“I can’t leave her,” I say. I can’t fucking leave her. It takes me a moment to realize the nurses’ lips are moving—that they’ve been talking in French. They switch to English, thinking I can’t understand them. My mind is all over the fucking place. “Sir, you need to sit down. We’ll get you cleaned up and looked at.” “Come here,” the other says. She leads me to a chair in the hallway, out of the waiting room and next to a large white scale and counter. “I can’t leave her,” I say again. “I have to go back there.”
