John perhaps hates hospitals because they’re filled with the threat of death, a fear that John finds difficult to push out of his mind under normal circumstances, much less in a place full of sick and potentially dying people. The cemetery, by contrast, is rather comforting in its certainty. Finally, this passage builds intrigue, leaving readers to wonder what John did to make Lorraine blame him for the events that follow (presumably alluding to Mr. Pignati’s death).