"Yeah, I know. I know. Hey. You think I don't know maybe at least a little bit about being in a really stinking mental place? Heck!"

He reached down and rapped his knuckles on the prosthesis that connected his right knee with his sneaker. Then, "You had dinner yet?" he asked.

"I'm not hungry," she said.

"I didn't ask if you were hungry, I asked if you'd had dinner yet."

"What if I haven't?" she asked.

"Then, I haven't either, so why don't we have some together? Please don't say no."

A long pause again. Then, "Okay," she said. " Maybe I haven't had dinner."

"Want some? Plus a sympathetic ear. And how 'bout a drink?"

She thought of the Glock upstairs. It was waiting for her. All she had to do was pick up that magazine, slap it into the b.u.t.t, pull back the slide and chamber a round, flick the safety off, and that little number would be a hundred percent ready for business, just like it had been minutes ago.

"No, look ..." she answered. "I-"

Ben motioned to the hotel across the street. "Come on. It's on me and my guess is you need it right now. Just don't walk too fast. I'm running out of legs, you know."

FIFTY-ONE.

She ordered some soup. He ordered a burger. They both ordered pints of draft beer, he a Sam Adams, she a Boddingtons, an English beer that had been fizzed up for the American market.

"I was going to leave a note with your doorman to ask you to call," Ben finally said. "No one's heard from you in weeks."

A long pause from Alex.

"I was away," she said.

"That's no excuse. Your friends want to know you're okay. And if you're not okay, you got to let them know that, too."

Something in her throat caught. She couldn't answer. His gaze settled into her.

"I got to say, Alex, you look terrible right now."

"I feel terrible."

"Let me show you something," he said.

She waited. He reached down toward his bad leg, or more accurately, his missing leg, or, more accurately still, the fake leg. She heard him fiddle with a couple of straps and buckles. He brought the prosthesis, detached from his knee, up to lap level so she could see it.

He put it on the table. There was no surprise, but she realized she must have made a short gasp, because he reacted to it.

"There," he said. "How do you like that?"

"Would you put that back on!" she insisted. "People are staring."

The waiter pa.s.sed by the table, did a double take, then fled.

"Let the folks stare," Ben said with a laugh. "It'll do 'em good. They want to stare some more, they can go over to Walter Reed and look at a lot of ex-soldiers, men and women a heck of a lot worse off than me. Some of them got three or four limbs gone, burns all over their bodies, eyes blown out of their heads, and brain injuries. Now, my basketball buddy Alex LaDuca," he asked with a smile, "how do you like my leg?"

"I like it. It's a nice fake leg."

"Want to try it on? It'll make you taller, on one side at least."

"Ben!" She already had her hand to her mouth, almost laughing.

"Please!"

"Please what?"

"I like it better when it's strapped where it should be," she said.

"Thank you. That's the answer I wanted. So as a favor, just for you, I'll get dressed again. I'm going to need the leg to walk home."

She came out from hiding behind her hands.

"This is my 'Transformer moment,' " he continued. "A couple of straps and buckles and I'm half a robot."

She watched how quickly he buckled it back into place, dropping the trouser leg.

"I know what's going on with you," Ben said. "You never thought it would happen, but part of you is gone, just like part of what used to be me is gone. You woke up one day and looked around and something, someone, was missing that you never thought you could replace. And you still don't see how you will."

She felt something catch in her throat.

"You're where I was two years ago, Alex. You're hating life. It's a bad place to be."

"It's not like that," she said, her hand settling on the table.

"No? Look me in the eye and tell me that it's not like that."

She looked at him, opened her mouth to speak, then looked away.

Two beers arrived. The pints looked bigger than expected.

"When I lost my leg, I thought my life was over," Ben said. "I wanted to kill myself. Tell me that hasn't gone through your head."

She looked back to him after several seconds. She still couldn't speak. One of his strong hands settled on hers.

"It's gone through my head," she finally admitted.

"Has it gone through your head?" Ben asked. "Or is it still there?"

She didn't answer.

"It's there right now, isn't it? That 'I want to end it all' feeling."

"What makes you think so?"

"I know just by looking at you," he said. "Answer me."

"It's there."

