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1 0 9 R B Y P A S S E S S C O T T D A L G A R N O I thought this to be a drop-o√ a√air, but when Reception asks her for her living will, I decide to stay. I cannot remember her name, this quiet, duteous woman who I think of now like the shy aunt you never quite got to know. We wait in pre-op three hours before the surgeon shows up, and I take in the word, Mercy, printed upside-down on his head-wrap. He repeats what she already knows – that they cannot determine how many bypasses she will require until they open her chest and take a look. He says this without using the words open or chest and makes clear that he has little idea what surgery might buy her. After a silence that stings she lifts her eyes to ask if she might have a heart transplant. She is aware she is asking for something big – maybe not the moon, but surely one of the moons of Jupiter, it has so many. He blushes with practiced apologies and in a moment is gone. Any hope in the room bleeds out and I see abandonment bead up on the glossy 1 1 0 Y white wall behind her. She reads this, I think, in my eyes. Smiling crookedly, she says, ‘‘I got heart-lucky once. He was sixteen. Came in my bedroom window. Even sang to me. I thought to make him shush, but I couldn’t.’’ ...

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