SJ Lakes

Chapter 24

The police officer – “Call me Bridget,” she says – sits down in the chair Josie had been in.

“So, what happens now?” I ask her.

“We’re charging her with assault,” says Bridget. “There’s CCTV footage from inside the building lobby showing the attack, and we don’t expect she’ll deny the charges. I don’t think you’ll need to appear in court or anything like that, but I do need you to give a statement, if you feel up to it.”

“Okay,” I say. “Although, I’ve had a concussion, apparently. I don’t know how valid a statement would be right now.”

“Sure,” says Bridget, nodding. “Why don’t you give me a call in a day or two when you feel up to it, then?” She hands me her card. I take it, although I’m pretty sure I still have the first one she gave me.

Josie comes back into my room, carrying a sandwich and take-away coffee cup, with my wallet held under one arm. She looks a bit surprised at the cop sitting in her chair, then walks around to the other side of my bed and sets the coffee and sandwich down on the table.

“Hi, Officer…”

“Bridget,” says Bridget.

Jo perches on the end of my bed, managing not to sit on my feet. “What’s happening to Heidi?” she says, a touch of venom in her voice.

“She’ll be held in police custody until we have a court date,” says Bridget.

“Good,” we both say at once.

Josie turns and grins at me. “Jinx,” she says.

“Child,” I reply. “Anyway,” I add, turning to Bridget, “she probably needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. As far as I could tell she appeared delusional.”

“Okay,” she says, taking out a small pad and making a note. “I’ll make sure she gets medical attention as soon as possible.”

“Do you need a statement from Josephine?” I ask.

“No, we’ve already spoken,” she replies. Josie nods.

“I took the bitch down,” she smirks. I can’t help laughing at her earnest expression.

Bridget thanks me for my time and I promise to call her once I’m out of the hospital. It occurs to me that, concussion aside, I must have been dosed with opiates after the surgery, so it would be doubly ill-advised for me to give a statement right now.

After Bridget leaves, Josie resumes her seat by the bed. “Ew, the seat’s warm,” she remarks.

“Yeah, I guess it would be,” I agree. “Thanks for the food. I don’t suppose they’ve changed the sign on the door yet?”

“Still says nil by mouth,” she says. “I’ll go get a nurse.”

She gets up and I hear her in the hall asking about my diet. In a moment she’s back with the nurse.

“Yes, you’re fine to have some light solids now,” says the nurse. “Sandwiches are okay.”

“Great,” I say, immediately opening the package and taking a big bite.

The nurse takes my blood pressure and temperature, noting them in my chart before she leaves.

“How is it?” asks Jo.

“Oh, god, so good,” I mumble, washing down my mouthful of sandwich with some hot coffee. It’s actually terrible – low-fibre white bread spread with cheap, oily catering butter – but it’s exactly what I want right now. Since my right arm is out of action I’m handling the coffee cup fairly carefully with my left hand, the uneaten sandwich balanced on my chest.

“Hey, slacker,” says a voice from the doorway. It’s Dave.

“Hey, yourself,” I say, setting my coffee back down on the bedside table. I take another big bite of my sandwich.

“Any excuse to get out of work, right?” Dave winks at Josie, who sniggers. I think I see her blush a little. I make a mental note to be merciless about this later.

“We got you a card,” he says, handing me an envelope.

“Oh, thank you,” I say. “Jo, do you mind?”

Josie takes the envelope and opens it for me. It’s a standard get-well-soon card, signed by half a dozen of the emergency department staff, which I place on the table by the bed, and a couple of scratch tickets. I laugh.

“Thanks, Dave,” I say with a smile. I tuck the tickets underneath my wallet on the table.

“So how are you holding up?” he asks me.

“Okay,” I say. I finish the last of my sandwich and set the packaging aside, swiping ineffectually at the crumbs on the bed sheet.

“You should see the other guy,” says Jo.

Dave picks up my chart and flips through the pages. “Yeah, you’ll be fine,” he pronounces. “Looks like you’ll have a scar on that arm, though.”

I make a face. “Could be worse,” I say. “At least I landed on my wrist and not my head.”

“Yeah, you don’t want any more holes in your head,” he smirks. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brain about a patient, while I’m here. Do you mind?”

I’m intrigued. “What is it?”

“Thirty-five year old woman, no history, with jaundiced skin and ketosis.”

“Right,” I say. “Bloods?”

“All normal,” he says.

“Liver’s normal?” I ask.

He nods.

“Jaundice,” I muse. “She’s on a diet.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “That might explain the ketosis.”

“She’s on a diet,” I repeat. “Probably replacing at least one meal a day with carrot sticks, I’d guess.”

Dave nods, getting it. “Not jaundice at all,” he says.

“Carrot poisoning?” says Jo.

I laugh. “Kind of,” I say. “Beta carotene can build up in the body and make the skin orange or yellow. And ketosis means she’s avoiding carbs.”

“Nice one, Sherlock,” says Dave. “I’ll ask her about the diet. I owe you a beer if you’re right. Anyway, I gotta go. I’m on until three this afternoon. Take it easy.” He gives me a little peck on the cheek on his way out, making me blush this time.

My attending doctor, Whitman, gives me the all-clear on Sunday afternoon to be discharged in the morning. Josie comes back to the hospital to help me get my stuff together and ride home in the cab with me once I get out.

“I can’t believe you only get codeine,” she says, packing my little toiletry kit into my duffel bag. “I thought you’d get morphine or something after surgery.”

“Not once they discharge me,” I tell her. “All the good stuff’s only for inpatients.”

“How much time do you have to take off work?” she asks.

“I’m taking at least a week,” I say. “The OHS guys are figuring something out for me to write with when I come back. I’ll probably just have to type on a laptop until I can use my hand again. I don’t think they’ll hire me a scribe.”

“Yeah,” she says, taking a breath. “Listen… are you going to see a therapist?”

“About all this?” I say, surprised. “Oh, I don’t know if I need to. Work might ask me to, I suppose, once I come back.”

“No,” says Josie. “I mean, not just all this. Are you planning to talk to someone about your thing with driving?”

I freeze, feeling as though I’ve been caught in something. “What?” I ask.

