“I don't want to hurt you. You're hurting yourself.”

“Not true. You want honesty? I stumbled at the dance. I felt faint when I realized the moment had come and you wanted to end things. I simply fell. I didn't try to evade the truth. Although I was afraid, yes.”

“Tell me you'll be graceful now, Gretchen.”

“You want it easy.”

“Tell me we can get beyond this.”

“To a divorce? The house is mine. Where will you live? In some dingy, little apartment in a bad neighborhood?”

He looked startled. She had scored. “Let's not get into that. The lawyers will work things out so that they are fair.”

“Did you tell her about the back taxes we owe?”

“I refuse to talk about this. That's business. Right now is personal.”

“Okay, it's personal. You want to leave me for a younger blonde with black roots and a quiet voice.”

“How do you know all that?”

“No great detective work involved there. She's blonde with roots because you like blondes, and I'm blonde and no woman over twenty is a natural blonde. She's quiet, the better to listen to her hero. No doubt she drinks too much, too, or sings too loud like I do? She fancies herself in control, but sometimes she does outrageous, unbelievable things? She has to do something obnoxious.”

“No, she doesn't.”

Gretchen threw her magazine on the floor. “I really don't want to know about her and her delicate sensibilities!”

A drawn-out wail from behind the plastic curtain split her sentence in half.

“This isn't the place,” Craig said.

“It's the only place. After tonight, you won't see me. You'll be busy with her.”

“Please, Gretch, let's get going.” He punched the cell phone again. Again, there was no answer. He stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, one eye on the window. “Where's that damn nurse?” He checked the clock on the wall.

The Brit returned, successful, with a resident in tow. He sat back down in his chair in front of the sink. The mother removed herself from the bed. The tall, thin doctor, black bags big as old-fashioned doctor satchels pouched under his eyes, leaned momentarily against the wall for support, then moved toward the bed. “Where does it hurt?” he asked.

“It freaking hurts there, and there! It hurts all the way underneath!” she said. “I went to this clinic last week? And they gave me painkillers, that's it! Can you believe it? And now I end up here!”

“When did the pain get really bad?”

“Two days ago.”

“And when did you originally injure yourself?”

“Last weekend, on Saturday night. A week ago.”

“How did you do it?”

“I was frolicking,” she said. Weirdly, she giggled. “I was frolicking in the bushes, and I fell, and a twig or something caught on my nipple ring, you know?”

A shocked pause stopped all activity for a few seconds. The resident, who probably had seen it all and heard it all, paused in his scribbling. Even he seemed rattled. Gretchen held herself utterly still. Craig's mouth hung open, stalled at the start of a sentence.

“I never frolic,” said the doctor, and the relief in his voice-if such was the result of frolicking, then by God, he was glad to put in thirty-six-hour shifts for the rest of his natural life-shook the other people in the room, on both sides of the curtain out of their momentary arrest.

“Too busy to frolic,” the mother said. “You must work very hard.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “Um, you'll need to remove your jewelry for surgery, Ms. Heller.”

“All of it? Some of them won't go back in. They're permanent.”

“Okay,” the resident said. “Fine.”

“They made me remove my wedding ring,” Gretchen whispered to Craig. “Said you can't have anything metal in the operating room.”

“They don't want to tangle with her,” Craig said. “Don't want to get stuck with something sharp. Holy Christ, what's the matter with those parents? She looks completely savage. Her parents ought to be teaching her more about what it means to be human.”

“You're how old?” the resident asked Katie.

“Twenty-one.”

“Smoke?”

“Yep.”

“For how long?”

“Since I was ten. That's… uh…”

“Eleven years,” her mother offered helpfully.

“Right. Eleven years.”

“Drink?” the resident, from here on out unflappable, said.

“Yeah, to excess, regularly.”

Craig, listening across the curtain, ruffled his hair again, clearly quite upset.

And despite the obvious heat of the story bubbling behind Katie's words, the resident ignored the implications and moved right along. “Anything today?”

“No.”

“Street drugs?”

“No.”

Craig snorted. Gretchen put a hand to his lips to shush him. “Yeah,” he whispered, “she was running naked through the bushes and she doesn't take drugs. Right.”

“I imagine the staff know instantly what lies are being told. Like when they asked how much I weighed…” Gretchen said. “They can probably tell by looking.”

“Oh, you. You don't lie very well. Every crazy thing you do, you eventually confess.”

“You didn't know I knew about your girlfriend.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe I wasn't ready until now.”

“Prescriptions?” the resident continued with the girl.

The father stood up. “I've got the list,” he said. “Already gave it to the nurse.”

The resident's head stayed bent over his clipboard. “Read 'em off.”

Katie's father listed at least a dozen medications in a clear English accent. The first ones, familiar names like Xanax, came out brightly, as though he were reciting a list of breakfast cereals. Several others he had trouble pronouncing, but he struggled until he had conveyed the information, and put the paper back into his pocket, satisfied.

“Okay, I was wrong,” Craig said. “She didn't need street drugs when she could get high legally ten different ways every day.”

“Diagnosis?” asked the resident through the curtain, a paragon of dispassion.

“Bipolar,” Katie said, sounding almost happy at being truly pegged. “And…”

At this point, Craig bumped into Gretchen's table and upset the water pitcher, so they didn't hear the rest of the diagnosis. But the next question from the doctor regained their attention. “Are you sexually active?”

“Not anymore,” Katie said, again filling her words with portent.

“One of those drugs that's supposed to make her sane must inhibit her libido,” Craig said, keeping his voice quiet, obviously fascinated.

“Where can I get some?” asked Gretchen. “Stop you from wanting to screw your newest blonde and any other willing women in your future. Nip your desire in the bud. Make you act your age.”

“Don't be bitter, Gretchen. That's ugly.”

“I'm not pretty but you used to think I was. I guess now all your blind loving goes her way. Now you think she's pretty. Now you see me in front of you, faded. I thought you had more character, Craig. You could have resisted.”

“I couldn't. You think you can control everything.”

“I do have control, Craig.”

“Nobody controls life.”

“I make a dozen decisions every day to regulate my behavior, to keep to the path I've picked. I don't grab for the man making eye contact in the elevator, even if he's handsome, and I'm lonely and ignored. I don't steal at the store even if it's something I want and nobody's looking. I won't sell my soul for a nickel!”

“Here you go again, hysterical. Souls at stake, instead of a failed relationship.”

“Out-of-control is so easy. You didn't make a conscious choice when you looked too closely at a woman and started noticing her perfume, and then took it further and talked to her. Touched her.”

“Gretchen, it isn't as if you don't do crazy things. You know you do when you drink.”

“I'm not proud of that. It's not who I really am.”

“You had to know eventually. I'm glad it's out.”

“I didn't want you to tell me. I wanted it to burn out. Now, you've told me, it's real.”