“I wanted to be certain I got to it,” she had said, turning a page.

Now, ebullient with good news, he stood at the foot of her bed. “Hi, luv,” he said. She was going through a fervent emotional involvement with English musical groups, an infatuation to which he prostituted himself shamelessly. “I know a girl says I look like the character who’s always on the cover of that magazine. What’s his name?”

“Alfred E. Neumann?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re ever so much better looking.” She cocked her head to look at him and he saw that the dark rings had deepened under her eyes and that her face was thinner, with pain-lines around the nose. When first he had seen the face it had been vibrant and impish. Now, even though the freckles showed starkly against the sallowing skin, still it was a face that promised great adult attractiveness.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’d better be careful about paying me compliments. Howard might come after me.” Howard was her boy friend. They were forbidden by her parents to go steady, she had confided to Adam one night, but they went steady anyway. Sometimes she read him portions of Howard’s letters.

He knew she was trying to make him jealous of Howard and was touched and flattered.

“He’s coming to see me this weekend.”

“Why don’t you ask him to make it next weekend, instead?”

She stared at him, alerted by the chronic patient’s invisible warning system. “Why?”

“You’ll have good news for him. We have a kidney for you.”

“Oh, God.” Bonita Garland’s eyes were exultant. She set down her knitting and looked at her daughter.

“I don’t want it,” Susan said. Her thin fingers bent the covers of the magazine.

“Why not?” Adam asked.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Susan,” her mother said. “We’ve been waiting so long for this.”

“I’ve become used to things the way they are. I know what to expect.”

“No, you don’t,” he said gently. He took her fingers away from the magazine and held them between his hands. “Unless we operate things will become worse. Much worse. After we operate, things will be better. No more headaches. No more nights spent hooked up to the damn machine. In a little while you can go back to school. You can go to dances with Howard.”

She closed her eyes. “Will you promise me nothing will go wrong?”

Jesus. He saw her mother, smiling with painful understanding, nod at him.

“Of course,” he said.

Bonita Garland went to the girl and took her in her arms. “Darling, it’s going to be just fine. You’ll see.”

“Momma.”

Bonita pressed her daughter’s head to her breast and began to rock. “Susie-Q,” she said. “Oh, thank God, we’re lucky people.”

“Momma, I am just so scared.”

“Don’t you be silly. You heard Dr. Silverstone give his word.”

He went out of the room and walked downstairs. Neither of them had asked where the kidney was coming from. Next time he saw them, he knew, they would feel ashamed about that.