Chapter 35: Good news day

DEACON

As a southeast Florida boy, born and bred, I observed the seasons a little differently than the rest of the world. Basically, it was hot, hotter, damn hot, fucking hot and the occasional rare cooler day, when temperatures hovered in the mid-seventies, humidity stayed low and the sun wasn't baking us. My grandparents talked about a time when we'd experienced a short winter even down here-weeks of temps in the low sixties or upper fifties, clear, crisp days with bright blue skies and soft sunshine-but over the years, that happened less and less frequently.

Global warming, man. It was a real thing.

Still, walking from my truck to the hospital, I noted that maybe we were moving out of fucking hot into simply damn hot. Fall was coming. Sometimes, its arrival felt like a mere rumor when we were in the pit of hell called summer, but eventually, the heat ebbed back until it was only hitting the mid-afternoon. Before too long, mornings and evenings would be almost comfortable aga