“Fine. But I want you to get an echocardiogram every six months.”

The phone rings. Nate punches in a button, listens briefly, and says to whoever it is, “Thanks. Call security if it seems to get out of hand. Make sure nobody touches it.” He hangs up and says to Lucy, “Apparently, someone drove up in a red Ferrari that’s attracting quite a lot of attention.”

“Kind of ironic.” She gets up from the couch. “It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it.”

“I’ll drive it if you don’t want it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want it. It’s just nothing feels the same anymore. And that’s not entirely bad. Just different.”

“That’s the thing about what you’ve got. It’s something you don’t want. But it’s something more than what you had, because maybe it’s changed the way you look at things.” He walks her out. “I see it every day around here.”

“Sure.”

“You’re doing well.” He stops by the door that leads out to the waiting area and there’s no one to hear them, just the man behind the desk, who smiles a lot and is on the phone again. “I’d put you in the top ten percent of my patients in terms of how well you’re doing.”

“Top ten percent. I believe that’s a B-plus. I think I started out with an A.”

“No, you didn’t. You’ve probably had this thing forever and just didn’t know it until it became symptomatic. Are you talking to Rose?”

“She won’t face it. I’m trying not to resent her for it, but it’s hard. Really, really hard. It’s not fair. Especially to my aunt.”

“Don’t let Rose run you off, because that’s probably what she’s trying to do for the very reason you just said. She can’t face it.” He slips his hands into his lab coat pockets. “She needs you. She’s certainly not going to talk about it with anyone else.”

Outside the Cancer Center, a thin woman with a scarf wrapped around her bald head and two little boys are walking around the Ferrari. The valet rushes over to Lucy.

“They haven’t got too close. I’ve been watching. Nobody has,” he says in a low, urgent voice.

She looks at the two little boys and their sick mother, and walks over to the car, remotely unlocking it. The boys and their mother step back, and fear shows on their faces. The mother looks old but probably isn’t more than thirty-five.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Lucy. “But they’re smitten. They haven’t touched it.”

“How fast can it go?” the older boy asks, a redhead, maybe twelve.

“Let’s see, four-ninety horsepower, six speed, a four-point- three-liter V-eight, eighty-five hundred rpm and carbon-fiber rear diffuser panel.