Chip scans the menu, muttering, “Great. Oh yeah, great.” He looks up at me, nods. “You were right, this is exactly what I wanted.” He orders a double cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate malted. I start to order, then remember my diet.

“Just coffee,” I tell Lindy.

“Aw, bullshit.”

“Okay, a burger, then.”

“Fries?”

“Okay. And a malt, too.”

She scribbles down our orders. Then, looking more closely at Chip, she says, “Whoa. What’d you do to your head, fella?”

I feel myself stop breathing. Then Chip says, “Well, I had a little surgery. They took out a tumor.”

“Oh, my God,” Lindy says. “I’m sorry. I thought you had an accident, I had an uncle, he had a toboggan accident, and he had stitches in his head just like that.”

“I wish it were that.”

“I’m so sorry.” I have never seen Lindy blush, but she is colored a bright red now.

She goes back to the counter, yells the order to Al while she slaps away the hand of a regular who has tried to untie her apron.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Chip.

“Happens all the time,” he says. “I’m used to it.”

“It won’t take too long for those sutures to be gone. And your hair will grow back quickly.”

“Right.”

There is a moment of silence, and then Chips says, “So, how come you never got married?”

“Well. Never got asked, outside of Billy Harris, who asked me to marry him in kindergarten. But that didn’t count, because he proposed to all the other girls in the class, too. After that, though …” I smile, shrug.

“Oh, listen, I … It’s none of my business. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m used to it.”

He smiles. And then his face changes and he looks away, turns his fork slowly upside down, then right side up. He leans across the table, speaks quietly. “How do you think I got this, Myra?” His voice is so plaintive, so vulnerable.

I shake my head, my throat tight.

“No clue?”

“No, not really.”

He sits back. “Okay. So you’re going to come every day, right?”

“For the time being.”

“Uh-huh. Check my incision, and then all that other stuff: See if I’m starting to get confused, see how many times a day I barf, or have a seizure, or writhe in pain. Is that it?”

“Well—”

“‘Fun, huh? And let’s not forget the all important ‘patient’s thoughts and feelings’! Let’s see if I can remember. ‘Problem: Grieving, anticipatory. Intervention: Redirect negative thinking.’”

I swallow. “Very good.”

“I know you’ve been told I’m ‘refusing treatment.’”