I wanted to freeze time in that half-second of not-yet-knowing.

But news does not wait on our willingness to hear it, and David was already drawing breath, and the doorway was already closing behind me.

Chapter 9 — The Diagnosis

David crossed to a desk at the side of the room and drew out a thick medical file, and he came back and held it, not quite handing it to me yet, as though he needed to say the words first, out loud, before I saw them written down.

“Six months ago,” he said, “Marcus went in for what was supposed to be a routine assessment.