She had been smiling at me continuously for about eleven minutes, a real smile, the kind people in that job have to be able to produce at will and which hers was not — hers was genuine and she had been pleased for me.

And it stopped, and underneath it was a woman who already knew something and had been hoping very much to get through her shift without being the one asked.

“Let me get the doctor for you,” she said.

And she had put her hand on the rail of the bed as she said it, which she had not done before, and she said it while already turning.

Nobody fetches a doctor because a husband is missing.