IV line?

That meant she was in a hospital. She was breathing; she could feel the oxygen tickling her nose, the tubes irritating her. But it was reassuring. She was alive. But why shouldn’t she be alive? Why was she surprised?

Her brain felt numb and empty, and even the emptiness was hazy. Maybe she was dying and that’s why they’d left her alone. Where was Tennyson? Oh, yes, he’d gone to Chicago two days before, some sort of medical thing. She’d been glad to see him go, relieved, just plain solidly relieved that she wouldn’t have to hear his calm, soothing voice that drove her nuts.

A white-coated man with a bald head, a stethoscope around his neck, came into the room. He leaned down right into her face. “Mrs. Frasier, can you hear me?”

“Oh, yes. I can even see the hairs in your nose.”

He straightened, laughed. “Oh, that’s too close then. Now that my nose hairs aren’t in the way, how do you feel? Any pain?”

“No, I can barely feel my brain. I feel vague and stupid.”

“That’s because of the morphine. You could be shot in the belly, get enough morphine, and you wouldn’t even be pissed at your mother-in-law. I’m your surgeon, Dr. Ted Larch. Since I had to remove your spleen-and that’s major abdominal surgery-we’ll keep you on a nice, steady dose of morphine until this evening. We’ll begin to lighten up on it after that. Then we’ll get you up to see how you’re doing, get your innards working again.”

“What else is wrong with me?”

“Let me give you the short version. First, let me promise you that you’ll be all right. As for having no spleen, nothing bad should happen in the long run because of that. An adult doesn’t really need his spleen. However, you will have all the discomfort of surgery-pain for several days. You’ll have to be careful about when and what you eat, and as I said, we’ll have to get your system working again.