Dr. Kriss made a sympathetic clucking sound. “The transfusion was performed before she got to the hospital,” she said.

“By Common Dreams.”

“That’s right.” She licked her thumb and turned the page. “Were it not for their intervention, Floella would’ve died of blood loss before arriving at Ascension. As it stands, she’s still in critical condition, but the solution is flowing.”

“You think this will be possible with all those people,” I asked, “all seventeen thousand?”

“It will never be possible to get there in time all the time. But we’re going to save millions of lives.”

“And make millions of dollars.”

“Well”—at last her focus broke from the page—“that’s what my bosses think, and that’s why they slap these protections on everything we do. But would you believe me if I said I don’t care about the money?” Before I could respond, she said, “Don’t answer, sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

Dr. Kriss took the napkin, already balled up, from the plate. She unfolded it and balled it up again.

“I was awake half the night thinking about what I’d tell you,” she said. “Not about the solution—talking science is easy—but about myself. It’s the first time I’ve seriously considered how to present my life alongside my work, you know, what story to tell. And then I started going through your articles. Like I said, I was impressed, so I kept going back and back, all the way to some of your earliest work. You’re from Seattle?”

“Los Angeles,” I said, “but I did an internship in Seattle.”

“The Post-Intelligencer, right?”

I made a pointless note, underlined it twice. “That’s right.”

“I found the piece about the igloo,” she said. “It was very moving. It’s incredible what you went through.”

I didn’t want this to become about me. “Everything turned out okay,” I said.

“There’s a passage I kept going back to. It’s at the end, after you’ve described your father in the hospital, how the sight of him strangely opened up your speech again. You talk about how unlikely it seems that you’re a writer now, that you made a profession from your voice. But it’s all tinged with this sadness, this regret, that you lost the last year of your father’s life, like you just assumed he’d still be there when you were ready to speak again. That piece was very personal for you, wasn’t it?”

I said yes, it was, and she said, “Then I want to say something personal too. Is that okay?”

“Of course. Please, go on.”