As if reading me, she said, 'Every time someone walks in that door with a needle, I just freeze inside, even though I keep smiling.
My smiles are for Cassie. I try really hard not to get upset in front of her but I know she's got to feel it.'
'The radar.'
'We're so close-she's my one and only. She just looks at me and she knows. Iom not helping her but what can I do? I just leave her alone with them.'
'Dr. Eves thinks you're doing great.'
Something in the brown eyes. A momentary hardening? Then a tired smile.
'Dr. Eves is wonderful. We... She was the... She's really been wonderful with Cassie, even though Cassie won't have anything more to do with her. I know all these illnesses have been horrible for her, too. Every time the E.R. calls her, I feel bad about putting her through it again.'
'It's her job,' I said.
She looked as if I'd struck her. 'I'm sure with her it's more than justajob.'
'Yes, it is.' I realized the LuvBunny was still in my hand. I was squeezing it.
Fluffing its tummy, I put it back on the ledge. Cindy watched me, stroking her braid.
'I didn't mean to snap,' she said, 'but what you just saidabout Dr. Eves doing her job it made me think about my job.
Being a mother. I don't seem to be pulling that off too well, do I?
No one trains you for that.'
She looked away.
'Cindy,' I said, leaning forward, 'this is a tough thing to go through.
Not exactly business as usual.'
A smile danced across her lips for just an instant. Sad madonna smile.
Madonna-monster?
Stephanie had asked me to keep an open mind but I knew I was using her suspicions as a point of departure.
Guilty till proven innocent?
What Milo would call limited thinking. I resolved to concentrate on what I actually observed.
Nothing grossly pathologic, so far. No obvious signs of emotional imbalance, no overt histrionics or pathologic attentionseeking. Yet I wondered if she hadn't succeeded-in her own quiet way-in keeping the focus squarely on herself. Starting off talking about Cassie but ending with her maternal failings.
Then again, hadn't I elicited confession? Using shrink looks shrink pauses and phrases to open her up?
I thought of the way she presented herself-the rope of braid that served as her worry beads, the lack of makeup, conspicuously plain clothes on a woman of her social rank.
All of it could be seen as reverse drama. In a room full of socialites she'd be noticed.
Other things clogged my analytical sieve as I tried to fit her to a Munchausen-by-proxy profile.
The easy usage of hospital jargon: Spiking tenps... pulling a double.
Cyanotic.
Leftovers from her respiratory-tech training? Or evidence of an untoward attraction to things medical?