“Don’t look like that,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious you’re scared of driving since you had the accident.”

“I’m not scared,” I say. “I just… I can’t bring myself to drive.” I sigh. “Is it really obvious?”

“It is to me,” she says.

“You’re the first one to say anything,” I tell her. I shrug. “What do I do?”

“See a therapist, jackass,” she says. Her tone is mock-stern but I can see she’s serious. “Not to mention that anyone who’s lived with the Proctors needs their head examined.”

I smile thinly and raise my fingers to my own head, gently tracing the big bump around the sutures on my scalp. “I guess you’re right,” I say. “God knows I haven’t talked to a therapist in a long time, even since before the car accident, and… the rest.”

“Good,” says Josie. “Make an appointment with someone. I’m going to hassle you about it in a couple of weeks.”

“Jeez, all right,” I say. I’m a little amused by her tenacity on this.

An orderly appears at the door with my wheelchair and Josie helps me into it. “I’ve got your bag with all your things,” she says.

She keeps pace with us as I’m wheeled to the nurses’ station to sign the paperwork, then to the pharmacy for my discharge meds, and finally out to the waiting taxi. Josie gives the driver my address as the orderly puts my bag in the back and takes the chair back into the hospital.

“How are you feeling?” Josie asks me as the cab pulls out.

I think about it for a minute. “I’m feeling okay,” I tell her honestly.

I take out my wallet from my hip pocket and remove the two lottery tickets, plus a coin to scratch them. “It might be mainly the drugs, but right now, I feel pretty good.”

Chapter 23

Consciousness comes back to me gradually. Everything seems very far away. I’m mostly aware that my head hurts like a bastard and I’m lying on the ground in something wet. A detached part of my mind hopes that it’s sweat.

Heidi is here, which is strange since the police took her away yesterday. She’s talking to Josie – no, yelling at her. She turns and yells something at me. What? My ears are roaring and I can’t really hear anything.

She lunges towards me and shouts again. This time I think I can make it out. It sounds like she says “it’s over now”.

Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. As Heidi comes at me, Josie tackles her from behind and takes her down. For a moment I manage to feel vaguely both alarmed and proud of her, then I feel sick to my stomach and it all goes black again.

I wake up slowly, awareness of my surroundings coming gradually as the darkness clears. I’m in bed. It’s a single bed, not mine… no, it’s a hospital bed. That realisation jolts me awake the rest of the way and I sit up to look around.

I’m immediately hit by a wave of nausea and dizziness, impacting me like a physical blow. I lie down again with a little whimper.

“Hey,” says Jo, who’s sitting in the chair next to me. “You okay?”

“What in god’s name…?” I manage, keeping my eyes closed against the nausea.

“It’s all right,” she says. “Heidi attacked you outside your place. She sounded crazy. Anyway, when the police came they took her away again.”

I realise I can feel a cannula in my left arm. “Can you call for a nurse?” I ask. “I need an antiemetic.”

“Yeah,” says Josie, and a moment later I hear the call bell chiming outside the room.

“Am I okay?” I finally think to ask. Opening my eyes, I add, “Are you okay, Jo?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “And I think you’re okay. You look like shit, but apparently the surgery went well.”

I frown. “Surgery?”

“Your arm,” she says.

I look stupidly down at myself, and before the nausea makes me put my head back down on the pillow I see my right forearm is in a cast. “I didn’t even feel that,” I say. Then I remember being hit in the head. “Oh, jeez, do I have all my hair?” I ask.

“Mostly,” Jo replies. She sounds like she’s smirking. “They cut off a little bit to stitch a cut your scalp, but you can hardly see it.”

“Oh, fine, then,” I grumble. “And where’s that fucking nurse?”

“Just wait,” says Jo. “How are you feeling?”

I make an irritated little noise, realising as I do that I probably sound like a complete child. “Sick,” I tell her. “But not sore, at least. I must have some decent pain killers on board.”

“I guess,” she says. “I’m glad you’re okay, you know.” Her voice catches a bit, and I force myself to turn my head to look at her. She’s wiping at tears.

“Hey, I’m fine,” I say.

A familiar-looking nurse enters the room with my chart.

“How are you doing, Lucy?” she asks me.

“Okay,” I say. “Nauseous. Can I get some Zofran?”

“Hm,” she says, checking the chart. “Yes, doctor’s written you up for some Zofran, if you need it.” She looks up at me. “Are you a nurse?”

I frown. “I’m a doctor,” I reply, trying to keep the contempt from my voice. “I’m a doctor here, actually,” I add, having just realised that’s where I am.

The nurse leaves to get the medication. “So what did I do to my arm?” I ask Josie.

“You fell on your wrist,” she says. “You seem to be more lucid now,” she adds. “I’ve gone through this with you twice already.”

“Really?” I say, turning slightly to arch my eyebrows at her.

“Yeah,” she says. “You woke up a couple of times before, but you were still pretty out of it. You kept asking the nurse about your blood pressure.”

An unpleasant thought hits me. “Hey, what day is it?” I ask.

“Only Saturday,” she replies with a smile. “Mum and Dad get back tomorrow night.”

“Um, don’t tell them I’m in the hospital, okay?” I say. “They’ll only want to visit me. Maybe.”

“All right,” she says.

The nurse comes back in with a syringe in a kidney dish. She injects the antiemetic into my IV and leaves again.

“Chatty one, isn’t she?” says Jo.

I smirk at that. “So, did you get your stuff moved okay this morning?” I ask her.

She nods. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I left here for a couple of hours to sort it out,” she says.

“Of course not,” I say. “Particularly since I was unconscious. So what exactly happened with Heidi?”

“Before, or… after?”

“Both, I guess.”

Jo licks her lips. “Well, she thought you had locked her out,” she says. “Which I suppose you had, technically. She was mad, and she seemed to think she was breaking up with you over it.”

“We really weren’t together,” I put in.

Jo shrugs. “Tell her that. Anyway, that bald spot you’ve now got is where she whomped you with a cricket bat.”

I wince. “Where would she even get a cricket bat? Why?”

She shrugs again and produces a bottle of soda, taking a long swig. I eyeball it, suddenly realising how thirsty I am.

