The physiotherapist is kneeling behind the girl. Almost imperceptibly she shakes her head. Maddie can’t see this, but I can. “No response,” Liz mouths.

I watch Maddie, who’s allowing her arms and legs to be yanked around like a puppet’s, but this time I detect no movement beneath her impassive expression. Her coma seems very different from my father’s, though. She keeps so still that it’s as if she doesn’t want to be found, but she’s not as distant and immersed as he is. She’s in there somewhere, hoping that nobody will come across her, like a little girl playing hide-and-seek.

I don’t need to ask how she is. She’s not well. Not well at all. Wherever she is, she’s completely alone. I peer into her eyes and strain even harder to feel something more or communicate that I know how she’s feeling. And yet I have my doubts. Maybe I’m just imagining all of this.

“May I come again tomorrow, Maddie?” I ask her after a while.

Since she doesn’t immediately say no, I interpret her silence as an “Oh, all right then.”

“I’m going to escort you back to the lift now, Sam,” says Marion in a calm, friendly voice, but beneath the sweetness I pick up a hum of irritation.

What have I done wrong? Have I done something wrong?

WE’VE BARELY ENTERED the nurse’s common room when Marion hisses, “If you think you’re going to pay the occasional visit to a girl in a coma for some kind of thrill, Samuel Valentiner, perhaps even take the odd covert snap to boast to your school friends until it eventually gets tedious and you don’t feel like coming, I’m warning you that we will never, I repeat, never, let you in here again. Do I make myself clear?”

Wordlessly I nod and feel my cheeks grow hot again.

“Good, I’m glad. It hasn’t been clear to the sightseers who’ve come up here in the past to ogle some vegetables. If it’s clear to you, then I won’t need to have a word with your dad about his son poking fun at helpless children, and—”

“You wouldn’t have far to go. My dad’s on the second floor.”

Marion exhales slowly and closes her eyes, as if she were pulling herself together. Her anger dissolves like a tablet in water. “I’m sorry, Samuel. I’m very sorry to hear that.” Her blue eyes are gentle now, but they are brimming with questions.

“We don’t give up easily here, Sam,” she says gravely.

“May I come again?” I ask, to preempt any further questions about my father, for that’d be like walking across a bed of nails. “I don’t mind asking Maddie’s parents for their permission.”