I had not braced for this: for the deliberate, casual stripping of a dying man’s life down to its studs, for a woman who could look at a Marine’s decorations and see only pocket money for a spa.

And I did not yet know that the medals were not even the worst of what had been done in that cold house while I was at sea.

Chapter 5 — It Is No Longer Medicine

A little later, a wave of pain took him — one of the acute crises his illness brought on — and he clutched his side and could not hide it.

I went at once for the bottle of liquid morphine his physician had prescribed for these episodes, kept on the bedside table.

Raymond caught my forearm before I could open it, with more strength than I thought he had left.