Andrew Gross: 15 Seconds

Henry Steadman, the Boob Dude of Broward County.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Every once in a while my mind flashed back to my final sight of Hofer back in the shed. Much as I wanted to despise him, I wasn’t sure I could. Twisted as he was, he was acting as a father too, a desperate one, at least in the beginning. And I wondered, my mind drifting in and out, if the very things I held dear hadn’t been taken from him one by one-his career; his family; his dignity-would he have gone so off-kilter? Would he have just lived out his life? Were there millions of him, teetering on the same isolated precipice where life could go either way, made bitter by circumstances, but trudging on?

There was a knock on our door, and I figured one of the doctors had come to check my wound.

Instead, Carrie came in. Still in the same baby-blue sweatshirt and jeans.

I looked at her and felt a rush of warmth come over me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She smiled back at me. “Doing better I see.”

“Nothing I can’t patch up later when I’m back at the clinic.” I grinned.

Carrie smiled too. “How’s she doing?” she asked, looking at Hallie.

“She’s doing swell. She’s been through a lot, but she’ll be fine. In the end. You ought to know.” I knew she probably couldn’t wait to get back to her own son.

She nodded. “Guess I do.” She sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’ve talked to the sheriff’s office. They’re sending a team up here to chat with you.”

“ Chat, huh?”

“I don’t know if I’m exactly the person to speak for them, but I’m pretty sure you’re in the clear.”

“ Whew. Just when I was getting used to dodging bullets.”

“They’re sending Rowley,” Carrie said. “Since you guys seemed to get along so well…”

She gave me a held-back smile, but there was something beautiful in her teasing blue eyes.

“Everyone’s been telling me ‘well done,’ ” I said. “But the truth is, you’re the one who deserves all that. Not me…”

She pressed her lips together, shrugging it off.

I took her hand. “So thank you. Without you … there’s just simply no way I’d be on Good Morning America Tuesday morning …” Carrie giggled. I looked over at Hallie. “I look at her and I wish I could think of a way.”

“I’ve, uh, actually been giving some thought to getting my eyes done.” She held back a smile again. “Maybe just around the edges. Here…”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t advise it. I don’t want you to change one single thing. Carrie…”

“Uh-huh?”

I brushed my hand against her cheek. I don’t know what was in my mind, but I stared into her beautiful blue eyes and probably never felt more gratitude or closeness to anyone in my life.

My voice caught with emotion.

“I just wanted to say… that I wouldn’t be here… Hallie wouldn’t be here…” I didn’t finish the sentence. “Just thanks.”

“I know,” she replied, and put her hand on mine.

We lingered there a moment. Until we both became a little self-conscious.

“I have something for you…” I said, and tried to move, but pain lanced through me. “It’s over there. In my pocket.” I pointed to my pants, folded over a chair.

“I’ll get it.” She went over and reached inside. “Forty dollars!” She widened her eyes in mock appreciation. “You’re sweet!”

“Keep digging. I think there’s another ten in there.”

She laughed, and eventually came out with what I was hoping she would find.

Her husband’s driver’s license.

“It got me into the prison to see Amanda. So I guess, without it, who knows how this thing might have turned out.”

She held it in both hands, nodding a bit wistfully. “I told you he was the most resourceful guy I knew.”

“You did. And I think he’d be proud of his wife.”

Carrie smiled, a little blush coming into her face, and then she opened her purse. She reached for her wallet to put the license back, back from where she had taken it that first time in the car. But then she seemed to hesitate. Instead, she tucked it into the side pocket of her purse. As if she was putting it safely away for keeps.

Not just away, but behind her.

Then she caught me staring at her and gave me a rosy smile.

“I think I’ll keep it where I can never lose it again.” She tapped her chest. “In here.”

“A good spot,” I said, and then we didn’t say anything for a long time.

Boaco, Nicaragua. Five months later…

“Mira!” I said to the beaming thirteen-year-old girl in the hospital bed. Look at you!

Pilar had smiled a lot before the operation, but now, in her hospital gown, her bandages just removed, that smile was a mile wide.

Maybe for the first time in her life.

She had lived her entire life with a grossly distorted mouth and jaw. Now she looked like any happy teenager, or would soon. I had to do one more procedure to smooth out the cleft around her upper lip. One day, it was possible no one would even know.

“Tú eres hermosa, Pilar!” I said proudly. You’re beautiful! “One day you will be the prettiest girl at the dance.”

She blushed shyly as her mother came up to me and put her arms around my waist and gave me a tearful hug.

“Gracias, gracias, Doctor,” she said, laying her head against my chest. Then she began to speak rapidly in Spanish, most of which went over my head, other than the words regalode Dios, which meant “gift from God” and á ngeldel cielo. Angel from heaven.

“It’s an honor,” I said, my hands to my heart. Then, “Ella es mi hija,” pointing to Hallie.

This is my daughter.

Excited, Hallie went up to Pilar. “Look how beautiful you look!” She had been helping the girl learn English for the past weeks.

The young girl beamed with a light in her eyes. “ Gracias . I mean, thank you…”

Hallie pulled out her camera. “Do you mind? Unafotografía … ? ”

“ Sí! Yes.” Pilar nodded brightly. I stepped away so that her mother could come next to her.

“No, Dad,” Hallie said, with one of those “duh” kind of smiles, “she wants it with you !”

Pilar nodded. The mother nodded as well.

“Con mucho gusto!” I said, and sat down next to her. I took her hand and leaned in close.

Hallie pressed the shutter.

She showed the digital shot to Pilar, who grew excited. “I’ll send it to you,” Hallie said.

“Thank you so much, misses,” Pilar said haltingly again.

“Hallie,” my daughter insisted. Then, glancing at her watch: “Dad, look at the time!”

“We have to go,” I said apologetically to a chorus of even more graciases . “Everything esperfecto. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow!”

We hurried out of the hospital, Hallie strapping her bag around her shoulder, and jumped into the old Land Rover I was driving here, which was on the street in front. I started it up. Out of the central square with its old church and government center. Over cobblestone streets, which quickly turned to gravel as we pulled out of town.

Stone buildings gave way to metal-roofed storefronts and huts. Fruit vendors on the sides of the road hawking their bounties. Kids kicking a soccer ball on bumpy fields. And those beautiful green hills that surrounded the village.

“That smile was worth a million dollars,” my daughter said.

“That’s the way I kind of feel about yours,” I said back.