“You’re still nil by mouth,” she says, seeing my gaze.

“Oh, balls,” I mutter. I reach behind my head for the nurse call button. “I shouldn’t be, unless I’m having more surgery.” I glance at Jo. “I’m not, am I?”

“I don’t think so,” she says, finishing the soda and dropping the bottle in the bin by her chair. “You had a scan of your head last night, but no one said anything was wrong.”

“A CT scan?”

“I think so, yeah,” says Jo.

A different ward nurse, who I don’t recognise, comes in. “How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Thirsty,” I tell her, unable to keep myself from scowling. “Is there a reason I’m NPO?”

“I think the doctor wanted to wait for your scan results,” she says.

“Okay,” I say. “Do we have the results now? I had the CT last night, didn’t I?”

She takes my chart from the back of the door and leafs through it. “Yep,” she says finally. “All fine.”

“So I’m okay to eat and drink now?” I say hopefully.

“I don’t see why not,” she says slowly. “Let me check with my supervisor and I’ll let you know.”

I nod and she leaves.

“Freaking nurses,” I say under my breath.

“I don’t think she knows you outrank her, Luce,” whispers Josie.

“I don’t know how much authority I command at the moment,” I say. I reach for the bed control and gently raise the head of the bed so I can see my surroundings better. The nausea is not too bad now.

“What time is it?” I ask Jo.

She checks her watch. “Ten,” she reports.

“Great, so I missed breakfast, and it’s ages until lunch,” I say, frowning. “Josie, can you please run down to the cafeteria and get me a coffee and a sandwich?”

“Sure,” she says. “Grumpy bitch when you’re concussed, aren’t you? What sandwich do you want?”

I shrug. “Egg or something,” I say. “Just grab my wallet out of – oh, where is my bag?”

“It’s in the drawer by the bed,” says Jo. “Your clothes are there, too.”

I hadn’t yet noticed, but I guess I am wearing a hospital gown. I feel myself blush slightly as I realise someone must have undressed me – probably someone I work with in emergency.

Jo takes ten dollars from my wallet and heads off to get me some brunch. I’m actually pretty ravenous, so I expect I’ll be more than happy to eat again when lunch comes around.

While I’m waiting for Jo and the nurse to come back, I turn on the television and flip around the channels. I’m glad to be in a private room; Jo must have arranged it when I came in. I’ll have to thank her and make sure she found my health insurance card with all the details for admissions.

There’s a short knock at my door. I glance up and see the female police officer who was at my apartment the other day.

“May I come in?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say, “I guess you’d better.”

Chapter 22

In a way I feel a bit better after speaking with Chris, although at the same time it’s terribly depressing just to see him. He’s beginning to actually look like a man who’s dying: his body is starting to waste, but more telling is the empty, resigned look in his eyes. I’m disappointed that he didn’t seem to want to say much to me, but I don’t know what else I could have really expected.

I’m quiet on the bus ride back home with Josephine. She doesn’t say much either and just looks out the window, the course guide now stashed away in her backpack.

When we get off the bus at South Bank, instead of walking back to Josie’s place from there, we transfer to a second bus. The walk was reasonable this morning but now the sun is high in the sky, the temperature in the mid-thirties and heat radiating up from the concrete. It’s much nicer to stay in an air-conditioned bus than to walk outside for even a short distance.

“So, are you going to work tomorrow?” asks Josie as we get back to her place.

“Yeah,” I say, “I can’t really justify taking another day off. I’ll head back to my place tonight.”

“Want me to come with you?” she offers. “I can get the bus back here once you’re home. Or spend the night, if you like.”

“Okay,” I say with a smile. It seems my little sister is being slightly protective of me at the moment, which I don’t mind too much under the circumstances.

We spend the afternoon watching cartoons on television at Josie’s house. Around four we order in a pizza and some sodas – no beer for me today since I’m going back to work in the morning.

After we eat I gather all my stuff together into my duffel bag, ready to head back home. Josie just stuffs her hairbrush and a change of clothes into her backpack, and once the sun has gone down and it’s a bit cooler outside, we head back into the city to my place.

We get off the bus at Queen Street and walk through the mall back to my building.

“I’ll get the bus out to Mum and Dad’s house tomorrow when you go to work,” says Josie. “I’m meeting the movers there to let them in, and they said I can get a ride back to West End with them.”

“Cool,” I say. “Your place will look more like it’s really yours once your book shelf is in there.”

“Yeah,” says Josie, smiling broadly. “And once the last of my stuff’s out, I won’t have to go back to Mum and Dad’s again.” She goes quiet for a moment as we walk. “It’s gonna hit the fan big time when they get home,” she adds.

“I know,” I tell her. “But you made the right decision for you on this. Stick to your guns. Remember you can hang up on them if you have to… especially Mum.”

She laughs. “Will you talk to her for me?” she asks, still looking worried.

“Of course,” I say. “I don’t know how much she’ll listen to me, but I’ll have a chat to her about it. They need to understand how important it is for you to live closer to uni, if nothing else.”

We stop at the front door of my apartment complex and I start fumbling in my shoulder bag for my keys. “How have they been lately, anyway?” I ask.

“Oh, about the same as ever,” she says, leaning against the door. “I try to stay out of their way, and I just hear them fighting from downstairs all night, but I don’t have to take too much of it myself.”

I shake my head. “You couldn’t pay me to live in that house again,” I say. My fingers find the key chain in the bottom of my bag and I grab it.

“Hey!” Josie shouts.

I jerk my head up and see a reflection in the glass door of someone coming rapidly towards us. My stomach feels like it leaps into my mouth and I whip around, barely registering what’s happening before I react, moving in front of Josie and raising an arm to protect myself.

I don’t quite manage to get my arm above shoulder height before something slams heavily into the side of my head, and the world suddenly goes very quiet, bright white, and then dark.

Chapter 21

After we have a couple of beers, Josie makes dinner for us while I nap on the couch. Apparently the new place has made her come over all domestic, and she’s bought rolling pins and sieves and baking trays like I would never have imagined. She puts in her little iPod headphones so as not to disturb me with the music while she bakes. I stretch out lazily and doze in and out for a couple of hours.

