Whether it’s as a soldier or a trembling impediment to Henri’s recovery, I am here. I breathe, and with each exhalation, I seek to blow my anxiety somewhere far over the horizon. An author I publish taught me that trick. It had something to do with martial arts, a way of suppressing memory.

Blow it away. Maybe Dr. Saul is correct and my panic is poisonous. Then again, maybe not. I don’t want to run the risk, so I decide not to be scared and I blow my fear a long, long way away.

“Are you sure you’re ready, Mrs. Tomlin?” Dr. Foss asks.

I nod. Another lie. Breathe out, Eddie. I’ve had no idea what I’ve been doing here for the past fifteen days—I just do it.

We walk past A and B, past the cubicles, each with a bed in it, and in each bed an individual fate. Fingers quiver, eyelids twitch; the battle for life goes on in silence, far below the surface. I read somewhere that an induced coma is exactly halfway between life and death.

Is Henri already thinking in the language of the dead? He’s lying in cubicle C7. I go over to the bed and reach for his hand. Dr. Foss adjusts his tie and carefully loosens Henri’s cooling sleeves. “The brain doesn’t like being inactive for a long period of time. It’s like a car: if it simply stands around, its condition deteriorates. Machines like to be used, then they run smoothly.”

Dr. Saul stands there like a stocky blond tree at the head of Henri’s bed, a brain scan in his left hand. He rolls his eyes in irritation at the head of the intensive care unit. “Oh for God’s sake, Fozzie. Do stop butchering metaphors in my presence. The brain is not a machine, or else we’d have some idea of how it works. It’s like leavened dough: we knead it this way and that until we run out of ideas. In this particular case, we don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going to happen. Got that?”

I know Dr. Saul’s right, but I dearly wish he weren’t.

Dr. Foss smiles at me, and his smile says, Yeah, well, that’s what he thinks, but after all, he is the best.

The fearful creeper shoots out its tendrils into all my muscles at once. Into my tummy, shoulders, and neck. Every strand of my being is as taut as a drum, and I hold my breath, as if I want to bring time to a standstill so the worst cannot happen. Time pays no attention to me and catapults me back ten years into the past.