Cutting for Stone

Two weeks later, Thomas comes to Marion’s room at Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. Marion does not know how Thomas found him. They share a cigarette, and Marion decides not to deliver Ghosh’s message yet. They talk about surgery, Deepak, and mentors, avoiding the real subject. Thomas speaks of his anxiety before surgery, which he did not feel in Ethiopia. Finally, Marion tells Thomas that Ghosh is dead. Thomas is shocked and saddened, and Marion feels vindicated. Then Thomas tells Marion his story.

The narrative flashed back to Thomas’s childhood in Madras, India, in Fort St. George, a British enclave. His mother is a tutor, and his father, 20 years older, travels for work. His mother becomes religious and dotes on Thomas, rarely leaving his side. She is diagnosed with tuberculosis and taken away to a hospital. Thomas is left with his nanny and is angry with his mother for leaving him. His father, however, does not stop traveling or working. Thomas misses his mother and gets letters from her. One morning, there is blood on Thomas’s pillow, and they take him to his mother’s hospital. They live together at the hospital and are once again inseparable.