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287%u201cSoon,%u201d says the nurse, but three hours pass and there is still no sign of a transport orderly or anyone else.Eventually Mary rolls onto her side, falls asleep. Kayla goes down to the cafeteria. She buys a cheeseburger and a chocolate pudding topped with a stiff swirl of whipped cream, since making weight is no longer an immediate concern. It%u2019s not until Kayla begins eating that she realizes she is raw with hunger; her hands tremble as she brings the food to her mouth. After she finishes, she checks her phone, finds about a hundred worried messages from Coach and one from her father, asking her if she%u2019s fought yet. Her former best friend, meanwhile, has made a bitchy Instagram post, with an image of an empty ring and a caption talking about how the saddest thing is not a fighter losing, but a fighter being scared to fight.Kayla sinks deeper into the booth. It%u2019s true that she%u2019s been nursing a small and secret relief that she will not have to battle her former best friend today after all. In sparring, she usually got the better of Kayla in small, tricky ways%u2014counterpunching, angles. She knew just what to feed her and when. Tactics that could be exploited to ruinous ends in a real bout.She opens her backpack and takes out Mary%u2019s coin purse. She digs around and finds two damp ten-dollar bills, a credit card, her driver%u2019s license, which she had to hand over to the nurse earlier to be copied, along with a health-insurance card; she has no idea what kind of plan Mary is on, if the expense will drive her into a debt that she will never be able to get free of. Mary is forty-eight. She is not an organ donor. She finds a small Polaroid of a marmalade cat stretched out on a bright-green lawn. An empty matchbook. From a side pocket, she pulls out three business cards: George%u2019s Tavern, one of the few places in town where people can still smoke indoors; Rivera Family Chiropractic Center; a psychic adviser.She knows that doctors have rules about who they can talk to, so she dials the number for the 65psychic adviser. She keeps thinking that someone must know this woman, that there must be someone out there that she should inform.%u201cI%u2019m calling about Mary.%u201d Kayla reads aloud her full name from the driver%u2019s license. %u201cI think she%u2019s a client of yours?%u201d%u201cI%u2019m going to stop you right there,%u201d the psychic adviser says, %u201cand let you know that I am not in the business of giving refunds.%u201d%u201cShe%u2019s in the hospital.%u201d%u201cI am an innocent seer. I am not liable. I don%u2019t make anything happen.%u201d%u201cI%u2019m just trying to figure out what to do,%u201d says Kayla. %u201cShe might need surgery. Do you know if she has any family?%u201d705 Laura van den BergThis illustration by Daryn Ray accompanied van den Berg%u2019s story when it first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review.What does this image of a coin purse as a kind of sacred icon suggest about the character of Mary? What do we learn about Mary from each item she carries in the coin purse?%u00a9 Daryn Ray Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.