Three Wishes by Barbara Delinsky Page A

was played. He had left those interviews walking on air, totally enamored with himself, sold on the flattery.
    Thinking back on it made him sick to his stomach. But he needed food if he planned to stay at the hospital again, and he most definitely did plan to stay. He felt good when he was there, felt decent and different and right. So he finished the veal, drank two cups of coffee, ordered desserts to go, and left.
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    When Tom started high school, he was five feet eight, which would have been a fine height for a fifteen-year-old if he hadn’t wanted to play football. He had come off a summer of painting houses during the day and playing ball at night, so he was tanned and fit, but he lacked the bulk that the older players had.
    â€œYou’re scrappy,” his mother pointed out when she caught him moping around on the eve of tryouts.
    â€œThat doesn’t matter. I won’t make it. I’m too small.”
    â€œSmallness is a state of mind,” she said, as she puffed up every cushion in the living room except those on which he was slouched. “Walk onto that field with your head high, and you’ll look a foot taller. Look the coach in the eye, and he’ll think you’re more solid. Carry yourself like a quarterback, and people will see you as one.”
    It worked. He played backup to a senior quarterback that freshman year, then starting quarterback for his remaining three years. By the time he graduated, he was six four and strong. Though he no longer needed pretense, the lesson in projecting confidence was ingrained.
    It stood him in good stead now. For the third night in a row, well after visiting hours ended, he walked into the medical center past the nurse at the desk, swung into the stairwell, climbed the stairs, and strode down the second-floor corridor to Bree’s room as though he had every right in the world to be there. No matter that the nurses on duty were new and that his battered face made him look like a thug. Then again, perhaps they knew exactly who he was and didn’t dare stop him. Whatever, no one looked twice.
    He was the one to blink when Bree was nowhere in sight.
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    Bree sat in the dark of the deserted lounge at the far end of the hall. The music drifting from wall speakers was classical, soft and soothing, exactly what she needed. Her room had grown oppressive. Even now, well after the last of her friends had left, she could still hear them telling her that they missed her, that they wished her a speedy recovery, that any out-of-body visions would end once her mind cleared.
    The thing was that her mind was perfectly clear. She had slept most of the morning, had cut back on pain pills, and if anything, her memory of that time in the operating room had sharpened. She didn’t tell her friends that. They weren’t inclined to listen, and she didn’t have the strength to make her case. Sitting here, with the mild night air whispering in through half-open windows, she found it hard to believe that a major snowstorm had hit three days before, much less that she had died, gone to heaven, and returned.
    It was all at the same time crystal clear and totally unreal. Unreal that it had snowed so hard so early in the season. Unreal that she had been at just that spot on Birch Hill at just that moment. Unreal that she had watched the goings-on in the operating room. Unreal that she felt the calming force of that bright light still. Unreal that silent Tom from the diner was Thomas Gates of national renown.
    Thomas Gates. Unreal.
    Shifting gingerly in the wingback chair, she started to raise her legs to tuck her cold feet beneath her. When the soreness in her abdomen wouldn’t allow for the movement, she settled for layering one foot over the other and burying her hands in the folds of her robe.
    She knew about Thomas Gates. Being a fan of his books, she had read articles on him. Many hadn’t been flattering. He wasn’t supposed to be very