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2905 Redefining AmericaShe tries to understand her role. Has she been a bystander? An innocent seer, as the psychic adviser claimed to be? %u201cIt%u2019ll be over before you know it.%u201dMary gazes up at Kayla with a strange opacity, as though she is just now starting to absorb all that has happened, and then the orderly rolls her away.She leaves the black coin purse at the nurses%u2019 station. An exhausted-looking young woman%u2014puddles of mascara under her eyes%u2014takes it without argument. Kayla walks to the end of the hallway and stands by a tall window. She sees something that looks at first like an oil spill below, but no: She%u2019s looking down at a man-made lake.In the window, Kayla%u2019s reflection is sharp and bright, and she begins to slowly, softly shadowbox%u2014uppercut, uppercut, hook, cross%u2014an absentminded habit, something she%u2019s caught herself doing in all kinds of places.From the other end of the hall a gurney flies toward her, flanked by two orderlies in white, running like a pair of very athletic angels. Her hands drop. A voice crackles over the speakers. Some urgent missive. As the stretcher rounds the corner, the patient%u2019s head rolls in her direction and she glimpses the man in the coveralls, the one who was shot in the shoulder, the one the paramedic said would be fine. Julian. Where could he be off to now?A nurse trails behind. She walks with her hands in pockets, nodding at everyone she passes. She seems to be in no hurry at all. Kayla wonders if she is on a break.%u201cThat view is the only thing in this hospital that no one ever complains about. Living or dead.%u201d The nurse pauses by the window and explains to Kayla that the only problem is that the lake wasn%u2019t built deep enough and so it floods when it rains; sometimes the water breaches the entrance and then it%u2019s like trying to walk around on a Slip %u2019N Slide.%u201cYour mother is going to be fine.%u201d The nurse pats her shoulder. %u201cDon%u2019t worry.%u201d110115Kayla blinks at the nurse, takes in her winedark scrubs and her frosted-blond hair. She is the one who prepped Mary for surgery. She feels a chill, for that is exactly what the paramedic said about the man in the coveralls. And yet, moments ago, she witnessed him being transferred to another part of the kingdom with tremendous urgency.The nurse continues down the illuminated hallway. Kayla bats at the air a few more times, fists loosely curled, then reminds herself of where she is, makes her hands go still.Three months later, she will get another chance to fight her former best friend and she will knock her out in the second round. She will move with a finely honed aggression that is beyond anything she has ever shown in the ring before; she will understand that she has now broken through to a different place. I never doubted, Coach will tell her as they embrace in the corner. After the fight, she will stride over to her former best friend%u2019s corner and shake hands with her and her new coach; she will learn that nothing makes her feel like a badder bitch than showing magnanimity in victory. The hoodie who robbed the gas station will be shot dead by the police outside a laundromat. See? Kayla%u2019s father will say after he hears the news. They kill white people too. Which is not the defense he thinks it is. She will not ever hear from Mary. She will go into the diner, Perks, and ask if Mary is on shift and the manager will tell her that Mary hasn%u2019t worked there in years. %u201cAre you sure?%u201d she will ask, and the manager will say, %u201cLook, kid, I know my Marys.%u201dKayla stares down at the lake, which appears, at this hour, unfathomably deep. When the man passed on the gurney he seemed to be looking at her, as though he might have remembered her face from the early morning, her expression of terror and helplessness, but perhaps he was just casting a long, last look in the direction of the outside world. The starless night sky; the emerald curve of the lake; the rising tide. 2022120Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.