Kisscut

top of that, what Sara had said was not only inexcusable, it was just plain mean. Sara was not the kind of person who liked to be mean. It was not in her nature to attack, and the more Sara thought about it, the more she believed that she had attacked Lena. Of all people, Sara should have known better.

'Hello?' Molly prompted. 'Sara?'

'Yes?' Sara said, then, 'Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just…' She nodded toward her office so that they could get out of the hallway.

Molly let Sara go first, then slid the door closed behind her. Molly Stoddard was a compact woman with what could be called a handsome face. In great contrast to Sara, the nurse was always neatly dressed, her white uniform starched to within an inch of its life. The only jewelry Molly wore was a thin silver necklace that she kept tucked into the collar of her uniform. The smartest thing Sara had ever done was hire Molly as her nurse, but some days Sara felt tempted to snatch off the woman's hat and ruffle her hair, or accidentally spill ink on her perfect uniform.

'You've got about five minutes before your next appointment,' Molly told her. 'What's wrong?'

Sara leaned her back against the wall, tucking her hands into her white lab coat. 'Did we miss something?' she said, then amended, 'Did I miss something?'

'Weaver?' Molly asked, though Sara could tell from her reaction that the other woman knew. 'I've been asking myself that same question, and the answer is I don't know.'

'Who would do that?' Sara asked, then realized Molly had no idea what she was talking about. The physical findings from the autopsy were hardly public, and even though Sara trusted Molly, she did not feel like she was in a position to share the details. Molly probably would not want to hear them.

'Kids are hard to explain,' Molly provided.

'I feel responsible,' Sara told the nurse. 'I feel like I should have been there for her. Or paid more attention.'

'We see thirty to forty kids a day, six days a week.'

'You make it sound like an assembly line.'

Molly shrugged. 'Maybe it is,' she said. 'We do what we can do. We take care of them, we give them their medicine, we listen to their problems. What else is there?'

'Treat 'em and street 'em,' Sara mumbled, remembering the phrase from her E.R. days.

Molly said, 'It's what we do.'

'I didn't come back here to work like this,' Sara said. 'I wanted to make a difference.'

'And you do, Sara,' Molly assured her. She stepped closer, putting her hand on Sara's arm. 'Listen, honey, I know what you're going through, and I'm telling you that I see you here every day, putting your heart and soul into this job.' She waited a beat. 'You're forgetting what Dr. Barney was like. Now, there was an assembly line.'

'He was always good to me,' Sara countered.

'Because he liked you,' Molly said. 'And for every kid he liked, there were ten he couldn't stand, and toward the end he passed the ones he hated on to you.'

Sara shook her head, not accepting this. 'He didn't do that.'

'Sara,' Molly insisted, 'ask Nelly. She's been here longer than I have.'

'So, that's my standard? That I'm better than Dr. Barney?'

'Your standard is you treat all the kids the same. You don't play favorites.' Molly indicated the pictures on the wall. 'How many kids did Dr. Barney have on his walls?'

Sara shrugged, though she knew the answer to that. None.

'You're being too hard on yourself,' Molly said. 'And it's not going to accomplish anything.'

'I just want to be more careful from now on,' Sara told her. 'Maybe we can cut the schedule so I can spend more time with each patient.'

Molly snorted a laugh. 'We barely have enough time in the day to see the appointments we have now. Between that and the morgue-'

Sara stopped her. 'Maybe I should quit the morgue.'

'Maybe you should hire another doctor?' Molly suggested.

Sara tapped her head against the wall, thinking. 'I don't know.'

The door shook as someone knocked on it.

'If that's Elliott…' Sara began, but it was not. Nelly, the office manager at the clinic since before Sara was born, slid open the door.

'Nick Shelton's on the phone,' Nelly said. 'Want me to take a message?'

Sara shook her head. 'I'll take it,' she answered, then waited for Molly to leave before picking up the phone.

'Hello, sunshine,' Nick said, his south Georgia drawl clear across the line.

Sara allowed a smile. 'Hey, Nick.'

'I wish I had time to flirt,' he told her. 'But I gotta meeting in about ten seconds. Real quick, though,' he began, and she could hear him shuffling papers. 'Nothing current came up on female castration, at least, not in the United States. But I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that.'

'No,' Sara agreed. Something so volatile would have certainly ended up in the press.

'A few years ago in France, a woman was tried for performing over fifty procedures. I think she was originally from Africa.'

Sara shook her head, wondering how a woman could do this to a child.

Nick said, 'Hey, what do you already know about this?'

'Infibulation falls under the general heading of F.G.M.,' she said, using the acronym for female genital mutilation. 'It's sometimes practiced in the Middle East and parts of Africa. It's tied somehow to religion.'

'Well, about as much as suicide missions are tied to religion,' Nick corrected. 'You can make a religious justification for just about anything these days.'

Sara made a noise of agreement.

'Mostly, it's a custom passed down from village to village. The more uneducated the group, the more likely they are to do it. There isn't a real good religious argument to justify it, but the men over there like the idea of making sure their women don't stray.'

'So they make it impossible for them to enjoy sex. Perfect solution. If this was happening to men over there, Africa and the rest of the Middle East would be an empty crater.'

Nick was silent, and Sara felt guilty for painting him with the same brush. 'I'm sorry, Nick. It's just-'

'You don't have to explain it to me, Sara,' he offered in a soft tone.

She waited a beat, then asked, 'What else?'

'Well,' he began, and she could hear him shuffling through his notes. 'After the procedure, they usually bind the legs together to promote healing.' He paused as if to catch his breath. 'In a lot of cases, they sew them shut, you know, like your girl was, and leave an opening for her time of the month.'

'I read about that,' Sara confirmed. She also knew that women in the village who weren't mutilated were not considered marriage material.