43
I dial my home number, wondering if Willow’s still there. If she is, I wonder if she’ll answer.
“Dr. Box’s residence,” she says.
“You’re still there!” I say, then realize I don’t have anything else planned to say.
“Hi Gideon! Yes, I’m here. Um…is that okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you have a chance to talk to a doctor yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ve narrowed our choices to two.”
“Do you think either will take my case?”
“I’m working on it.”
Willow/Amy/Andrea must have picked up something in my voice because she says, “Is everything all right?”
“You tell me.”
“I have a plan,” she says.
“A plan?”
“If you’re available, I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. My treat. Someplace fun. Dinner, then maybe a club.”
“A club?”
“Not a strip club,” she says.
“Right.”
“So what do you think? Can we go out?”
It would be nice to get her out of her house, away from her gun when I accuse her of being an identity thief.
“Let’s do it!” I say.
My phone buzzes. I put Willow on hold.
“Kathleen Gray’s on line two,” Lola says.
“Who’s that?”
“Addie’s mother.”
“Who’s Addie?”
“The child you’re going to operate on. The brain stem cavernoma?”
“I click back to Willow. I’ve got another call I need to take.”
“Okay, see you soon.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes walking Kathleen Gray through the process. What’s going on in Addie’s head, why we made the decision to operate, what to expect.
I’m on my best behavior.
I agree Addie has had terrible luck in her short life, and explain there’s no particular event that caused her to develop this condition. I want to tell Kathleen that shit happens, but I refrain. I explain what supratentorial and infratentorial cavernous malformations are, and discuss how we’ll monitor median nerve somatosensory and brain stem audio evoked potentials.
But you know what?
She barely follows the conversation. Spends the whole time crying and asking two questions over and over.
First, “How serious is it?”
It’s damn serious. But I’m learning they don’t want to hear that, so I say, “I promise you, this operation will be performed under standard microsurgical conditions.”
I emphasize the word “standard” and she takes it to mean routine.
The second question she asks repeatedly is, “Will Addie be okay?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Thank you, doctor,” she says.
“You’re quite welcome.”
I make a mental note not to ask for a blow job later on.
See? I’m learning how the game is played.
44
By splitting the difference between me being too tired to go clubbing and Willow being too bored to stay home, we wind up in a gastro pub that features live entertainment. I take a photo of her in front of the place and send it to Dani Ripper, so she can forward it to her contact at the police station.
We’re sitting at our table, she’s reading the menu.
“You remind me of that cell phone commercial,” she says.
“Huh?”
“A guy and his date are in a restaurant and he’s holding his cell phone under the table, checking the game on it. He pretends not to, but she keeps catching him.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I know you’re distracted. What I asked was do you think I’ll need chemotherapy or radiation treatment?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Will I need an operation?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Does chemo hurt?”
I feel my cell phone vibrate under the table. I glance at Dani’s text message:
WILLOW’S REAL NAME IS AMY HUDDLESTON… STAND BY…MUCH MORE TO COME!
Willow laughs. “Who’s winning?”
“There’s no game. I’m monitoring a patient, a little girl, who’s coming out of a medically induced coma.”
“Oh my God! Is she okay? I mean, do you need to be there?”
“No.”
I like the fact Willow’s concerned. She’s got a good heart.
“The little girl’s doing fine,” I say.
Willow smiles broadly. It’s still a killer smile.
“Thank goodness!” she says. “That’s great news!”
I turn off my phone, place it on the table and say, “I want to concentrate on you now. To answer your question, the actual chemo doesn’t hurt. But the after effects are a bitch.”
She bites her lip and says, “I’m afraid of the treatment.”
I look at her. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was the picture of health. That’s changing inside her hour by hour, I suppose, and if she’s as far along as I suspect, she may not have much time to live. For hours I’ve been furious at her for lying to me about who she is, but now that she’s sitting across from me, frightened about the short time she has left and the treatment she might have to deal with, my anger shifts to the shit hand she’s been dealt in life. This is a kid who lost both parents, her boyfriend, her best friend, and is dying of cancer.
It’s not fair. That’s the bottom line.
But I still need to find out who she is and why she lied.
“Willow, we need to talk.”
She grins and says, “What’s up, Doc?”
I smile. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”
“Two days.”
She frowns. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”
“Let me get this out, okay?”
