more, and then continued, holding up the envelope with the CT scan for emphasis.
'You were all here a little while ago for the…urn…discussion about patient care that occurred between Ms. Reyes and myself. Well, I have all the lab work and the CT back on our patient. I would like to inform you that there is nothing abnormal on any of them. Nothing. Charlie here has just what I said he had — just what he always has, Ms. Reyes — an alcohol-induced headache. He had a blood alcohol of one hundred and ninety when he came in, and I don't suspect it's much lower now, since he just managed to get at the pint of Thunderbird in the jacket in his clothing bag. Bev, please discharge this man for the second time. Be sure to fill out an incident report.
'Ms. Reyes, go home. I don't ever want to see you on my service again.'
CHAPTER 2
Until philosophers are kings…cities will never have rest from their evils, no, nor the human race.
Early afternoon was clearly one of the better times to shop at the Whole Foods Market. Natalie would have had no reason to know that fact until today. With her mother's grocery list in one hand and hers in the other, she made her way up and down the uncrowded aisles in no particular hurry. It had been three hours since she was booted out of the Metropolitan Hospital ER by Cliff Renfro, and for the moment at least, she had more time on her hands than she had things to do.
Tomorrow she would make an appointment with her advisor, and maybe with Doug Berenger, and together they would straighten things out. It wasn't as if anyone had gotten hurt. Compared to a hemostat being left in an abdomen, or a lethal medication error, or the wrong leg being amputated, the events in the ER were small potatoes. If she was guilty of anything, and in truth she didn't believe she was, it was a crime with no victim. As Bev Richardson had said, even though Renfro was well along in his training, he was still immature. For the time being Natalie and he were destined to be enemies, at least until she got the chance to prove to him what a dedicated, driven, caring physician she was. At the worst, she would have to complete her ER rotation elsewhere. Ideally, after a day or two of cooling off, perhaps the two of them could meet and patch things up on the spot, and with her promise not to repeat what she had done, she could resume the rotation where she left off.
The foods Natalie picked up for herself were the freshest and healthiest. Whole Foods Markets, noted for their produce and seafood, were the only places she would shop. The ridiculous hours of medical school were unavoidable, but in her soul, she was still an athlete. She worked out as much as possible, often at absurdly early or late hours. Her repaired Achilles tendon would keep her from ever coming close to the world-class times that were once routine, but as she got older, she could see the day approaching when her times for various distances in her age group would be competitive, if not among the leaders. Goals. Always goals. Having them, pushing toward them, reinventing them — along with the care she gave her body, never being without well-defined goals was the secret to her success in school and in sports.
She grimaced as she scanned down her mother's list, dictated to her last night over the phone. Steak, frozen fries, pecan rolls, Cherry Garcia ice cream, trail mix, hot dogs (and buns), whole milk, whipped cream, Pringles…half of the items, Whole Foods wouldn't even deign to carry. Hermina Reyes was a piece of work — beloved by so many, yet as abusive of herself and her body as Natalie was meticulous. A bigger concern for Natalie, however, was her niece, Jenny. Hermina was responsible for most of the girl's meals. With that fact in mind, she added some broccoli, yams, cheese, and salad to her mother's order.
At the bottom of the list Natalie had reluctantly penned in Winstons — one carton. After it, she had written a note to herself: optional. She laughed ruefully. More often than not, in what she knew was a futile gesture of protest, she refused to buy her mother's cigarettes. It didn't matter. Hermina had a car, and didn't hesitate to leave Jenny at home for brief periods. Plus, there were others the woman could call on, plenty of them, who knew an unbreakable bond when they saw it. They also knew that if there were ever justification for smoking, the death of one's child was it. Hermina would be wedded to her Winstons until the day she died, more than likely at the hands of her beloved cancer sticks.
Natalie spent a leisurely half hour selecting her own fruits and vegetables. With the vast summer selection, she felt especially fortunate to care about such things, particularly today, with a few hours of unexpected free time on her hands. She really had to try harder to be more tolerant of people like Renfro, she was thinking as she squeezed, then tapped, then shook a honeydew, testing for ripeness. First thing in the morning she would do whatever was necessary to straighten things out with him.
Whole Foods was far too responsible to sell cigarettes, so after loading eight plastic bags of groceries into the trunk of her Subaru, Natalie trotted across the street to a pharmacy. It wouldn't be a problem showing up at her mother's place earlier than expected. The time when Hermina knew the details of her life and schedule had passed long ago, so there wouldn't be any but the most cursory questions about why she wasn't in the ER. Nor was there much chance that Hermina would be out. With Jenny to care for, she tended to stay pretty much close to home when the girl wasn't at school.
Dorchester, a rapidly aging, gritty community directly south of the city, was just a few miles along Route 203 from Natalie's quaint Brookline apartment, but sociologically and demographically the two towns were widely distant. Small pockets of elegant, well-maintained homes still survived in Dorchester, but they were islands in a sea of poverty, inv migrants, drugs, and too often, violence. Natalie pulled to the curb and popped the trunk in front of a peeling, gray clapboard duplex with a small dirt lawn and a sagging front porch. She had left home shortly after her mother's move to this place, but her younger sister Elena, who was eight at the time, had grown up there, and until the accident, lived there when she wasn't in detox or rehab.
Natalie doubted there was anyone in Dorchester who didn't know that Hermina Reyes kept her house key under a withered potted plant by the door.
'There's an advantage to having nothing to steal,' her mother liked to say.
As always, the pungent odor of burnt and burning cigarettes hit Natalie the moment she opened the door.
'Health inspector, ditch the butts!' she called out, hauling five bags at once down the hall and into the kitchen.
The flat was, as always, neatly kept and clean, including Hermina's decades-old Fenway Park ashtray, which she ritually emptied and washed down after every second or third smoke.
'Mom?'
Hermina was usually ensconced at the kitchen table, with a cup of half-consumed coffee, a box of vanilla wafers, her Winstons, the ashtray, and a book of Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles. In fact, all of her accoutrements were in place, but not the woman herself. Natalie set the groceries on the floor and hurried to her mother's room.
'Mom?' she called again.
'She's taking a nap,' Jenny called out.
Natalie followed her niece's voice to her prim and feminine room — lace curtains, pink walls. Jenny, dressed in shorts and a floppy sweatshirt, sat in her wheelchair, a book propped up in the apparatus that made it easier for her to turn the pages. The ankle braces that enabled her to walk with crutches lay on the floor by her bed. Jenny's official diagnosis was mild cerebral palsy, but Elena had used and drank and smoked throughout her pregnancy, and now that Natalie knew what fetal alcohol syndrome was, that diagnosis had taken the top spot on her list of the possible causes of the girl's disabilities.
'Hey, babe,' Natalie said, kissing her on the forehead. 'What's happening?'
'Staff day today, no school.' Jenny had the creamy skin and wide, engaging smile of her mother. 'Gram was awake for a while doing her puzzle, then she just went to bed.'
'If I ever ever catch you with a cigarette — '
'Let me try, let me try this time. You're going to break both of my lips.'
'Actually, I like the sound of that. What are you reading?'
