I hate lying, and yet I do it as naturally as if the truth weren’t even an option. What is truth, anyway? A question of sufficient imagination. And how are you supposed to tell your partner why all of a sudden you’ve started to take care of an ex-boyfriend you’ve never mentioned? The mere fact of not having mentioned him would arouse any other man’s suspicions, but maybe not Wilder Glass’s.

I don’t know why I’m here, but I can’t help myself. It would cost me too much energy to deny myself, so I subject myself to this torture and get on with it.

There are signs and posters all over the place here. There are some bloody rules in the changing room, because presumably, without them, most visitors would beat and shout at their relatives to get some kind of reaction out of them.

1. Behave calmly, kindly, and respectfully in the patients’ presence.

2. Avoid hurried movements and walk quietly.

3. We do not talk about patients; we talk to them.

4. Approach patients slowly and always so that they can see you and will not be startled when you touch or speak to them.

EVEN MARRIED COUPLES don’t treat each other like this. Henri hasn’t moved a muscle in these two weeks. He hasn’t blinked or moaned. Nothing. Frozen in an invisible block of anesthetics and painkillers, cooled by the machines that have adjusted his body temperature downward. The depth of his sedation is measured every eight hours. Minus five on the Richmond scale means unreachable; minus three and he’d have dragged himself back into the world; minus one and he’d be awake. I imagine him valiantly trudging toward minus one through a black void.

“Ready, Mrs. Tomlin?” Dr. Foss’s voice is quiet and respectful too. To him everybody is presumably a patient, suffering from some illness or other.

“Yes,” I answer, but I’m not. I’m afraid. Fear is a rampant creeper tightening its tendrils around my heart, my stomach, and my head, trying to force me to run to the end of the earth and hide there in the darkness.

Dr. Foss looks at me with soulful eyes. He’s a huge bear like Baloo. His boss, Dr. Saul, is a huge asshole. He isn’t thrilled that I want to be there during the attempt to wake Henri up.

“You’re afraid, Tomlin”—Dr. Saul calls me Tomlin, as if he were a drill instructor and I a soldier—“and your fear disturbs me during my work and infects Mr. Skinner.”

Dr. Foss interjects, “Dr. Saul doesn’t mean it like that, Mrs. Tomlin.”

Dr. Saul whirls around. “Don’t you ever again dare to suggest that I don’t mean what I say! Never again. It’s an insult to my intelligence, which, unlike you, I do not spoil with flattery. Their relatives’ worry is toxic to these patients.”