I thought his heart had finally softened for me.
Then he lowered his head.
A pet dog was circling his feet.
"Jacob came looking for you."
There was a smile in his eyes.
The pressure of the drill against my skull eased off.
Maisie set down her instrument and rushed over, still in her surgical gown, to scoop him up.
"I'm sorry, baby! I missed your feeding time! It's all that mean Faith Fox's fault!"
She rubbed his head and took the dog food from the nanny's hands. "I know you only let Mommy feed you. You must be starving. Eat up."
I was left on the operating table, a hole open in my skull, watching her feed a dog in a room that was supposed to be sterile.
Nigel turned back and met my eyes. His brow furrowed.
"Why are your lips so pale?"
He picked up the restorative broth sitting to one side and came toward me. "Drink."
I felt dazed.
I thought of my pregnancy, how he always woke early to make me soup, carried it to the bed, and fed it to me.
Sometimes when I fussed and refused to get up, he used this same gentle tone.
"Drink it. I simmered it for over two hours. Take pity on me, won't you?"
I sank into the memory and said nothing. Maisie spoke first.
"Nigel, that's for Jacob. What has she done to deserve something this precious?"
He explained. "She's too weak. I'm afraid she'll die on the table before the surgery is even finished."
"You don't get chances to practice like this often. I don't want to see you upset."
"Jacob can go without for today. When it's over I'll buy him treats."
"Fine." She held the dog and looked at me, put upon. "You lucked out. If you live through this, remember to thank us."
I almost laughed out loud.
Made to drink a dog's tonic, and expected to be grateful for it.
Nigel forced the broth into my mouth, bitter and salty and faintly like blood.
The moment I swallowed the last mouthful, the drill I'd been spared started up again.
A fresh round of torment began.
The whine of the drill went on shuddering through me.
Maisie's hands were clumsy. After endless agony, she finally finished drilling and switched to the saw blade.
The instant the bone was cut open, my nails dug into my palms and tears spilled out beyond my control.
Nigel wiped the sweat from my temple.
"Faith, it's almost over. Hold on a little longer. Afterward, whatever compensation you want, you can have it."
"A house, a car, jewelry, anything else. You decide."
I gave a bleak smile.
One weightless word, compensation, and he thought it could cover four years of what I'd suffered.
Four years ago, Nigel's manner toward me turned cold overnight, colder than I could accept.
I said he loved me like his own life. He gave a thin, cold laugh and said I was deluding myself, that he'd only gotten engaged to me because I was easy to handle.
I said he used to dry my hair for me, that he'd sat up all night when I was sick, that he'd once driven across half the city because I offhandedly said I wanted cake.
He tossed me a therapist's business card and told me to go get treated if I was sick.
I actually went.
His manner really did make me doubt it, doubt that the love we'd shared had ever been anything but an illusion.
And it was after that therapy session that the "system" appeared.
The talk of a "parallel world" felt like a lifeline I could seize.
The goal of "one hundred surgeries" made me lie down on the operating table again and again, willingly.
I still remember the first thing they took was a kidney.
For Maisie, who had kidney failure.
She'd been living off Nigel's funding for years, and for the first time she had a healthy body.
And at last she had the means to chase her dream of medicine.
And I was the perfect test subject to practice on.
They'd gouged out an eye, cut away my stomach, removed my gallbladder.
Ninety-nine wounds had scabbed over, leaving scars that wound across my whole body.
