Chapter 11

I have a little trouble getting up in the morning when Kelly and Jules arrive. The buzzing of the intercom isn’t enough to wake me properly, and after a minute Kelly calls my mobile phone to tell me to get out of bed and let them in.

I feel a bit stupid in my pajamas with unruly bed hair as Kelly introduces me to Jules. He’s not bad looking, with dark blonde hair and a very slight British accent. He’s well dressed, seems articulate… not bad for a guy, all told. Nurse Kelly looks to have done all right for herself with this one.

I take out a plastic tray of supermarket cupcakes from the fridge and leave Kelly making coffee while I quickly get ready to go out. I’ve been sort of dreading car shopping all week, at least when I‘ve allowed myself to think about it. At this stage, much as I hate getting the train or bus to work, I can’t even imagine driving a car again. I guess I’ll go along today; I just hope nobody tries to talk me into test driving anything.

“Lucy’s the one I told you about who needs a gun,” says Kelly once we’re on the road.

I laugh. “Oh, yeah,” I agree jokingly. “They make every household safer.”

Jules glances at me in the rear vision mirror and raises his eyebrows. “Well, I went to high school in Logan, but I’m not sure I know anyone these days who could get you one.”

“Watch the road,” I say tersely. “Sorry,” I immediately add, blushing.

“She had an accident recently,” explains Kelly, and I feel my face get hotter. Jules just nods and continues driving in silence. I hope I haven’t offended him.

Kelly looks at a few cars but doesn’t seem really taken with any of them. I’m quietly relieved that she’s too focused on finding herself a new vehicle to hassle me about doing the same.

After we walk around a couple of car yards, she turns to me and says, “You’ve got a face like a cat’s ass.”

I snicker despite myself.

“Child,” she says. “Seriously, what’s up? You look worried.”

“I’m just thinking about that neuro patient,” I tell her.

“Oh, right,” says Kelly. “How is-a Mr Rossi?” she asks with a faux-Italian flourish.

“Not-a so great,” I reply, frowning a bit.

Kelly starts to say something else, but I cut her off with a shout of realisation. “That could be it!” I say, heart thumping.

“What?” asks Kelly. Jules has stopped inspecting a nearby car and is also looking at me quizzically.

“His name is Italian… so he must be Italian, or his family is, anyway,” I say, realising I’m probably babbling. “Jules, would you mind giving me a lift into work, please? Now? It’s important.”

“Well, okay,” he says, looking at his watch. “I guess we can drop you off and then come back here to keep looking.”

“Fine, fine,” I say gratefully, “I can get myself home later. Thanks!”

“What is it?” asks Kelly as we get back into the car.

“Look, I’m probably wrong,” I reply. “I just thought of something we haven’t tested Chris for. It might be important.”

I pass Dave on my way into the hospital. He’s carrying a coffee mug and a paper sandwich bag from the cafeteria. He nods when he sees me and gives me a smile.

“Hey, Sterling,” I say, raising my hand in a half-hearted little wave as I bustle past. “I have to run – I’ll catch you later.”

I track down my mentor, Wendy Zhang, as fast as possible to tell her my theory.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking sceptical. “That’s rare as hell. I can hardly even remember learning about it, and God knows I’ve never actually seen it.”

“I know,” I say, flustered. “It’s… a zebra.”

“You’re goddamn right it is,” she says. “He’s more likely to have, I don’t know, the freaking plague.”

“It’ll just take a blood test to confirm,” I point out. “I’ll order it and draw the sample myself.”

Zhang gives me a hard look and finally shrugs. “It’s your day off,” she says. “Go ahead. But don’t even think about mentioning it to the patient unless you know for sure.”

I nod my thanks and head upstairs to order the blood work. Part of me is excited that I might be right, but I’m at least equally hopeful that I’m not.

Chris still looks like shit, but he’s more lucid today. He’s sitting quietly in bed, looking tired and drawn, and still visibly sweating, but conscious. He glances up when I come into the room.

“Hey,” he says.

I smile. “Hey, yourself,” I reply. “Feeling any better?”

He nods and rubs at his red eyes. “I think I might have dozed off a little overnight, so I feel sort of okay,” he says. He notices the kidney dish I’m carrying with a needle and blood sample tubes. “More tests?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Do you mind?”

He shrugs and holds out his left arm obligingly.

“Thanks,” I say with a thin smile. I swab the crook of his elbow with an alcohol wipe and slide the needle into a prominent vein. While I’m drawing the blood, I ask Chris about his family history again.

“I think I already told you my Mum died in an accident,” he says. “And the only person in the family who’s ever really been sick was my grandmother. She had Alzheimer’s before she died.”

“Which side was your grandmother on?” I ask.

“My mum’s mum,” he says. “The Sicilian side.”

