“Why did you go back to the hospital without her?” Martha asked.

“Tell me that part.

Tell me what you went back there to do.”

Mark took a long breath, and told her.

He had gone back four days after the first appointment, and he had gone looking, in plain terms, for a loophole.

He had sat down with a patient services coordinator and tried to build a case that the tests were not really urgent — that Irene had midterm exams coming up, that the family was dealing with some temporary scheduling difficulties, that surely, given all that, this could reasonably be pushed to a more convenient time.

He had gone there hoping a staff member would give him something, anything, a sentence he could take home and use, some official permission to keep doing nothing.