Part Nineteen: The Tests Took Longer Than They Should Have

At the hospital the pre-operative checks dragged on well past the point where they ought to have been finished.

Then a doctor came in whose eyes were kind and extremely tired.

We had been told to arrive at seven.

We arrived at twenty to seven, because Kevin.

The first hour and a half was ordinary.

A bracelet on my wrist, questions I had answered on three previous forms, a gown, the compression stockings that nobody warns you about, a cannula in the back of my left hand put in beautifully by a student who apologised twice.

Kevin sat in the chair by the window with the bag between his feet and his telephone face down on his thigh, and every so often he would reach over and put two fingers on my ankle through the blanket.