I nod and make an effort to keep my mouth shut. “All done,” I say, dropping the two full tubes into the metal dish. I drop the used needle into the sharps bin on the wall.

“What’s this one for?” asks Chris.

“Just routine blood work,” I lie as I leave the room.

I run the blood up to pathology myself. The clinical geneticist, Professor Barlow, should be in today. I mark the request as urgent and hope the test results are in when I come back to work tomorrow night.

Chapter 10

Josie furrows her brow as she watches the locksmith install my new deadbolt. “Tell me again who you think has been coming in here?” she asks me.

“Nobody, exactly,” I reply with a touch of embarrassment. “It’s just in case. And I never changed the locks after I moved in.”

“You mean, after you moved in two years ago,” she says. “And the new extra lock?”

“I’m just worried,” I tell her. “It’s not that I really think I’m going to get robbed or anything… I’ll just feel safer with new locks.”

Josie shrugs and ducks back into the kitchen, returning with a couple of beers. “Relax,” she says, handing me one. I do no such thing, but I accept the bottle and take a couple of swigs while I write the locksmith’s cheque.

After he leaves, we both sit down in front of the TV with our beers and a couple of soy burgers. Jo has brought over her copy of The Meaning of Life, and slides the disk into the DVD player before she settles down. “I can’t believe you’ve never watched this,” she remarks.

About half an hour into the movie, my phone rings. “That’s probably her,” says Josie in an excited stage whisper.

I pause the movie to answer the call. It is indeed her: Jo’s prospective new landlord. Or landlady, I suppose, although that feels kind of sexist, like ‘investor-ess’ or something.

“That’s correct, Josephine lives at this address,” I tell the landperson. It’s not exactly a lie; sometimes Josie lives here, for a few days at a time, anyway.

I give my “tenant” a fairly glowing report, while being perhaps a bit vague a couple of times to avoid outright untruths. I get the important points across: she’s clean and tidy, responsible, no pets, and has never missed a rent payment. Jo snickers quietly behind her hand at the last one. Of course, she’s never owed rent to me, so she couldn’t be late in paying it.

“Thanks, big sister!” she says after I’ve hung up. She leans over and gives me a big hug, and I smile.

“Any time,” I reply, starting the movie again.

I find it a little difficult to concentrate at work in the morning. I keep getting distracted and worrying about my mental state and/or personal safety. Either someone is watching me and breaking into my apartment, or I’m going nuts. I’m not sure which would be worse.

I also find myself investing a lot of effort in pushing images of my stupid father out of my head.

“I wish I could carry pepper spray or something,” I say to Kelly at lunch in the cafeteria.

She takes a big bite of her sandwich and looks thoughtful. “No,” she eventually says, around her mouthful of food, “I don’t even know where you’d get it.”

“This stupid country,” I say, only about half joking. “Can’t even carry around a spray can of caustic chemicals to protect myself.” I sigh and drain my second cup of coffee.

“Paintball gun, then?” Kelly suggests with a grin, making me laugh.

“Anyway, are we still good for car shopping tomorrow?”

“I guess,” I reply. “Jules can still pick us up?”

“Yeah,” she says, “We’ll come by your place around eleven.”

She continues eating her sandwich. I poke at mine a bit. They looked pretty good when we were buying lunch, but I don’t feel very much like eating anymore. I get up for another coffee.

“Jesus, Luce,” says Kelly, giving me a sideways look as I return to the table with a large cup. “You’re never going to sleep again, huh?”

I snerk a bit at that and down about half of my latte. Her words have reminded me of my insomniac patient upstairs in neurology.

Towards the end of my shift I head up to check on Chris. He looks awful, haggard and glassy-eyed, his forehead beaded with sweat. “How are you doing?” I ask softly.

He turns to face me but his eyes don’t focus. I notice a slight nystagmus, his eyes flicking rapidly left and right. He makes a vague little sound and slowly lets his head drop forward. He seems barely conscious.

I take a look at his chart. He’s still having trouble with muscle cramps and spasms, and the nurses have noted his affect becoming more flat over the last couple of days. I make a note about the nystagmus in case nobody else has spotted it already. The interferon doesn’t seem to be helping Chris, or at least not yet.

I decide that tonight I will drag out my old neurology texts and do some more reading on MS. There must be something else we could be doing for him.

I get home before midnight and crack the books, as I’d planned. I would put on a pot of coffee if I owned anything so fancy as a coffee pot, but in the absence of such an appliance I boil the kettle and make myself some instant coffee in an oversized mug, then settle down on the sofa with my books.

I’m not particularly heartened by what I read. Apart from using beta interferons to try and slow the disease, all we can really do for Chris is treat the symptoms as they occur. He’s already receiving physiotherapy for his legs to keep his muscle strength up. He could probably benefit from an antidepressant too, I think, judging by how miserable he seemed today. Not that I can blame him for being down.

