Instead of coming to Providence herself, she dispatched his sister. Janet arrived for a weekend, flying out from San Francisco, where she’d taken a marketing job at Gump’s. She was living with some older, divorced guy who had a house in Sausalito, and she mentioned a birthday party she was missing and her demanding boss to impress on Leonard the extent of the sacrifice she was making in order to come and hold his hand. Janet seemed genuinely to believe that her problems were more significant than whatever Leonard had to deal with. “I could get depressed if I let myself,” she said. “But I don’t let myself.” She got visibly freaked out by some of the other patients in the dayroom and kept checking her watch. It was a relief when she finally left on Sunday.