He did not leave.

This was not, as he understood it, a decision. It was the particular and specific absence of a decision, the thing that happened when all the available options that involved leaving were assessed and found to be options he was not going to take, and the residual option was this: the chair, the room, the particular and specific sounds of the ward going about its business on the other side of the door, and Lena in the bed with the monitor doing its patient and indifferent work.

He did not leave on Tuesday.

He did not leave on Tuesday night, which became Wednesday in the particular...