This Must Be the Place

by Maggie O'Farrell

There is him and there is his condition. They are two entities, forced to live in one body.

What redemption there is in being loved: we are always our best selves when loved by another. Nothing can replace this.

she must have nothing in her stomach, nothing in her system, before she has the anesthetic before the procedure, the abortion, the termination, the intervention, the surgery, the end.