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I had Rafe take his right hand off at the wrist and give it back to him in a bag. He had to learn to write with the left. He lives in Rotterdam now, and I understand he's moved on.

I keep the photographs of that in the same box as the photographs of her. I've never moved them. I'm aware of what that means and I'd rather not discuss it.

And then there are the Sundays.

A window on the second floor of a building in Washington Heights. Charles in a T-shirt at the stove, cooking breakfast. Her on the counter behind him in his shirt, laughing at something he'd said with his back to her.

I stood in the building across the street, watching. Then I did it again, once, twice, ten times and more. Different picture, same couple.

When I was done torturing myself, I got into my car, drove home and slept perfectly well. That's the thing that should frighten people about me. Not the boxes. Not Petrov. The fact that I sleep like a baby, no matter what I see or do.

Seven years I've been the man across the road. Tomorrow, she'll walk up the aisle towards me in front of a church full of people and take my name.

I stare down at the hospital badge, which is still in my hand. I just can't put it in the bag, so I place it back in the box. I put the lid on, and the canvas bag stays exactly where it is, empty, by the door.

Then I lock the room behind me and go downstairs to have my stitches taken out by the woman I've been watching for what feels like a lifetime.

* * *

She arrives at nine on the night before our wedding, because she said ten days and it's been ten days, and Manon doesn't move a plan for a wedding.

"Shirt off," she says, before she's even put her bag down.

"You could take your coat off first. People usually work up to it."

"I've been awake since five and there's a woman in your kitchen making four hundred canapés out of quail. Shirt. Now, Novak."

Getting the arm out of the sleeve takes a while. I make a noise doing it, but I admit I do exaggerate a bit now. For her entertainment.

"You'll live," she says, without looking up from her bag. See? "Sit."

I sit. She turns the desk lamp around onto my shoulder, drags a chair over with her foot and leans in. Her hands are freezing.

"You've kept it dry, and you've also been lifting something you were told not to lift."

"There were chairs."

"You have hundreds of men."

She's the one exaggerating this time, but not by much.

"Not one of them knows where a chair goes."

She takes the dressing off. Her hair's tied up badly and there's the usual red line on her neck from her stethoscope. As always, the smell of hospital soap and apricots.

Snip. She lifts the first stitch out and puts it on a square of gauze balanced on my knee.

"One. You know I could have given you the dissolvable ones if we'd been at the hospital."

"Where's the fun in that? Are you counting so I know, or so you know?"

"So you stop talking." Snip. "Two."

The tent crew is still shouting outside. Inside, there's the small metal sound every few seconds and the desk lamp buzzing. It occurs to me that it’s insane that let a Valmont throw a blade near my throat.

"Three. You'll have a scar."

"Good."