Eventually the smell of something good cooking coaxes me awake. I look at my watch and see it’s after four – it seems Josie has been going hard in the kitchen all afternoon.

“What are you making in there, anyway?” I call.

She pops her head out of the kitchen, headphones dangling from one ear, a moment later. She actually has a smear of flour under one eye, which makes me giggle a little.

“Bagels and minestrone,” she says. “I’m starting the minestrone now that the bagels are almost done.”

“You made bagels from scratch?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says with a proud grin. “I made copies of some of Mum’s recipes before I moved. The bagels smell awesome, but I’m not going to make them very often. You know you have to boil the damn things and then bake them too?”

“You don’t say.” I was vaguely aware of something like that, but I had no idea the whole process took so many hours. “Where did you get all that stuff for the kitchen?” I ask.

“Second hand shop near the bus station,” she says. “Everything was like a dollar. Anyway, almost done,” she adds. “Want to go get a bottle of wine for dinner from the store while I finish up?”

“Okay,” I say. I remember seeing a small bottle shop on the corner when we came in. “Red or white wine with minestrone?” I ask her, pretty much joking.

“White, I think,” say Jo thoughtfully.

I snicker. “Really? Wow, you’re really into this foodie thing, aren’t you.”

She shrugs and smiles. “Yeah, for now,” she says.

I pull on my sneakers and run downstairs to get us a bottle of riesling from the store. I don’t normally drink much wine so it’s a slightly random guess as to appropriateness for the meal.

Walking the half-block back to Jo’s apartment I suddenly feel a rush of panic. I clutch the plastic bag tighter and look around. There’s a couple of people out on the street, apparently going about their own business. I stupidly run, stumbling, almost tripping as I hurtle up the stairs. I lock the door behind me and pause for a minute to get my breath and try to calm down. I’m too embarrassed to say anything to Jo.

We sit at the little dining table in the kitchen instead of in front of the television. The minestrone is delicious, and the bagels are damn near as good as our mum makes.

“So when are you at work next?” Jo asks me.

“Supposed to be tomorrow morning,” I say. “But I’m, um, still a bit shaken up after what happened, I think. Maybe I’ll ask Dave to cover my shift, and then I can head out to see that other patient, too.”

I realise I’m getting a bit teary all of a sudden. I try to blink back the tears, then drop my spoon and wipe at my eyes with my hands.

I hear Josie’s spoon drop into her bowl too, and then her arms are around my shoulders. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “You’re here with me.”

I dissolve into big heaving sobs as my little sister hugs and comforts me. After a minute I take out my mobile phone and send a text message to Dave. I get a response pretty quickly; he’s happy to cover for me tomorrow as long as I take his shift next weekend.

“Finish your wine and go pick a DVD,” says Jo, kissing me on the cheek. I sniffle a bit and get up to do just that.

“You got room for dessert?” she calls from the kitchen.

“You did not bake dessert as well,” I say in disbelief.

“Nope,” she says. “From the store.” She joins me in the living room with a small tub of vanilla bean gelato and a couple of spoons.

I’m in a fairly crappy mood again, so as much as I want to watch the second season of Breaking Bad, I select The Craft from Josie’s small but excellent DVD collection.

“Good choice,” she laughs as I put the disc in the player. She settles down on the big old sofa, curling her legs underneath herself, black peasant skirt flowing out around her like a dark lake.

“This one’s always good for a laugh,” I agree, sinking down next to her and grabbing a spoon. “Oh, god, that’s good,” I say around a mouthful of gelato.

“I know,” she says, taking another spoonful herself. “Thank god the place that makes this stuff is too far to walk in summer, or I’d be eating it every day.”

“I’m glad you managed to get your own place, Josie,” I say. “And thanks for being so good to me during… all this.”

She waves a dismissive hand, gesturing with her spoon.
“De nada,” she says easily. “I’m just glad I can offer you my sofa bed here, instead of a room at Mum and Dad’s.”

I snort. “Yeah, staying in that house would be real comforting.”

Jo laughs out loud. It’s good to hear her laughter again, and as the movie starts I find myself smiling too.

In the morning I walk from Josie’s place to South Bank, to catch a bus across to the palliative care hospital where Chris has been admitted. Josie brings a book and comes along with me for the ride. When we’re sitting on the bus I notice the book she’s chosen is the big course guide from UQ.

“Keen on picking out your classes?” I ask.

“I guess,” she says. “I already enrolled in my first semester classes online, but I like planning for what I want to do next.”

I nod. “Good idea,” I tell her. “Although if you’re like me you’ll change your mind heaps of times.”

“Yeah,” she says non-committally, and continues paging through the heavy volume. I note with approval that she’s looking at second year classes in bioethics and medical history, which were some of my favourite undergrad subjects. I don’t say anything else about it for now.

Jo is dressed sensibly for the weather, in her beaten up old sandals, cut-off jeans shorts, and a loose black shirt, exposed skin shining with sunscreen. I’m dressed to talk to a terminal patient, which I’ve never done off the clock. I’m wearing a button-down shirt with short sleeves over grey trousers and a pair of black Docs, borrowed from Jo and polished until they look fairly clean and respectable. I hope I look professional and haven’t sweated through my shirt too much by the time we get there.

Josie waits for me in the hospital lobby, busying herself with marking pages in the course guide, while I ask at the desk where I can find Chris. The clerk tells me which ward he’s in and calls over a tall man in a Volunteer shirt to guide me there.

Chris is watching television when I enter the room. “Hi there,” I say softly.

He looks up and turns off the television when he sees me. “Hey, Dr Klein,” he says in a quiet, scratchy voice. I’m almost surprised that he recognises me wearing civilian clothes instead of scrubs.

“Can I sit down?” I ask with a bit of trepidation.

He nods almost imperceptibly and waves a hand at the chair by his bed. I sit down on the puffy cushion and set my shoulder bag down between my feet.

“How have you been?” I ask, although I can sort of see how he’s doing. He looks paler and more drawn than last time I saw him.

“Okay, I guess,” he says, in little more than a whisper, then clears his throat. “My dad’s gene test came back negative,” he adds. “It’s just me, so I guess the disease must have come from my mum.”