I think back to the conversation I had with one of the ward nurses about Chris’s condition this evening. He told me Chris’s temperature has been slightly elevated for a couple of days, which led me to think it could be an infection after all, until he showed me the normal results from the latest blood test. No increased white cell count, meaning almost certainly no infection, so we’re back to MS as the most likely culprit. It had been nice to at least briefly think there might be an easier diagnosis.

I flick idly through the neurology text as I sip my coffee. No other condition stands out as particularly likely. I find myself reading about interesting but irrelevant conditions, and when I eventually check my watch I’m surprised to see it’s four in the morning.

With a grimace, I set the textbook aside on the coffee table and get up. I take a small bottle from the bathroom cabinet and swallow half a pill with the rest of my coffee. Then I put the mug in the dishwasher and go to bed.

Chapter 9

I’m woken mid-morning by a shrill alarm. I force my eyes open and struggle to figure out what’s going on for a moment, before I realise it’s my mobile phone ringing. I fumble for it on my bedside table and thumb the button to answer the call.

“Hello?” I say groggily.

Silence.

“Hello?” I take the phone off my ear and check the display to be sure I haven’t accidentally muted the call. No, it’s fine.

“Hello?” I try one more time, with growing impatience. I notice the line isn’t totally silent: I can just barely hear gentle breathing. I hang up with a frown. “Idiot,” I mutter. The call was from an unknown number, meaning probably some jackass at a public phone.

My phone rings again almost immediately.

“Get fucked, I’m trying to sleep,” I snarl down the line.

“Shit, sorry,” says a familiar voice. “I forgot you were on the graveyard shift.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, Kelly,” I say wearily. “Was that you a minute ago?”

“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I got through as soon as I dialled. I’ll let you go back to sleep. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say, rubbing my eyes and getting out of bed. “I’m going to get up and have some breakfast now anyway. What’s up?”

“Found my car,” she says, and I can almost hear her pouting. “Or, the police found it, actually.”

“Council didn’t take it, then?” I ask, not bothering to conceal my smirk but trying to keep it out of my voice. I start looking for a clean cereal bowl in the kitchen.

“Someone stole it. It was on fire in a parking lot out at Ipswich.”

I raise my eyebrows at that. “Really? Wow. But you’re insured, right?”

Kelly snorts, sending a sharp burst of static down the line and making me wince. “Not bloody likely,” she says. “It was so old it wasn’t worth it anymore. So I guess you’re going to have company next time you go out looking for a new used car.”

“Um, I’m probably not going to replace my car right away, after all,” I tell her. I’m not really inclined to explain right now.

“Well, Jules is taking me out on Friday to check out some dealers,” she says. “Wanna come? We can go out for lunch or something afterward.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “I’m off work this Friday.”

“Cool,” she replies. “I’ll let you go. I’m about to head in for the afternoon shift in a bit, so I’ll catch you tonight.”

“Okay,” I say, hanging up. Having located a bowl, I pour myself some bran cereal and sit down in front of the TV to eat. I glance at the colourful irises on my coffee table and smile.

My phone rings again, showing “unknown number” on the display. I turn it off and continue eating my cereal.

I don’t manage to get back to sleep again until early in the afternoon, so I only get in a few hours before I have to get up again for work. “Night shift can eat a dick,” I mutter to myself as I sleepily get dressed.

As I’m leaving, I turn the deadlock bolt on the front door but it fails to open. I turn the door handle harder and push, then try the deadlock again. I realise it was unlocked in the first place and I locked it just now. Shit, did I leave the door unbolted all day? All night while I was at work? Thank God it’s a secure building. That isn’t like me. I make sure to lock and double check the door on my way out.

I visit Chris again when I get to work. He’s still in the psychiatric ward, which is probably not ideal, but at least he’s in a private room. He looks pretty awful, gaunt with dark shadows under his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” I ask him.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m having injections in the belly now.”

“I know,” I say apologetically. “Hopefully the Betaferon will start controlling your symptoms. It’s hard to test for MS, especially the relapsing-remitting form we think you might have, but if that’s what it is we should see some improvement soon.”

“It sucks, but it’s not as bad as that lumbar needle I had when you were doing all the tests before. And I guess at least if it turns out I have MS, the injections will cure it,” says Chris.

“Not cure it, exactly,” I correct him, hating myself for having to say it. “It won’t actually go away, but we can control it.”

Chris sighs.

“How’s your appetite? Are you eating all right?” I ask him. It’s probably a rather transparent attempt to change the subject.

He shrugs. “Yeah, but, you know… hospital food,” he says with a wry smile.

“What about your sleep?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess I’ve been dozing a little sometimes, but I’m not getting much sleep. Nobody ever died of insomnia, though, right?”

