She knew two of the eight visitors, Natalie Kramer and Genine Westervelt, very well. Genine had just opened her private practice as a plastic surgeon in D.C. Natalie was an emergency room doctor. I know them better than I know Ryan, Monica thought, as she settled down in a chair with a glass of wine. He was three years ahead of me, and I never had a class with him, and from a distance he always seemed so reserved. Even now, except when he’s wearing scrubs or a white jacket, anytime I run into him he’s got a suit and tie on. Tonight, in a corduroy shirt and jeans sitting cross-legged on the floor, a beer in his hand, he looked totally relaxed and was obviously enjoying himself.
She looked at him thoughtfully. His specialty is brain injury. I wonder what his opinion would be if he saw Michael O’Keefe’s CAT scans. Should I ask him to take a look at them before I meet with the priest about that supposed miracle? Maybe I will, she decided.
She glanced around instinctively, hoping to get some overall sense of Ryan Jenner from his surroundings. The room was surprisingly formal, with matching couches in a patterned blue fabric, an antique armoire, side tables with elaborate crystal lamps, occasional chairs in blue and cream, and an antique blue and maroon carpet.
“Ryan, this is a lovely apartment,” Genine was saying. “You could put my whole place in this living room. And that’s the way it’s going to be until I’m off the hook with school loans. By then I’ll need to be performing do-it- yourself plastic surgery on my own face.”
“Or replacing my own knee,” Ira Easton chipped in. “Between Lynn and me, our school loans are matched only by our annual malpractice insurance premiums.”
I don’t have school loans, Monica thought, but I don’t have much else. Dad was sick for so long that I’m lucky to be okay financially.
“First of all,” Ryan Jenner was saying. “This is
“Now we all feel better,” Seth Green told him. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”
An hour later in the restaurant, the talk turned from the cost of malpractice insurance to the difficulty their various hospitals were having in expanding because of the problems with fund-raising. Ryan had arranged the seating so that he was next to Monica. “I don’t know whether you heard,” he said quietly, “but the money Greenwich has been promised for the pediatric wing may not come through. The Gannon Foundation is claiming reduced income and intends to renege on their pledge.”
“Ryan, we
“I heard today there’s talk of having some people meet with the Gannons and try to get them to change their minds,” Ryan said. “No one’s been more persuasive about the pediatric needs at Greenwich than you. You should be there.”
“I’ll make sure I am,” Monica said hotly. “That guy Greg Gannon always has his face in the Sunday
15
Wrapped in a bathrobe, Rosalie Garcia woke her sleeping husband up at six A.M. on Monday. “Tony, the baby has a fever. He’s caught my cold.”
Tony struggled to open his eyes. The night before, he had driven a couple to a wedding in Connecticut, and then waited to drive them home, which meant he’d had three hours’ sleep. But as what Rosalie was saying sank in, he was instantly awake. Tossing back the covers, he rushed into the tiny second bedroom of their walk-up apartment on East Fourth Street. A sleepy Carlos, his face flushed, ignoring his bottle, was fretfully moving around the crib. With a gentle hand, Tony touched his son’s forehead and confirmed that it was unnaturally warm.
He straightened up and turned to his wife, understanding the panic he saw in her eyes. “Look, Rosie,” he said soothingly. “He doesn’t have leukemia anymore. Remember that. We’ll get some aspirin into him and at eight o’clock we’ll call Dr. Monica. If she wants to see him, I’ll take him right over. With that cold you can’t go out.”
“Tony, I want her to see him. Maybe it’s just a cold but…”
“Honey, she told us that we should remember to treat him as a kid who bumps his head or gets a cold or has an earache, because he is a normal, healthy kid now. His immune system is perfect.” But even as he was speaking, Tony knew that neither he nor Rosalie would have any peace of mind until Dr. Monica Farrell had seen Carlos.
At seven o’clock he phoned and reached Nan as she was walking into the office. She told him to bring Carlos over at eleven, because that was when the doctor would be back from the hospital.
At ten thirty Tony bundled a sleepy Carlos into a warm jacket and cap and put him in his stroller. He tucked blankets around him, then snapped in the protective plastic shield that kept out the wind. With long strides he began to walk the ten blocks to Monica’s office. He had vetoed the suggestion that he take a cab there. “Rosie,” he had said, “I can get there faster walking, and round-trip in the traffic it could cost up to thirty dollars. Besides, Carlos likes the feel of being pushed in the stroller. He’ll end up taking a nap.”
When he reached Monica’s office twenty minutes later, she was just taking off her coat. She took one look at the fear in Tony’s eyes, then quickly unsnapped the plastic shield and, as Tony had done earlier, felt the small forehead of Carlos Garcia. “Tony, he has a fever, but not much of a fever,” she said reassuringly. “Before we even get his hat off, let me assure you of that. Alma will get Carlos set up for me to look at him, but my diagnosis as of this moment is that all he needs is baby aspirin and maybe an antibiotic.” She smiled. “So stop looking like that and don’t have a heart attack on me. I’m a pediatrician, not a cardiologist.”
Tony Garcia smiled back as he tried to blink away the sudden moisture in his eyes. “It’s just, Doctor… You know.”
Monica looked at him and suddenly felt infinitely older than the young father. He’s not more than twenty-four, she thought. He looks like such a kid himself and so does Rosalie and they’ve gone through such hell these two years. She touched his shoulder. “I know,” she said gently.
Thirty minutes later, Carlos, again dressed in his outerwear, was back in the stroller. Tony had samples of an antibiotic and a prescription for a three-day dosage of it in his pocket. “Now remember,” Monica cautioned, as she walked with him to the outer door, “I can just about promise you he’ll be running you ragged again in a couple of days, but if his fever
“I will, Dr. Monica, and thanks again. I can’t tell…”
“Then don’t. I can’t hear you anyhow.” Monica nodded her head to the waiting room, which now had four little patients, among them a pair of screaming twins.
Tony, his hand on the outer door, stopped. “Oh, just quick, Dr. Monica. I drove a very nice elderly woman last week. I showed her Carlos’s picture and told her how you had taken care of him and she told me she knew your grandmother.”
“She knew my grandmother!” Monica looked at him astonished. “Did she say anything about her?”
“No. Just that she knew her. Tony pulled open the outer door. “I’m holding you up. Thanks again.”
He was gone. Monica was tempted to run after him but then stopped herself. I can call him later, she thought. Could this person possibly have known my paternal grandmother? Dad didn’t have a clue who his birth mother was. He was adopted by people in their midforties. They’ve been gone for years and so are Mom’s parents. Dad and Mom would both be in their midseventies now. If their parents were still alive they’d be over 100 years old. If this lady knew my adoptive grandparents she must be really old herself. She must be mistaken.
But all through the rest of her busy day, Monica had a nagging sense that she ought to call Tony and ask for the name of the woman who had claimed to know her grandmother.