I nod; we had suspected that was the case.

“Thank god I never had kids,” says Chris.

“They looking after you here?” I ask awkwardly. “Keeping you comfortable?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding to the IV line in his left arm. He looks at me. “Do you need something?” he asks.

“Well,” I say, “You know some of the other doctors and I wanted to publish a paper about your case. I wanted to ask you how you feel about it.”

He shrugs, though with visible effort. “Sure, I don’t mind,” he replies. “I… I’m fine with that.” He gives me a thin little smile.

“I’m glad,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

Chris smiles again and closes his eyes. After a moment I stand and quietly step out of the room.

Chapter 20

“You got here fast,” I say to Jo with a sniff.

“I got a cab,” she says. “I wasn’t going to fuck around catching buses after the police called me.”

I start crying again at the mention of the police. “They were… nice,” I manage.

Jo wraps her arms around my shoulders again. I make a big wet face print on her blue cotton shirt.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says. “You want tea or coffee, or something?”

I shake my head. “Oh,” I say, remembering, “I should get rid of the coffee in the bedroom.”

The mug is still on the bedside table, mostly full of now cold coffee. I pour it down the kitchen sink and put the mug in the dishwasher.

“I wouldn’t mind a beer or something,” I remark, although a glance at my watch tells me that would be fairly inappropriate. It’s still pretty early in the day.

“Are you supposed to go to work today?” says Josie.

“No,” I reply. “Not until tomorrow morning.”

“Do you want to come and stay at my place for a day or two?” she asks.

“Okay,” I say, with a nod and another big sniff. She hands me the box of tissues from the kitchen counter and I take a couple. “How is the new place, anyway?” I ask.

“It’s awesome,” she says, and her face positively lights up. “The couch folds out into a double bed, by the way.”

“Neat,” I say, returning a thin smile. “How did you go moving your stuff?”

“All right,” she shrugs. “I didn’t really have much to move except my clothes. Most of my books are still at Mum and Dad’s since they’re too heavy to take on the bus. I haven’t moved the bookshelf yet, either. There isn’t one in my apartment.”

“Sorry I can’t just drive your stuff across for you,” I say. “No car, you know.”

“I know,” she agrees. “Doesn’t matter. Mum and Dad are still in Kualar Lumpur until Sunday, so I’ve got a couple of days left to get the last of my stuff out.”

“Ballsy,” I say with a wry little smile. I have no idea how or when I would have been able to leave home if I hadn’t had a university four hours away as my excuse. Just sneaking off while the parents are on vacation is beautiful. “Why don’t you let me pay for a removalist to move your bookshelf,” I add, “and we’ll put your books in a couple of boxes to go at the same time. Call it a housewarming present.”

“Deal,” says Josie. “So, um… did this woman steal anything of yours when she broke in?”

“No,” I say. “It wasn’t really like that, I guess. I’ll tell you about it on the way to your place.” I take a breath and rub at my eyes. “Just let me chuck some clothes in a bag and we’ll go.”

“Okay,” she says. “Are you okay to get the bus?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I reply. I drag out an old duffel bag from my wardrobe and start tossing in a few shirts and my other pair of jeans.

“What’s wrong?” says Jo after a minute.

I realise I’ve stopped packing and am just staring into the wardrobe.

“Heidi left her damn robe here,” I tell her, taking it out on its hanger. Just great. I’m going to have to check through all my stuff to make sure she hasn’t left me anything else.

“Oh, it was Heidi?” says Jo, surprised. “Your Heidi, from ages ago?”

“Yeah,” I say, blushing. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d remember her.”

“Well, you were with her for a while,” she replies.

“That I was,” I agree, picking up my bag and slinging it across my back. I hang the robe on the back of the bedroom door. “I guess I’ll deal with this when I come back,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”

I fill Josie in on what I think happened with Heidi, during the short bus ride to her house. She doesn’t say much about it all, which I sort of appreciate. West End isn’t far from the city so in about ten minutes we’re there.

“It’s just a block from here,” she says as we get off the bus at Boundary Street.

Josie’s place is the one I went with her to look at a couple of weekends ago, a fairly small one-bedroom apartment above an ethnic bakery. It’s an older style building, with high corniced ceilings and polished wooden floors inside. There’s a small air conditioner installed in the living room window, and I notice it’s already running when we arrive.

The furniture, which I recall Josie is renting with the place, is eclectic to say the least. There’s a big, slightly worn, green velour couch in the living room that looks like it seats three people. Next to it is a newer looking recliner chair in a mismatched brown floral pattern. The television looks like a modern LCD screen, sitting atop an antique looking wooden table.

Josie seems to have moved in most of her stuff. Although the furniture isn’t hers, there are signs of her presence around the place already. I recognise a poster of some emo rock band on the wall, and there’s a small wooden shoe rack by the front door holding two pairs of Doc Martens boots, one black and one red, and a pair of slightly battered black high-top sneakers.

“What do you think?” she says, kicking off her old brown sandals and placing them next to the sneakers on the shoe rack.

“Seems nice,” I say, setting my bags down by the couch. I still feel a bit shaken, after the insane morning I’ve had, but I’m still as excited as I can be right now for my little sister, moving out of our parents’ home for the first time. There will probably be a colossal shitstorm when they get home on Sunday night to discover she’s gone, but we’ll deal with that later.

“Are you going to show me around?” I ask.

She shows me the kitchen, with appliances that look to date from the seventies, and a small round dining table with two chairs. The bathroom is tiny, with a shower in the corner opposite the toilet and hand basin, but it all looks functional. In contrast with the ancient shower and tap fittings, there is a brand new washer-dryer installed on the wall above the sink. “I don’t have to go to a stupid laundromat or anything,” remarks Jo as she points it out.

The bedroom is fairly small, with just enough room for a double bed, a tall wooden armoire against the wall, and an old student desk and office chair in one corner. Jo’s little netbook computer is charging on top of the desk, and the bed is made with sheets I recognise from her old room. “I had to buy a quilt and pillows,” she says. “I hadn’t even thought about that stuff. The kitchen already had cutlery and plates and stuff, though.”

“Well, the place looks great,” I say. “I would have killed to have something like this all to myself when I started uni.”