I chuckle a bit at that. “You’ll be fine,” I tell him with slightly more conviction than I feel. I notice there’s a big gift-wrapped potted plant on the table across the room, and a couple of get-well cards on the shelf above. “Had some visitors?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “My dad and my stepsister came by yesterday. And one of the cards is from the guys at work.”

“Nice,” I say. “You take it easy, and I’ll come by again before I leave in the morning.”

I check my pager, which has begun vibrating on my hip, and see to my dismay that we’re down two interns tonight, so I’m supposed to be in the suture room until my break.

“Last year of residency,” I repeat to myself like a mantra as I head back downstairs to emergency.

Doing sutures makes it a longer night than I would otherwise expect. People showing up in the middle of the night with lacerations are occasionally interesting cases, but mostly it’s an idiot parade. Among others, I see a teenager who fell over drunk and clipped a glass coffee table, a woman who slipped cutting vegetables and sliced fairly deeply into her thumb, and – possibly my favourite – a guy in his thirties who tried to open a beer bottle with his eye socket. The latter patient is lucky he only cut open his brow and didn’t actually damage his eye.

Midway through my shift, when one of the interns has taken over the suture room again, I buy myself a cup of very ordinary coffee from the machine in the break room. It’s not great, but the caffeine helps me get through the rest of the night.

In the morning I check in again on Chris. He’s doing about the same as before, although he seems a bit more animated, flipping through the channels on the TV in his room instead of just sitting in bed. I note that his second dose of interferon is due this morning. I hope he starts showing some improvement soon, since I feel pretty lame in the meantime telling him the painful shots in the belly are meant to help.

At the end of my shift I’m so tired I end up crashing in the on call room instead of leaving the hospital right away. I sleep until the early afternoon; then, feeling a bit better, I head to the train station to finally go home.

I’m walking home through the mall on Queen Street, squinting in the bright sunlight, when I spot someone I know. He’s sitting at an al fresco table by one of the outdoor restaurants, sipping coffee. I go over to say hi.

“Hey, Dad,” I say.

My father turns in his seat to face me. He looks just slightly startled. “Hi, kiddo,” he says, seeming to recover a bit. “Not at work today?”

“On my way home. I still work shifts,” I remind him.

He nods and turns to the woman sitting across the table from him, who I hadn’t really registered yet. She looks a bit older than me, and is wearing what looks like a fairly expensive suit. I guess she’s probably a colleague, maybe a boss.

“This is my daughter J- Lucy,” Dad says, barely avoiding calling me by my sister’s name. I suppress the urge to roll my eyes at him. “She’s a doctor,” he adds, sounding proud, which I kind of appreciate. It almost offsets his nearly forgetting my damn name.

“Nice to meet you,” says the woman, a bit curtly, as though it’s actually anything but nice.

I notice the half-finished piece of cake on the table between them is on a plate with two used forks, one of which has red lipstick smeared around the tines. I frown slightly; this is not without precedent.

“This is Stacey,” Dad tells me. “We work in the same office.”

“And share dessert on dates,” I add flatly, without thinking.

They both seem to raise their eyebrows a little at this. Stacey crosses her arms and says nothing, while my Dad opens his mouth as if to say something, but doesn’t.

I close my eyes and sigh. “Stay classy, Dad,” I tell him. Then I turn on my heel and keep walking.

Back at home, I’m halfway in the front door when I realise the deadbolt wasn’t locked again. My eyes widen – I’m completely sure I checked it when I left last night. Shit, has someone broken in?

I drop my bag just inside the door and make my hands into fists, dropping slightly into something like a fighting stance. I look around the living room and kitchen, checking inside the pantry and behind the sofa for an intruder. Heart racing, sweat running down my face, I check the bathroom and bedroom as well.

Nobody is in here. I look around again and realise nothing is missing or disturbed, either; it would seem I haven’t been robbed.

Part of me is still panicky at the thought that someone might have been in here. The more rational part wonders if working nights isn’t starting to get the better of me. Am I just paranoid? My gaze falls to the box of antidepressant pills on the kitchen bench; my God, am I starting to have delusions?

I lock the front door and push the coffee table up against it for good measure. I don’t care how crazy it looks – nobody else is here to see it. Rattled by the whole afternoon’s events, I make myself a big mug of hot milky tea and settle down on the sofa. I’m still a bit uneasy.

Running into my dad – on a date – was just bizarre. I guess I won’t mention the encounter to anyone else. Mum is already well aware of my father’s tendency toward such indiscretions, and Josie doesn’t need to be worrying about our parents right now, especially with uni starting soon.

We all know that he’s had affairs before. During the longest period when my parents were separated, he actually moved in with some girlfriend for a few months. It was so awkward that Josephine and I never visited him during that time. I still don’t know what changed to make him come back to Mum, but when he eventually came home again she took him back for some reason. She always took him back.