I take a pen from my school rucksack and write under today’s date: “Samuel Noam Valentiner (13) was here again.” I can’t think of anything else to say, and I imagine her reading it one day and asking me, “Why did you write that? ‘Was here again.’ You can find more original entries on a calendar!”

I give it another go. “It was normal in ancient Egypt for a cat owner to shave off his pet’s eyebrows when it died. Cats were buried with mummified mice. There is no record of the mice having their eyebrows shaved too.”

Good—or better at least. Now, something about her perhaps. “You keep your eyes open most of the time. Sometimes they’re closed, but no one knows if you’re asleep or not. You’re in a place where no one’s supposed to find you. I will shave off my eyebrows for the rest of my life if you never wake up again.”

I felt like writing “die” but chose not to, because you can’t be sure that the universe isn’t eavesdropping and might misunderstand. I have palpitations by the time I add a full stop. I can hear Scott saying, “Your whole life is a pretty long time, mon ami. Is this your new policy then? Promising to permanently disfigure yourself for girls you don’t even know?”

THE WOMAN who reads emotions just won’t leave. Quietly and dispiritedly, I slink away from the fifth and take the emergency staircase down to the second and my father.

Will Eddie be there? Eddie always brings along books to give me or leave for me. She sometimes comes in figure-hugging leathers, sometimes in a cocktail dress, and a few days ago I saw her online with the famous author Wilder Glass. They were walking arm in arm along a red carpet somewhere, he in a tuxedo and she in the dress she’d been wearing at the hospital that afternoon when she washed my father’s feet.

Dad is alone now, though. The lung machine is doing his breathing for him, and his face is impassive. I nod to the nurse who checks up on him every fifteen minutes. His name’s Dmitry and he’s Russian. When he turns my father over, he seems to do so with great ease. Dmitry has explained all the different devices assembled beside my father’s bed. My father is surrounded by catheter stands, recording devices, and other machines that almost appear to be feeding off him.

Dmitry has also told me about the various doctors. There are some who only check the depth of my father’s induced coma: the anesthetists. He calls them the “gas men.” Typically, his nickname for others responsible for urine, blood, and the like is “plumbers.” Then there are people like God and Dr. Foss, who keep an eye on the brain, and doctors who monitor my dad’s circulation.