“Yeah, now I just have to come up with the rent every week,” Jo says with a wry grin. “For now, it’s not far to the city or South Bank to get the train to work in the evenings, but I’ll be happier once I get a job nearby instead.”

“You’re not working too many hours once classes start, are you?” I ask.

“Nah,” she says. “I’m only doing about three shifts a week at the restaurant now, and once uni starts it will probably only be two. That’s enough for me to pay the bills at the moment.”

“I really miss the student lifestyle sometimes, you know,” I comment wistfully, taking a seat on the couch. I sink into the comfortable cushions. “Living somewhere low-rent, free to spend your time studying or just hanging out…” I sigh. “I’m sure it’s not as great as I remember, but some days it seems a lot nicer than working double shifts and re-grouting the bathroom.”

Josie laughs. “Sucks to be a grown-up,” she says. “I get to put it off for another three years, at least.” She looks at her watch. “Speaking of which,” she adds, “it’s practically noon. Want a beer?”

“Oh, dear god, yes,” I say.

Chapter 19

Heidi scoots back to sit up in the bed. She’s wearing my old oversized Metallica shirt.

“How long have you been in here?” I ask softly.

She stretches and yawns, the sheet dropping away to show she’s only wearing panties under the shirt. That would be fairly hot if I weren’t terrified. “I got in a little late after work last night, honey,” she says, apparently missing my point. “Want me to make us some omelettes for breakfast?”

I slowly shake my head without taking my eyes off her. “How did you get in?” I ask, my mouth feeling numb and awkward.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, “I found the new set of keys you left me in the bedside table. Thanks! The keychain is so cute.”

I remember putting my spare set of house keys in a drawer after I had the locks changed, on a big plastic hibiscus keychain I bought so I couldn’t lose them. I feel light headed as my vision begins to swim a bit, and I put out a hand to steady myself against the door frame.

There’s a chance that I’m having some sort of psychotic break. Either I’m imagining Heidi’s presence now, or I’ve somehow blocked her out up to this morning. The alternative is that she has stolen my keys, apparently believing that we have an ongoing relationship.

I suddenly realise who must have been calling for me at the hospital without leaving a name, and maybe who has been calling my mobile too. My god, I might have been right to change the locks after all.

Heidi closes her eyes sleepily and says, “I filled up the kettle last night, if you want to make coffee.”

“Thanks,” I say, not moving from the doorway. I reach slowly for the small device in the back pocket of my jeans, glad now that I bought it. I depress the button without taking it out of my pocket.

“Um, do you want coffee too?” I ask.

Heidi opens her eyes again and looks at the clock radio by the bed. “Yeah,” she replies, “I’d better get up soon.”

“No!” I say, a bit too quickly. “Stay in bed, I’ll make you a coffee,” I add.

“Mm, thanks,” she says with a smile.

The cordless phone rings. I back into the living room to pick it up, trying to keep my eye on the bedroom door. “Hello?” I say, an edge in my voice as I answer.

It’s the security firm that monitors my duress alarm. Thank god they’re working for their money. “Hi, Mum,” I say to the operator. My apartment is small enough that Heidi could probably hear me from the bedroom even if I lowered my voice.

“Do you require assistance?” asks the man.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “Sure, you can come over this morning, Mum.”

The operator asks me to confirm whether I want the police sent out. “Yeah, see you soon, Mum,” I answer, and hang up.

“Mum might come over for a bit later this morning,” I call toward the bedroom. “I’ll make us some coffee now.”

I step into the bathroom and retrieve my shirt from the laundry hamper. I think I want to be dressed for whatever happens next.

I tip most of the water down the sink before putting the kettle on. I want it to boil fast. I don’t know what’s going to happen now, but I want boiling water available to me sooner rather than later, in case I need it. My heart is racing and my hands shake as I set the kettle down. I have no idea if Heidi is armed in any way. I have to assume she could become violent if she’s actively psychotic, which seems likely.

I decide against coffee for myself. I’m not at risk of falling asleep any time soon, even though I’ve been at work all night. I make a mug of coffee for Heidi, since I said I would, but I take care not to make it hot enough to scald if, say, thrown back at me.

“Here you go,” I say as I enter the bedroom again. I set the mug down on the table by the bed.

“Thanks,” murmurs Heidi, her eyes closed again.

We stay there in silence for a few minutes, Heidi relaxing, maybe dozing, and me standing frozen by the bed, panicked.

There’s a brisk knock at the door, and I quietly excuse myself to go and answer it. I close the bedroom door on my way. My heart starts racing even faster than before and my chest feels fluttery with panic.

I open the door to two uniformed police officers, a man and a woman. I feel a rush of relief to see them. They show me their badges and tell me their names, which I promptly forget.

“Lucy Klein?” asks the female officer.

I nod, gesturing for them to come in. “My ex has broken in overnight while I was at work,” I say softly. “She’s in my bed – I think she might be having some kind of psychotic episode. She seems to think she lives here. I don’t know if she’s dangerous.” I realise I’m talking faster and faster.

“What’s her name?” asks the male officer, taking notes on a small pad.

“Heidi Andersen,” I whisper. “She’s in there,” I add, pointing to the bedroom door.

“And what, exactly, would you like to happen now?” asks the female officer.

“I need you to get her out of here, first,” I say. “I’m afraid of what she might do – please, just get her out. And she’ll need to be seen by a doctor, a psychiatrist.”

“Do you want to press charges?” she asks.

I shake my head, on the verge of tears. “I don’t know,” I admit.

She touches my arm reassuringly. “It’s okay,” she says gently. “We’ll take her out of here, have a doctor examine her, and we can figure the rest out later.”

I nod and give a little sniffle.

The next few minutes feel like they last forever. Frightened, my head swimming, I back myself into a corner of the kitchen to watch as the officers enter my bedroom. I hear low voices conversing but I can’t make out what’s being said. Then -

“What?” shrieks Heidi.

I try to back further into the corner. I notice absently that I’m crying.

