We talked for about twenty minutes: I didn’t leave until the last possible moment. A lot of it was about her, how exhausted she’d been, how difficult one of her donors was, how much she loathed this nurse or that doctor. I waited to see a flash of the old Laura, with the mischievous grin and inevitable wisecrack, but none of that came. She talked faster than she used to, and although she seemed pleased to see me, I sometimes got the impression it wouldn’t have mattered much if it wasn’t me, but someone else, so long as she got to talk.
