Then silently she cuddled up next to me and rested her head on my chest for a while.

She sat on his bed with her hand on his chest and wept.

She drew closer, and when she reached me, I felt as if I had been physically punched in the chest.

She slid her hand under his T-shirt, danced her fingers lightly on his stomach and up over his chest, and Henry kept his eyes closed, not wanting to know whether it was his wife or her sister.

He breathed noisily through his mouth, and asked me all kinds of questions about school and my dreaded violin lessons while he passed the cold end of a stethoscope across my chest.