Dr. Ferrante came to him the following morning.
Roman had not left the facility.
He had slept in the private room they had prepared for him — four hours, maybe five, the kind of sleep that restored function without providing rest — and had been awake before the sun fully cleared the horizon, sitting with coffee he had made from the small unit in the corner of the room and the quiet that came before the day officially began.
When the knock came, he was ready.
Ferrante entered with his file and the composed expression of a man who had delivered difficult information enough times to have made a kind of peace with the necessity of it, without ever becoming indifferent to it. He sat across from Roman and opened the file without preamble.
"We completed the full imaging suite overnight," he said.
"And," Roman replied.
Ferrante looked at him directly. "I want to be honest with you, as I said I would be."
"Okey."
