Lost Innocents by Patricia MacDonald Page B

was balding and pudgy and looked to be about forty. His roommate was lying in the other bed, his head turned toward the window. All she could see of him was longish black hair and a tattoo on his upper arm. She turned to the reading the paper.
    “Mr. Lewis?” she asked.
    The man inclined his head towards the other bed, with a slightly bemused expression his face, then went back to his reading.
    Surprised, Maddy tiptoed over to the other bed. “Mr. Lewis?”
    When he turned his face to her, Maddy could scarcely conceal her surprise. Bonnie’s husband was not at all what she had expected. He had a broad, high-cheekboned face that would have been handsome had it not been pitted with acne scars. He had a thick, black mustache, peppered, like his hair, with gray, and the bandages across his forehead completed the look of a pirate. A silver crucifix hung from a chain around his wide neck and rested on the flimsy cotton of his hospital gown. His eyes were unfocused, heavy lidded from painkillers. He shifted around in the bed, and Maddy could not fail to notice the well-defined, almost cartoonishly large muscles of his upper body.
    “Are you Mr. Lewis?” Maddy asked. She heard, with a shade of embarrassment, the incredulity in her own voice.
    “That’s me,” he said, attempting a smile that revealed small, crooked teeth.
    Maddy could not keep herself from staring at him. She would never have imagined that plain, prim Bonnie had a husband who looked like a Hell’s Angel. She realized he was waiting for her reply. “Urn…My name is Maddy Blake. Your wife and son…are staying with me.”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Hi there.”
    “I’m terribly sorry about all this,” she said helplessly.
    “That was real decent of you to take in my family,” he said.
    “Well, it seemed the least I could do.” She thought of the insurance problem and added quickly, “I was glad to do it. Really.”
    He shifted his weight in the bed and winced.
    “How are you feeling?” Maddy asked anxiously.
    The man laid a hand gingerly on his abdomen. “I’m hurtin’ a bit, I have to say. Doc says I need to take it easy. But my spirit is strong.”
    Maddy nodded uncertainly. “Well, I’m sure with that good outlook you’ll make a quick recovery.”
    “I hope so,” he said with a sigh. “Did Bonnie tell you about…us…our situation?”
    “She said you’d just arrived here to see about a new job.”
    A vague look of sadness crossed his face. He nodded, looking away. “That’s right,” he said.
    “I feel just terrible about this,” said Maddy. “Will they hold the job for you? I mean, I’d be happy to call your prospective employer and explain what happened. Are you going to be able to work? Did the doctor say?”
    Terry shrugged, then winced again. “He said no liftin’. That’s gonna be tough, ’cause I’m a laborin’ man.”
    A wave of guilt passed over Maddy at the thought of the Lewises’ predicament. A man in between jobs, a new baby. It seemed so overwhelming. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
    “Don’t be sorry for me,” he said. “I’m a lucky man. The good Lord looks out for me. The rest of it’ll work itself out somehow.”
    Maddy forced herself to smile. “Do you happen to know where I can find Bonnie and Sean?”
    Terry’s glazed eyes achieved a sparkle. “I think she was takin’ him out to feed him. Whadda ya think of my boy?” he asked proudly.
    Maddy was able to smile back without reservation. “He’s a. fine boy.”
    Terry smiled at a picture of Sean, just newborn, his tiny eyes not even open. The photo was propped against the water carafe on the tray table across his bed. “I never tire of lookin’ at that picture. Proudest day of my life—the day my son was born.” He looked up at Maddy. “You have any children?”
    “We have a daughter—Amy,” Maddy said, a little surprised that Bonnie hadn’t mentioned her. “She’s three. She’s at preschool right now.”
    “God’s greatest