At eighty my stomach grew so large my family got frightened. The scan found something — and then a twelve-year-old record with my late husband’s name on it, and a folder called PROJECT AGNES.

And she sent me for an ultrasound.

The woman doing it went quiet.

She moved that probe about four times and then went back over the same area. Then she took a run of images I could hear her saving.

And then she said she was going to get the doctor, and went out, and was gone about eleven minutes.

I looked at Dov.

“Is it bad?”

“Let’s hear what she says, Mum.”

Dr. Opoku came back with a second doctor.

“Mrs. Vanterpool. There’s a large fluid-filled mass in your abdomen.”

I made myself say the next bit.

“How large?”

“Large. We’ll need a CT before I’ll give you a number.”

“Is that what’s been pressing?”

“Almost certainly, yes.”

Two hours later the three of us were in her office with the CT done.

And she told me what it was, and I am going to put that in the next part because of the order it came in.