And I had a real bad ear ache and a sore throat.

I told him I’d heard the bad ear spring back to life.

“Surely cannot. Remember, Lettice, when little Buddy Rankin come down with that bad ear? Martha thought nothing of it, and the next thing she knowed he got this raging fever. A pure miracle of the Lord the child didn’t go deaf, they said.”

“Can you confirm the name of the patient with the shrapnel wound and the bad ear, Miss Vilkas?”

My mom had such a bad ear infection that doctors tried to keep her from flying with me.