"And yet unlike any other hospital I've ever been in," Serena says. She's never been fond of hospitals. She's not sure anyone is. But in the days after the fire when they'd found her wandering and then taken her in, she'd hated all of the white and the sound of the nurse's heels against the floor and how every child seemed to have visitors except her.

"I've spent days in a maternity ward and I don't think I've seen a single father smoking a cigar," she muses, as much to herself as to the doctor. She's been told that it's against the rules, that there's a ban on smoking which is something that makes little sense to her. In her time, everyone smoked. Young, old, rich, poor. Some were so impoverished that tobacco was the only thing that eased the hungry gnaw.

"So what do you recommend I eat, then, doctor?"