I hear something like a brief scuffle, and then the two officers are leading Heidi out of the room, out of the apartment. My big shirt is baggy and long on her, covering her to mid-thigh, so at least she isn’t being marched out half-naked. Her hands are behind her back – I guess in handcuffs, or whatever else the police use for restraints. She looks furious. The police leave the front door open on their way out.

After a while – I guess it’s only about a minute, but it feels like an hour – the female officer ducks back in. She says something to me about how long they can hold Heidi, which I barely hear, and has me sign something. She touches me again on the shoulder. “Is there someone I can call for you?” she asks.

For a moment I fail to answer, then I whisper, “Josie.” I’m surprised at how hoarse and far away my voice sounds. I manage to fetch my phone from my bag and find her mobile number.

The officer makes a quick call on her own phone, then tells me Jo is on her way. She hands me a card with her name and number, asking me to call her if I need to. I nod dumbly.

“You’ll be okay by yourself until your sister gets here?” she asks me.

“Yeah,” I say quietly, wiping at my eyes. I suddenly feel absurdly embarassed, and I reach for a tissue from the kitchen counter to blow my nose.

“All right,” says the officer, “remember you can call me if you need anything.” She leaves again, closing the door this time, and I hear the elevator ding out in the hall. I lock the door behind her.

I tuck the card into my jeans pocket, toss the used tissue in the bin, and run some water in the kitchen sink to wash my face.

Once I feel a bit less teary, I hesitantly step into the bedroom and glance around, checking as though to convince myself Heidi is gone. She really is. I sit down on the edge of the bed, feeling numb, staring blankly at the wall. I don’t know how much time passes.

Eventually I hear a knock again from the front door. “Who is it?” I call shakily.

“It’s Jo,” calls my sister through the door, worry evident in her voice.

I undo the locks and let Josie inside. She immediately catches me in a big hug and suddenly I’m crying again on her shoulder.

Chapter 18

The early evening is fairly quiet. I see the usual range of less than urgent cases for a few hours, plus one kid with a broken arm, who goes to orthopedics, and one acute depressive episode in a university student, who goes to outpatient psychiatric.

The patient who’s brought in around midnight was found wandering disoriented in the street. He couldn’t communicate with police, and after initially mistaking him for a drunk, they had the sense to call an ambulance when they eventually noticed his medical alert bracelet. By the time I see him, he’s been given some glucose tablets and begun to recover.

“How are you feeling, Mr Evans?” I ask as I enter the exam room. He’s an older guy, in his fifties, with a craggy, lined face. His slightly receding salt-and-pepper hair is cut short, reducing what I presume would otherwise be curls to a dense fuzz.

“Arright,” he slurs. Scratching his neck and avoiding my eye, he doesn’t seem very alert. He’s been given an IV line for saline to rehydrate him, and several of his fingertips have little spots of tape showing where he’s had capillary blood taken to check his glucose levels.

“How long have you had diabetes?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Caught it a coupla years ago,” he says.

“And how do you normally manage it?”

He shrugs again. “Manage arright.”

I suppress a smile. “No,” I say, “I mean, what do you normally do to control your blood sugar? Do you use medication, or just diet?”

“Not on a diet,” he replies. “Me doctor gimme some tablets for it. Forgot to take em yesterday so I took four of em tonight.”

I wish this was the first time I’d heard such a thing, but a lot of people have these stupid ideas about ‘catching up’ on their medication if they miss doses. Mr Evans is just lucky he’s not on warfarin or morphine.

“Okay, that’s why you made yourself unwell,” I tell him. “The tablets bring your blood sugar down so it doesn’t get too high after you eat, but if you take too many they’ll make it too low.”

He doesn’t really look like he’s listening to me. Well, I tried. I guess I’ll speak with him about it again later when he’s a bit more together.

I look at the chart and am only mildly surprised to see that his weight is recorded as two hundred kilograms. He’s a huge man, taking up the full width of the bed. I bet it was a bitch to find a vein to cannulate, especially when he came in so dehydrated. I notice he has a packet of cigarettes on the table by the bed and can’t help rolling my eyes a bit. We’ll doubtlessly see him again when he needs a gangrenous foot taken off.

“Have you tried anything to reduce your weight?” I ask him.

“Applied to go on The Biggest Loser,” he says. “Dunno when I’m gonna hear back about it.”

“Really?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much of an answer, but I didn’t expect that. “Have you thought about trying anything else?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t wanna go on a diet and I can’t afford to go to the gym or nothing,” he says.

I fight back the urge to shout at him and just nod instead. “I’ll come and check on you again in a bit,” I say, replacing his chart at the end of the bed. This seems like a good time for a coffee break.

It turns out Mr Evans has been told repeatedly to buy a blood glucose monitor but hasn’t bothered with it, so he only ever gets his sugar checked on the rare occasions that he visits his GP. I convince the overnight registrar to admit him so we can keep an eye on him for a day or so. Since he’s obviously taking pretty terrible care of himself, I argue that we should at least monitor his blood sugar for a while to make sure the tablets are still appropriate and he doesn’t need to go onto insulin. It occurs to me that if he does need to use insulin he’ll probably accidentally kill himself with it, but we can deal with trying to prevent that once we know if insulin is necessary.

I finally get away from the hospital around five in the morning. The sun is already up, and I swap my regular glasses for a pair of sunglasses while I walk to the train. I pass a dirty, dishevelled homeless woman slumped against a wall and pause for a moment, waiting until I’m sure I see her chest moving before I decide she’s just asleep. I tuck a five dollar note into the upturned hat beside her on the footpath and continue on my way.

The train home is almost empty, as it usually is this early in the morning. I relax in my seat, resting my head against the window and closing my eyes. When I open them again the train is stopped at central station, and I almost fall over myself as I leap out of the seat and hurry off the train before it leaves the station. I once fell deeply asleep travelling home from work and woke up way out in the suburbs on the other side of town. I could do without that today.

When I get home I turn on the air conditioner right away and grab a couple of toaster pastries for breakfast. I never actually put them in the toaster. Instead I sit down at the coffee table and open my laptop, eating breakfast straight out of the foil pack. I look up the bus timetable for the trip out to Chris’s hospital, making a mental note of the times and where I need to go.

