’t move him to serious unless he’s out of immediate danger.”
    “Thanks.” Jake didn’t want to ask more. He just wanted to hear Doc would make it.
    “No problem. Dinner’s in another hour and a half. Get some rest.”
    For an hour he laid back, closing his eyes whenever a nurse peeked in his room, which was often, no doubt because he’d been labeled an escapee. Just as sleep was about to overtake him again, in came a short, dark, long-haired man, with a huge beard that moved across his chest as he stepped. He bore the distinctive curling earlocks of a Hasidic Jew. Jake had seen one years ago on a New York street. The few parts of his face actually visible outside the wild beard seemed chiseled from stone, the sockets deep and the eyebrows thick. His eyes were dark, with pinpoints of white light playing in them as if they were black stones in the sun.
    With a thick Brooklyn accent, and with no hint of uncertainty or apology, he said, “I am looking for Jacob.”
    Jake paused a moment, studying the enthralling face. “No Jacob here.”
    “I was sent here to him.”
    “I’m Jake. That’s close. But no Jacob. Sorry, must be another room.”
    “I see.” The strange old man made no move to leave.
    I see? The man stood by the door, gazing at Jake. The silence was uncomfortable, but for some reason Jake didn’t mind his presence. He wasn’t one to share his feelings, and rarely struck up conversations in even the best of times, and these were not them. He surprised himself by doing so now.
    “May I ask you something, old man?” Jake would normally consider “old man” offensive, but he sensed this one would receive it as a compliment.
    “Certainly, my son.”
    “One of my best friends died this morning. I was with him.”
    “That is a great privilege. You are very fortunate.”
    “I don’t feel very fortunate right now.”
    “Nonetheless, you are. Death is life’s defining moment. It