On your insides.

A couple of cops walked by. I saw them through an opening in the patterned curtain that distinguished the place we were sitting as a room, somewhere distinct from the hallway.

I didn’t see what brought them in, C. said, reclined in the hospital bed. I shook my head no, shrugged. Me neither.

You’re just a background actor right now. That’s the plot of the episode, I said, gesturing past the nurses’ stand, toward the police who were out of sight.

Well now that you said that, C said, I’m fucked. This is when it all goes downhill.

A surgical resident came by to explain everything to us. She looked away slightly, watching her hands as she spoke, miming the things she would do. We go in with like two big chopsticks, she said. We see your appendix and we just—her two fingers like scissors sliced the air.

She said it would be an hour or so but it was much longer than that. C. got a blanket, tried to fall asleep.

On the other side of the curtain, behind me, a conversation between doctor and patient—half in English, half in Spanish—tumbled over and over itself as they talked through the translator. Question, question, answer, answer.

Did you know you are pregnant?

¿Sabías que estás embarazada?

No.

No.