Summary

Over the next year, the protagonist has three more stents inserted in his arteries to keep them open and clear of blockage. He also has a defibrillator surgically inserted near his heart in order to protect him against “fatal cardiac arrhythmia” (75). His daughter Nancy is with him through all of these procedures, offering moral support. The protagonist occasionally feels that “everything was a mistake except Nancy” (76). The protagonist recalls when Nancy was a track star at the age of thirteen, but then she fell during a race due to an injury, and by the time she had recovered, she had gone through puberty and her new proportions had made her much slower. The same year, Phoebe and the protagonist divorced. All of the procedures make the protagonist feel gradually lonelier and less confident in himself. However, he chooses to fight against this feeling by...