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“So she’s better at chest than Nadine?”

“Way. Better.” Layla holds her hands about three feet out from her top.

I laugh, the sound bouncing around inside me, scratching against the soft tissue still swollen around my sternum.

“I miss anything else?”

“Josephine’s parents said she sleeps too much and that she needed to come off the intravenous painkillers, so she was switched out to pills instead. She woke up long enough to be pissed off and say some words that I hope they didn’t hear down in the kids’ wing.”

“What’s she on?”

“They gave her Xanax for her fibromyalgia, and she said it was like using a cotton ball to soak up Niagara Falls, but Karen put her foot down and her parents started tossing the a-word around so she shut up.”

“They called their own daughter an”—I glance around and drop my voice—“asshole?”

It’s Layla’s turn to laugh, the sound much larger than her sickly frame. “Addict. But are you even serious right now? You can’t say asshole in a normal voice? Oh no, wait, let me guess.” She raises a hand to stop me. “You’re the good twin.”

I feel a finger of anger worming through me, burrowing down next to my LVAD.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Layla said, but she’s still laughing a little. “I’ve just never met someone so lily-white, and I don’t mean your skin.”

“Thanks,” I say, snuffing out the anger.

“And FYI Angela’s brother already has a good line on Xanax, so I wouldn’t bother trying to bum any off Josephine in the name of your illicit love affair. Besides, I doubt she’d give them to you anyway. Brandy told me she walked into Jo’s room to say hey one day while Jo had the bottle out and she basically hunched up over it and started growling like a dog with a T-bone.”

It’s a funny visual but raises a question.

“Brandy walked in? I thought she was missing a foot.”

“She’s got one of those fake things.”

“A prosthetic?”

“Yeah, pretty realistic too. First time she pulled her foot off in the lounge Nadine screamed so hard her oxygen nodes popped out.”

“Nice,” I say. “Sorry I missed that. Why would she take off her foot though?”

“She wanted me to paint the toenails.”

“Huh.” I think about that while Layla yawns and stretches out, wondering what it would be like to just take out the part of you that doesn’t fit.

twenty-seven

TODAY AT THE CARDIAC CENTER!

11:00 a.m.—Stitch in the Snow! Join a knitting class with Nurse Karen by the windows in the common room and celebrate the first snowfall of the year with a new scarf! (Note: This is an indoor program.)

In case you were wondering.

2:00 p.m.—Scrap your Crap! Crafty Nurse Karen continues to share her skills in this scrapbooking class. Turn your pixels into pics and make something to remember.

Or, leave behind something for others to remember you by.

4:00 p.m.—Meditation with Melody! Relax before dinner with guided meditation.

Apparently Nurse Karen’s craftiness doesn’t extend to cassette tape players.

I put my schedule on the breakfast table next to Layla as she stirs her tea. “Want to meditate again?”