‘I know, love. I know,’ he said, and he kissed her forehead and lifted her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way down the hall. She hung onto him as though her very life depended on it, and then he placed her down in front of the theatre door. She found her feet in her red stilettos, stood and breathed in and out, and put her hand on the door. He placed his over hers and together they pushed it open. She turned to him. ‘Thank you.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘I love you too.’

The door closed behind her leaving her husband outside in the hallway.

In the anaesthetic room Lisa took her hand and together they walked to the bed.

‘I like your style,’ she said, pointing to the shoes.

She sat up on the bed and Lisa helped her remove and place them and her dressing gown on the tray under it. All the while Grace was breathing in and out, calming herself. It’s OK, you’re OK. Are you there, Rabbit? Are you with me?

I’m here, Gracie.

Lisa reintroduced her to the anaesthesiologist whom she’d met when her breasts were being marked. They went through a checklist for the third time that morning.

‘What are you having done?’

‘A bilateral risk-reducing mastectomy with dermal sling and implant.’

‘Any metalwork?’

‘No.’

‘Allergies?’

‘No.’

‘Any anaesthetic in the past?’

‘No.’

Lisa checked Grace’s name band and gently pulled her gown down to reveal two large arrows on her chest. Are the arrows really necessary? When they were happy with their checklist, the anaesthesiologist inserted a cannula. He told Grace to close her eyes and breathe in and out.

‘Nice and easy – slow down, we don’t want you to hyperventilate,’ he said. Easy for you to say, motherfucker.

‘When’s the last time you counted sheep?’ he said.

‘I was probably ten,’ she said with her eyes screwed closed, and between mad breaths.

‘Well, I was going to suggest you count them now, but no need, we’re all done.’

She opened one eye to see a yellow port sticking out of her skin. Son of a . . .

‘Trouper,’ he said.

‘Time to go to sleep, Grace,’ Lisa said as the anaesthesiologist placed a needle into the cannula and Grace felt warm and weird and then her brain drowned and she was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Juliet

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Juliet