Part 29 (1/2)
”Jill, are you there or did we get cut off?”
”Sorry, I was just thinking. Abby didn't ask Victoria or me to take care of her cat until she came back from L.A. Doesn't that seem strange to you?”
”Stop, please.” Sam's voice went cold. ”I can't talk about that girl or your ex-husband anymore. We're back where we started, but worse. I have to go.”
”No, wait, Sam-”
”We'll talk later. Good-bye.”
Jill hung up after a moment, wondering. She and Sam had been so happy, less than a week ago. She would never have believed they'd come apart so quickly, snapped apart like a suspension cable on a bridge, undone by winds unseen, pressures uncalculated, and stresses neither measured nor accounted for.
You didn't see it coming.
Jill didn't want Sam to leave her life the way William had, but she didn't know how to stop him. She hadn't known Abby would come back, William would die, or Victoria would both love and hate her. She didn't know that the past would come back to the present and obliterate the future. She'd thought she'd moved on, stepping over the human debris, but it turned out that her life was a morgue, and all the time she'd been surrounded by bodies, hidden away, to be dealt with later.
Some not even dead, but still very much alive.
Chapter Forty-six.
Jill bustled past the eye chart toward the lab, on the run. She still hadn't received Rahul's bloodwork and knew that something had gone wrong. She felt exhausted after a sleepless night, plus she'd had to be at the phone store early to buy a new BlackBerry and had stood in line forever. She'd listened to Abby's message on the way in, but it hadn't mentioned her cat.
Jill opened the door to the small lab, where their phlebotomist, Selena Grant, looked up from a full tray of blood samples, each standing like a soldier in its wire separator, with its rubber stopper labeled in her characteristically neat print. ”Hi, Selena, did we get results for Rahul Choudhury? They should've been in yesterday, but I got no email.”
”Choudhury?” Selena blinked, her dark eyes worried under a stiff curl of black bangs. She was small and slim, dwarfed in boxy scrubs covered with kitten faces, because she was a cat fancier. ”I don't remember that name.”
”He's a baby, a one-year-old? I ordered a CBC with differential. Mom is waiting for me in Exam Room B. He was in on Sat.u.r.day.”
”Oh no. I remember the baby, now.” Selena's face fell into long, gaunt lines, and she looked much older than her forty years. ”I messed up on Sat.u.r.day. I forgot to send it in. I realized it late Monday, and I was going to tell you, then I forgot that, too. I'm so sorry, Jill.”
”That's not like you,” Jill said, surprised. ”You're our rock.”
”I know, but my mother, they moved her to hospice.” Selena's eyes filmed. ”They called me Sat.u.r.day, and I left work, upset. I forgot everything.” Her hand went to her cheek, pressed flat against it. ”I'm at such a loss, I can't keep track of anything. They say she has only a week or so.”
”I'm so sorry.” Jill felt terrible for her and touched her shoulder. She had known that Selena's mother had stomach cancer, but not that she'd declined so quickly. ”Is there anything I can do?”
”Pray.”
”I will, but you don't have to be here. Go and be with her. Take the time off.”
”I can't.” Selena sighed, shaking her head. ”I'm out of vacation days and all my other leave. I used it up, on her. Sheryl says I have to stay until Monday, when Linda comes back.”
Jill knew that could be too late. She remembered the last week she'd spent with her own mother. It had been h.e.l.l, and she still wouldn't have traded it for anything. ”No, you don't have to wait until then. Go, now. You're finished for the week.”
”For real?” Selena looked up, hopeful.
”Yes, go.” Jill turned to the cabinet, found a cube of Post-its and a pen, and on the top paper, wrote LAB CLOSED. ”I'll deal with Sheryl when she gets back from lunch.”
”Thanks so much, Jill. But what about your patient?” Selena grabbed her bag, and Jill picked up a phlebotomy kit.
”I'll take his blood. I've kept up my qualifications. We can all collect our own samples or send patients to LabCorp for a week.”
