“I’m sorry.”
“Lung cancer. It’s ironic because my research could have saved him, but I wasn’t fast enough.”
I suddenly felt the weight he bore on my shoulders, felt his grief with my fingertips.
“That trauma has carried over to my work ethic. I always feel like I’m racing the clock now.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“My kids got it too.”
When I thought of Daisy, it wasn’t with so much anger anymore. There was too much sadness in this moment.
“I still have my mom. She’s in a home in the city. It was hard to get her to leave her apartment, but once she moved in to the retirement home, she loved it. It’s an upscale place here in Manhattan, and she’s around people her age. She says it’s like a vacation.”
“That’s good. The elderly usually struggle with those things.”
“I’m grateful to be a man because I’ll get to die at home with my wife beside me. She’s the one who has to go through that. Is your mom still around?”
The question caught me off guard. “Uh, no.”
Now he looked even sadder before. “That’s rough.”
I gave a halfhearted shrug. “It is what it is.”
He dropped his gaze then looked at the paper in his hand for a moment. “Siblings?”
I didn’t know why he was asking all these questions, and I didn’t know why I continued to answer them. “I had a sister…but she passed away.”
He looked up again. “Can I ask what happened?”
I shifted my gaze away because I didn’t want to talk about it. I never wanted to talk about it. “Mass shooting.”
Dr. Hamilton couldn’t hide his reaction. A slow breath left his lungs, and he leaned back in his chair, his fingertips releasing the paper he’d held just a second ago. His chin dropped, and he rubbed his palm across his scruff. “I…fuck… I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t speak, so I just sat there.
“The Subway Massacre?”
All I did was give a nod.
He looked away and sat there for a while, like he had no idea what to do with himself now.
I didn’t know what to say to disrupt the tension, but it was like torture, just letting the painful silence linger. “These numbers look good. I think we should consider them for our first trial in humans.”
As if he didn’t hear me, he kept his eyes down, like he still needed time to process what I said.
I sat at my desk in the office, going over the new submissions. Daisy needed a new patient—whether she liked it or not. She couldn’t linger on Melinda when that case was resolved as far as I was concerned. More people needed our help, and we were already overwhelmed as it was.
Then she stormed inside with a folder in her hand.
“Fuck. Here we go.”
Her pumps clomped against the hardwood floor as she practically ran to my desk. Tip-tap. Tip-tap. Tip-tap. She moved quickly, like she couldn’t face me fast enough. Then she threw the folder on my desk, where it slid across the surface and landed on the floor behind me. “Guillain-Barré syndrome. It explains her other symptoms perfectly.”
I glanced at the folder on the floor but didn’t pick it up. “She was tested and ruled out—”
“Well, I retested her, and she’s positive for every single one. Her scans confirm it. And her inflamed nervous system is perpetuating her metabolic disease, which is why her symptoms are so severe.”
I grabbed the folder and finally opened it, looking at what she’d brought.
Her hands gripped the edge of the desk, and she leaned forward, staring at me with bullets in her eyes.
I glanced up at her.
She continued her stare.
I kept reading through, ignoring her piercing anger. The scans confirmed it, as did Melinda’s lab work. When I was finished, I closed the folder and set it on the desk. My eyes met hers.
And a stare-off ensued.
A very hostile stare-off.
“Where’s my apology?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“Guess you aren’t the smarter one after all.”
Everyone went home for the day.
The clock on the wall showed it was almost seven, so I grabbed my bag and prepared to head home. I moved past the empty desks of the assistants and headed to the front door.
But one office was occupied.
Daisy was still there.
She sat on the couch with a bottle of wine in front of her, looking at all the patients’ paperwork she had pinned to the bulletin board. She didn’t have a wineglass and appeared to drink it straight out of the bottle.
I could just keep walking. She had no idea I was there.
But I stepped through the open doorway and tapped my knuckles gently against the wall.
Her head turned my way, and once she saw my face, her eyes narrowed viciously.
Okay, I deserved that. “You got a minute?”
“Yes—if I’m getting an apology.”
I moved to the sitting area and took a seat on the opposite end of the couch. My bag was placed on the floor beside me. My forearms rested on my knees for a while, and I massaged my knuckles as I considered what to say. “You’re right. You deserve an apology from me.”