My Merck Manual lay open on her lap. I stopped dead in the doorway, but she’d heard me coming. She looked up at me, the skin of her face white and stretched so tight across her bones that I could see plainly what she’d look like dead. “Where did you get this?” she whispered, one hand spread across the page as though to hide it. I could see the words “Spinal Cord Injuries” at the top of the page.
