Jason waits.
He’s getting good at this. From where he sits on the examining
table, he can read the posters hung up around the room—a long list
of vaccinations he’d need if he were traveling around the world, a
reminder to wash his hands after drawing blood, a detailed map of
the human cardiovascular system. Taped to one cabinet is a scale of
pain that goes from none at all, depicted by a yellow smiley face,
to severe, same face only black this time, with X-ed out eyes and a
horrible grimace in place of the smile. On the trashcan is an
orange biohazard symbol, and a very old, well-read copy of
Reader’s Digest sits on
the counter amid the bottles of sterile needles and cotton swabs.
Faintly he hears music, something his mother might listen to,
Michael Bolton or Amy Grant, he doe
