I was a financial liability they were actively trying to manage, and a liability that understands its own value is a dangerous thing.

I pressed the call button for the night nurse.

There is a particular kind of calm that is not peace.

Peace is warm; this was cold.

It came over me in that dim room like water closing over a stone, and I understood even as it happened that it was the most useful thing that had ever occurred to me.

All my life I had been a feeler — quick to cry, quick to soften, quick to give someone the benefit of a doubt they had not earned.