An agonizing screech of metal scraping against metal jangled Marissa Blumenthal’s already frayed nerves as the aging MBTA subway train strained to navigate the sharp turn into the Harvard Square station in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Marissa closed her eyes for a moment in a vain attempt to shield herself from the grating racket as she clutched an upright pole. She wanted to get out of the train. Besides peace and quiet, she needed fresh air. Wedged among a crowd of six-foot-plus giants, five-foot Marissa felt more claustrophobic than usual. The air in the subway car felt oppressively warm. It was a rainy February day and the damp smell of moist wool added to her discomfort.

Like everyone else in the train, Marissa tried to avoid eye contact with the people pressed up against her. It was a mixed crowd. Harvard Square attracted both ends of the spectrum. To Marissa’s right was an Ivy League lawyer-type with a black ostrich briefcase, his nose buried in a crisply folded copy of The Wall Street Journal. Directly in front of her was a fetid-breathed skinhead, outfitted in a denim jacket from which the sleeves had been cut. He had clumsily tattooed swastikas on each knuckle of his hands. To her left was a massive black man with a ponytail of dreadlocks, wearing gray sweats. His sunglasses were so dark that Marissa could not see his eyes as she furtively glanced in his direction.

With a final lurch that all but sent Marissa to the floor, the train stopped and the doors slid open. Breathing a sigh of relief, Marissa stepped out onto the platform. Normally she would have driven her car from her office and left it under the Charles Hotel, but she wasn’t sure how she would be feeling after her minor surgical procedure, so she’d decided it was more prudent to take the T. There had been talk of her having some kind of sedative or intravenous painkiller, an idea that Marissa was not averse to. She freely admitted that she was not good with pain. If she was groggy after the anesthesia, she thought it best not to drive.

Marissa hurried past a trio of street musicians playing for commuters’ donations and quickly went up the stairs to the street. It was still raining so she paused briefly to raise her folded umbrella.

Marissa buttoned her trench coat and held her umbrella tight as she traversed the square and headed up Mount Auburn Street. Sudden gusts of wind foiled her attempt to stay dry; by the time she reached the Women’s Clinic at the end of Nutting Street, a plethora of raindrops were sprinkled across her forehead like beads of perspiration. Beneath the glass-enclosed walkway that spanned the street and connected the main building of the clinic to its overnight ward and emergency facilities, Marissa shook her umbrella and folded it closed.