Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Today

The scan was at eight, at a hospital in Manhattan where the Zurich team had sent my records.

We sat in the waiting room at seven-fifteen, Adriano on my left and Philip on my right.

Bruno stood by the door and pretended to read a magazine upside down.

Philip was bouncing his knee.

"It will be fine," he said.

"Stop," I said.

"What?"

"I want a rule. Nobody predicts anything today."

They both looked at me.

"Not good, not bad," I said. "Not 'it'll be fine' and not 'if it comes back.' Not 'when you're better.'

I can do today. I can't do a guess."

"Livia," Philip said, "that's not how people-"

"It's how I do it."

"Today," Adriano said.

He said it at once, with no pause for argument.

Philip's shoulders lowered.

"Today," Philip said. "Fine. Today it's raining. That's a fact."

"Thank you," I said.

"Today," Adriano said, "Philip's tie is wrong."

"It's a pocket square," Philip said.

"Today it's wrong."

I laughed, and Adriano's hand closed over mine on the arm of the chair.

A tech with a clipboard called my name.

Adriano let go, and I felt the gap where his hand had been.

The machine was white and loud, and I lay inside it with my head in a cage.

The tech asked whether I wanted music.

I said yes. I think I would have said yes to anything that wasn't the knocking.

He found a station, and a woman began to sing something slow, in English, over a piano.

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