“What was this injury you mentioned?” He sat beside her on the couch and held her hand. There could be few things in life that could inspire greater helplessness than to sit beside a friend in agony and not be able to stop it. She gulped the air, when she could. Her whole abdomen was one massive cramp.

“I got hurt. It’s a long story.”

“The injury involved your gallbladder?”

“All my guts were hurt. Please, I don’t want to talk about it. Just stay here with me.” She winced and bent into a ball. “I’m so scared.”

He put his free hand on the side of her cheek. “I’m only asking so I can figure out what to do for you. Do you have pain medication?”

“Yes. Percocet. I tried to take some at the beginning of the attack but I vomited it up. It makes you nauseous if your stomach’s empty. But I haven’t been able to eat. And when I threw up it hurt so bad, I’m afraid to take it again.”

“Maybe you took too much at once. Let me cut the pills into quarters. You can take one with a sip of water, and if it stays down, you can take another quarter. You have to stop this pain, you can’t go on like this.”

She nodded weakly. “I’ll try that.”

He found the bottle of pills spilt over the bathroom counter. He took a knife from her kitchen and diced a pill. When he returned to her side, she was crying into her pillow.

“This is so humiliating,” she said.

He handed her a glass of water. “Pain makes a coward of us all. Come, swallow a piece and we’ll see how it goes. My mother used to have gallstone attacks but they would pass.”

She raised her head and looked at him like a wounded child. “What if this stone is really stuck?”

Then she had to go to the hospital. But she did not want to hear that.

Kathy got a quarter of a pill down. A few minutes later she managed to swallow another piece. An hour after entering her apartment, he had coaxed two ten-milligram Percocets into her belly without her throwing up. The medication slowly took effect and her breathing eased. She was able to sit up, although she remained in considerable pain.

“What does it feel like?” he asked as he brought her a second glass of water. He suspected she was dehydrated on top of everything else.

“Pressure. Like something is seriously blocked.”

He nodded. “It’s the common bile duct. I studied the anatomy when my mother got sick.”

She rolled her head in his direction. “How’s your mother now, Simon?”

He hesitated. “She’s fine.”

Kathy was mildly stoned. “She must love you very much.”

He nodded past his own pain. “Yeah. She kind of likes me.”