I told him it was not something that happens in a recovery area on the day of a delivery, that it is not a thing I would arrange on the strength of a telephone call, and that I had no intention of discussing your care or theirs with him in a corridor at twenty-five past nine in the morning.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he understood.” The doctor turned his hands over.

“And then he said that he was going to go and speak to somebody, and he asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

Part Thirty-Two: Proof

“He asked you to tell me he was sorry,” I said.

“That is what he said.”

“He asked a stranger to pass on an apology to his wife instead of waiting forty minutes in a chair.”