He did not look offended. That was the thing that stayed with me afterward. He looked resigned, in the specific way of a person who has seen that expression on a lot of faces and has stopped expecting any other one.

“Ma’am,” he said, and lifted his eyes to mine and held them, level and steady. “I know exactly what a nervous system looks like when it’s tearing itself apart. I’ve watched it happen. I’ve felt it happen, in my own body.” A pause.

“Let me try. If I make it worse, you throw me out, and I’ll go, and I won’t argue. But let me try first.”

I should have said no. Everything I knew said no. The protocols said no, the risk math said no, eleven years of hard-won caution said no.

I said nothing, and I stepped aside.

I have asked myself many times since what made me do it.