"I can't make decisions for you," Ben said, "but, see, your life isn't over. Not by a long shot. You're on this earth for a reason. Right now, you need to get up off the floor and live the life G.o.d gave you."

"I miss Robert horribly," she said softly.

"Of course you do. You always will. My parents are both gone now. Think I don't miss them every day?"

"Mine are gone too," she said. "Long time ago."

"Brothers? Sisters?" he asked.

"None."

"That's where you're wrong," he said. "You come by and play some basketball tomorrow night. You'll see whether you have brothers and sisters or not."

She looked away for several more seconds as food arrived. She felt herself search for words and not find them. She was momentarily afraid to look back and didn't know why, but when it popped into her mind, what Robert had once said about a guardian angel, she managed to gather herself and focus.

"Are you always so smart?" she asked, turning back to him.

He laughed. "Heck, no! I was dumb enough to get my leg blown off in a stupid useless war. Know what? For six months I sat around being bitter, feeling sorry, feeling that I couldn't go on. I was a college dropout and just another wounded vet, battling with the VA for treatment. Well, you know what? I decided I wasn't going to be just another college-dropout wounded vet."

She found herself listening to him.

"When I lost my leg," he continued, "the pastor at my church in Durham used to phone me every day. Make sure my messed-up head was getting back together. Make sure I didn't go off the deep end. Know what I mean?"

"I know."

Ben shook his head. "I know it's corny, but my mom used to read the Psalms to us from the Bible. Three or four times a week, after dinner, we'd sit around the kitchen table; this is when I was growing up in Greensboro, and she'd read something from her family Bible. I always liked the psalm about lifting 'my eyes up unto the hills, from whence-' "

" 'Cometh my strength,' " Alex responded softly.

"You know that one?" He was surprised.

"It's Psalm 121," she said. "I remember it from long ago. And, funny you should mention it, I had the occasion to use it myself in Kiev."

Her fingers went to her neck, where the jewelry used to be, then returned empty.

"Then you should practice it. What goes around comes around. Lift up your eyes. The loss is always going to be with you, Alex. Without Robert, you'll never walk quite the same way again. But you'll walk."

He paused. "Now here's where my pastor connects to you," he said. "After I was feeling better and got myself back into college, I called him up to thank him. He said, 'Thank me by taking the word forward. When you see someone else who needs that call each day, that supporting hand, you take that first step. You help that person.'That's why I'm here tonight, Alex," he said. "That's why I'm here in DC getting a college degree; that's why I'm here offering you a hand. You're not going to let my pastor down, are you?"

She smiled and pondered it.

"You're not going to let me down. Who'd throw me those great pa.s.ses?" he asked.

"Suppose I did want to walk again?" she asked. "How do I do it?"

"One small step at a time," he said. "And keep your eyes lifted unto the hills. You're on this earth for a reason, and it's not just to throw me pa.s.ses on the basketball court, though I wouldn't mind some of those real soon."

"I owe you," she said.

"Then get over for some basketball tomorrow. I'm averaging a lousy ten points a game since you've been missing."

"I'll be there," she said.

An hour later, she sat before the Glock on her living room table. Slowly, she lifted it.

She methodically removed the bullets from the magazine and put them in the cardboard box they came in. She placed the weapon back in its case and locked it. She put the empty magazine in a drawer in the kitchen that held odds and ends like packing tape and a nesting set of screwdrivers and an extension cord she didn't need. Not that she couldn't get it, but it would take effort and, more importantly, time and maybe reflection.

She walked back to the sofa, collapsed, and cried until there were no more tears.

She had promised. And she would go on.

The next day, she started going through the mail that had gathered for her. Her small mailbox in the lobby had filled up long ago, so the rest of her mail had been left at the desk. When the concierge gave it to her it filled a respectable-sized box.

The task took a while.

She played basketball again the next night. She received hugs and tearful embraces from everyone she knew. Never in her life had she so realized how valuable a network of friends could be.

She phoned her boss, Mike Gamburian, the following morning and told him she was ready to return.

There was a pause. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Tell me I can come back before I change my mind," she said. "Please, Mike?"

"You pick the day," he said.

On Wednesday, March 25, she returned to work at Treasury.

She was ready to learn to walk again, one step at a time.

FIFTY-TWO.