Chapter One: 12:44 A.M.

She handed me a consent form with three lines: Voluntary surrender. No copies. No repeat transaction within seven days. “Side effects?” “You forget the event, but retain the facts around it. You will know how you received the scar without feeling it hurt.” That made me think of my mother. The night she died, a tour bus carrying five students struck a barrier. Seven critical patients arrived at once. My mother, dying of cancer and multisystem failure, went into cardiac arrest at the same time. Lu Wenchuan called me. I did not answer. I stayed in the trauma bay until three students were stable, then ran to her room. I had never escaped her final look.