”The docs will take their own blood?” Selena's penciled eyebrows flew upward.
”Yes, we're smarter than we look. Come on, let's go.” Jill followed Selena out of the lab, stuck the Post-it on the door, and took off down the hall with the kit.
”Thanks again, Jill. So much.” Selena waved good-bye, and Jill opened the door to Exam Room B, went inside, and set the phlebotomy kit on the counter. She faced Padma and Rahul, who sat on the examining table in his diaper, playing with a set of Acura keys.
”Padma, I'm sorry, but we lost Rahul's blood sample.” Jill hated watching Padma's face fall, and there was new tightness around her lips. ”That's why we didn't get his results yet. I'm so sorry. I'll take another sample myself, after I examine him.”
”Oh no.” Padma ran a hand through her glossy hair, stopping at the ponytail. She looked more stressed than usual, and her sweater was unusually wrinkled, for her. ”I hate to do that to him again. He cried so much.”
”I know, and I'm very, very sorry.” Jill slid her stethoscope from around her neck and went over to Rahul. He'd been weighed by the nurse, and he'd lost another half a pound. Jill thought his gestalt wasn't any better, even after three days on amoxicillin. ”How is your mother? Any better?”
”Yes, thanks. My brother thinks taking a blood test is overkill for an ear infection.”
”I know, but I think it's important. Hey, Rahul, what do you say there?” Jill tickled his bare tummy, which felt warm to the touch, and he didn't smile as much as before, though another tooth nugget was popping through his pale pink gums. ”Two teeth now? Good for you, big boy!”
”Gsmssm,” Rahul said, producing bubbles, so at least he wasn't dehydrated.
”Let's get a listen.” Jill warmed the stethoscope on her palm and placed it against the baby's tiny chest, then put it in her ears and listened to the stepped-up pace of his heart, then the noises of the infection in his chest. His temperature was 101, and he'd had it for too long.
”My nephew, he gets them all the time, that's why they had tubes put in.” Padma tucked a glossy strand of hair into her ponytail. ”You're positive that this is necessary, to take blood from him, twice now?”
”I'm sorry, but I do.” Jill looped the stethoscope around her neck, then felt his glands at his throat, which were still swollen. She looked into his ears, nose, and throat, and it was still purulent. Most pediatricians would say that Rahul was failing the amoxicillin, but Jill hated that jargon. The medicine was failing the baby, not the other way around. ”He's as sick as he was Sat.u.r.day. I'd like to switch him to another antibiotic and see if that helps.”
”Whatever you think.”
”We'll put him on Augmentin then.” Jill lay him down and palpated his belly, spleen, and liver, then sat him up and felt the glands under his armpits, all of which were swollen.
”My sister-in-law was over to dinner last night, and she said we should just get the tubes, too.”
”Let's discuss it after we get the results, okay? I'll order them stat, so we'll know tomorrow.” Jill checked his skin, and his patch of eczema was the same, no worse. ”Is he drinking and eating?”
”Yes, but not so much.”
”Sleeping?” Jill checked inside his diaper, which was dry, so she sat him up, and Padma took over, steadying him.
”Same as before.”
”Let me write that script.” Jill went back to the laptop, logged into Epic with her pa.s.sword, and found Rahul's file, then printed out a script for Augmentin and handed it to Padma, who slid it into her back pocket. ”Okay, I'll need to take some blood. This time, I swear it won't go missing.” She went to the kit and prepared a syringe. ”Would you hold him or would you prefer that I get a nurse?”
”No, I'll hold him.” Padma picked up the gurgling Rahul, cuddling him protectively, and he shook the keys. ”He cried so hard, last time. I hate to do it all over again, for no reason.”
”I understand, but we're doing it for a reason. It's good to be thorough.” Jill knew that Padma was trying to do what was right for her child. ”I'm trying to get to the cause of these infections.”