“He was here, Maddie,” I whisper, “and he looked at me as . . .” As nobody has ever looked at me before, as if I were the most important person in the world, as if he were expending all his capacity and strength and experience to tell me that he was proud of me.

But of course I cannot say any of those things aloud. I can’t even really put them into words. Wimpy tears crowd into my throat, salty and bitter. Bitter because this is so good and so new, and yet it’s almost over before it’s even begun, and because I had no idea how amazing it feels to mean the world to someone. I mean the whole world to my father!

There’s not enough room inside me to cope with this sensation, and so I weep furious tears and clasp Maddie’s hand. I imagine that she’s holding my hand instead and drying my tears. This would have embarrassed me in the past—seven weeks ago, when I was still a child.

“Stop it!” I hear Eddie implore loudly but calmly.

The nurses have just stretched out my father’s arms and legs to allow Dr. Foss to carry out his pain test.

“But, Mrs. Tomlin, I need to stimulate the reflexes and muscle tone to check his motor functions.”

“Don’t, Dr. Foss. Stop bombarding us with medical jargon to justify hurting him. Stop it.” Eddie’s intimidating manner as she strides toward Dr. Foss forces him to retreat. “Leave him alone. Now! That’s enough!”

Fozzie sighs and says, “All right, if that’s what you want.” He clicks the lead back in and stows the pencil in the breast pocket of his coat. “However, to ensure that we don’t overlook—”

Eddie gives him such a withering glare that he’s unable to finish his sentence. “The patient may well be conscious but have no control of his motor system. Perhaps you’re simply causing him pain while he is incapable of defending himself. As his representative, I forbid you to torture him. Is there no other way?”

Dr. Foss glances at Dr. Saul, who turns to me and says, “Our managers are well known for their penny-pinching, but as we have the monster, we may as well use it.”

By the “monster” he means a special functional MRI scanner that measures activity in specific areas of the brain. It cost two million pounds and is referred to as England’s “mind reader.”