“You can open your mouth and eat,” Maya says, quietly and firmly. “I fed you before you came back to yourself. You don’t need me to now.”

Rob reaches for the pad and pencil, but Maya holds them away. “No crutches,” she says.

He looks angry, but it subsides. He stands and walks to the door to flip off the lights. Maya doesn’t understand until he turns back, and there they are, faint as moonlight on his lips: stitches.

He reaches for the pad again, and this time she lets him have it. You can open them, he writes. I can’t.