Nurse Travis comes in a minute later and removes the chair from the office, leaning over the back and using the joystick to propel the chair forward.
I guess I could have thought of that.
I’m still trying to get my head back together when Yuri comes back into the office.
“A couple of things,” she says. “First off, Brian Probst came back in and he’s waiting for Benedict to get here. Nurse Travis left the chair out here, so that’s all taken care of, and I don’t know if you’ve gotten ahold of her or not, but Grace still isn’t answering her phone.”
“Thanks, Yuri,” I answer, and rub my eyes.
“Oh,” she says, “and Mr. Farrer just called to cancel his appointment. I got him rescheduled for next Tuesday.”
“When’s my next appointment?”
“You’ve got about 20 minutes,” she says. “It’ll be Mrs. Frost at 12:40. After that-”
“Thanks, Yuri,” I interrupt.
After Mrs. Frost’s appointment in the office, I check up on my admitted patients. It’s a full day.
I just wish I knew where Grace is.
Chapter Thirteen
The Wrong Side of Intervention
Grace
I missed my first day with the trial, but I couldn’t stand to be in that hospital another minute.
That woman died in Jace’s office. I get that she was a lot worse off than I am now, but that hardly makes any difference.
As terrified as I’ve been, I guess I haven’t really allowed myself to let the harder truth sink in: I am going to die.
Yeah, it’s not going to happen as soon as it did with that woman earlier today, but I’ve seen the statistics. I’ll be lucky if I see 40.
Jace has been calling off and on all day, but I can’t bear to talk to him right now.
He’s an oncologist. He’s used to death. Me? I wasn’t in the room, but just hearing that man screaming at Jace to do something…
My phone rings again and I look at the number. It’s Jace again.
I could turn off my ringer, but I’m waiting to hear back from John on whether he’s going to stop being a pussy and take my plan for the Midwest to the board.
If I don’t answer the phone now, Jace is just going to keep calling.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Grace,” he says, “thank God. I’ve been worried about you. Where’d you go today?”
“I went home,” I tell him.
“Do you want me to come over?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he says. “If you want, we can talk about what happened today. I know it was a bit of a shock, but maybe I can help talk you through it.”
If anyone could, it would probably be an oncologist. Still, I’m not really in the mood to think about what happened, much less talk about it.