When I’m done eating I shut down the laptop and toss my pastry wrapper in the kitchen bin. I don’t bother covering my mouth as I give a huge yawn, and decide it’s time for bed. I’ll head out to see Chris this afternoon.

I kick off my sneakers and pull my shirt over my head, depositing it in the laundry hamper in the bathroom. I’m undoing my bra as I step into the bedroom.

I stop dead in the doorway, my fingers frozen behind my back as I stare in horror.

There’s a blonde head resting on one of my pillows.

I remain standing frozen in the doorway, unable to do anything but swallow noisily and stare at the figure in my bed.

After a moment the figure rolls over to face me.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” says Heidi.

Chapter 17

Dave and I spend the rest of the afternoon eating pizza, drinking beer, and watching cartoons. It’s pretty much the best way I can think of to spend my day off. It’s too hot to do anything outside, so a lazy afternoon inside with the air conditioning turned way up feels like just what the doctor ordered.

“Gross,” says Dave, picking at a slice of pizza. “There’s pineapple on one of my pieces.”

I lean over to take the sliver of pineapple and put it on the slice I’m about to eat. I’m just glad none of his ham or beef has ended up on my mushroom-and-pineapple side of the pizza.

We finish the six-pack of expensive beer that Dave brought. He declines my offer of another one of my cheaper beers, so I look in the freezer to find a bottle of vodka instead.

“I’m all out of cranberry juice,” I call from the kitchen. “Vodka and lemonade?”

“Cool,” Dave calls back.

I fix us a couple of drinks in tall plastic glasses, going fairly light on the alcohol since I’m already a bit tipsy.

We watch our way through most of season four of The Simpsons. After a couple of hours my face and belly are beginning to ache from laughter. Eventually I notice Dave is looking sleepy, his dark eyes staying closed longer and longer each time he blinks. When I glance at my watch I see it’s already fairly late.

“Do you want to crash here tonight?” I ask him.

He looks a little bit uncomfortable – or maybe it’s just my imagination. “Thanks, Klein, but I’d better get home tonight to feed the cat,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

“Well, let me call you a cab then,” I say, reaching for my cell phone on the side table.

After Dave has left I pour myself another vodka and lemonade, a bit stronger than the last one, and settle down in front of the television again. I stretch out and put my feet up on the arm of the sofa. I watch another couple of Simpsons episodes before deciding it’s time for bed.

In the morning I take a couple of paracetamol tablets with my usual pills, then I boot up my laptop to start work on my case study paper. I’m still feeling a little conflicted about this, but I can’t deny it will be good for my career to have a publication under my name, especially when I start applying for registrar positions.

I type out a few dot points, then decide I need to get some caffeine into me. I set the laptop down on the coffee table, picking up the remaining beer bottles from last night as I head into the kitchen. I put the bottles in my recycling crate under the sink as I put the kettle on for coffee.

My stomach growls, and I grab a chocolate breakfast drink from the fridge while I wait for the kettle to boil. I’m working the late afternoon shift at the hospital today, so I must remember to have a decent lunch before I go.

When I head back into the living room with my coffee I notice the roses on my side table are starting to wilt. I was never that thrilled about having them in here in the first place, so I take them into the kitchen and deposit them in the bin. The thin glass vase goes in the dishwasher – I’m not even going to try cleaning it by hand, and I don’t think I own a bottle brush or anything.

I curl up again on the sofa, laptop balanced across my thighs and a big mug of coffee in my left hand as I type with my right.

While I’m typing it occurs to me that I should go and talk to Chris about the case study when I’m at work tonight. I know Tran has already cleared it with him, gotten his permission to publish, but I’ll feel better if I can go and chat with him properly about it. It’s been a couple of days since we dropped our diagnostic bombshell on him, and I feel like I can probably go and see him now without getting too upset again. I hope Chris isn’t too mad that I didn’t check in on him over the weekend – but then I suppose he’s got more than that on his mind at the moment.

I finish typing my draft paper outline, read through it twice to make sure I haven’t written anything too stupid, then email a copy to Tran and Barlow for them to look over.

One of the senior nurses, Linda, is manning the nurses’ station when I arrive at work. I wave hello as I walk in.

“Klein,” she calls, beckoning me. “I don’t know who you owe a phone call, but for god’s sake call her so she stops bothering me here.”

I frown. “Who?” I ask dumbly.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Someone keeps calling here – I think it’s a woman – asking for you. She won’t say who she is, and she just hangs up when I tell her you don’t start till four. So whoever you’re supposed to call about something, do it before she drives me crazy!”

“Huh,” I say. “I don’t know who would need to speak to me that doesn’t have my cell number. Well, thanks, Linda.”

She nods as I head out to the cafeteria for a coffee before my shift starts. It occurs to me it’s probably a patient – or a patient’s family member. Chris. Of course.

I get my latte to go and take the elevator up to the neurological ward to see Chris. I want to speak with him anyway, and it sounds as though one of his family, maybe his step-mother, wants to talk to me too.

I knock and poke my head into the room, only to see an empty bed. The cards and flowers have been cleared away too.

“Looking for a patient?”

I jump about a metre in the air and manage to splash coffee on myself through the gap in the plastic lid. One of the ward nurses has appeared behind me.

“Yeah,” I say, swiping at my coffee-stained top. “Christopher Rossi-Smith?”
The nurse nods. “He was transferred out yesterday,” he tells me.

“Not sent home?” I ask.

“No, out to palliative,” he says. “Hang on.”

I follow the nurse over to the ward station and he looks up the details in the computer. He hands me a sticky note with the name of the palliative care hospital that Chris has been transferred into.

“Thanks,” I say, slipping the note into my hip pocket.

I guess I won’t be seeing Chris this evening after all. I could phone him – no, I decide I will go and see him. I’ve got tomorrow off work before a couple of day shifts in a row, so I’ll get the bus out to the palliative hospital to visit him then.

I finish what’s left of my coffee and toss it in the bin by the elevators. I look at my watch and see I’ve still got a few minutes before my shift officially starts, and decide to go and change my scrubs. I’ll probably be filthy by the end of the night anyway, but I’d like to at least start seeing patients without a big coffee stain on my shirt.

In the locker room, I toss my soiled shirt into the big laundry bin and change into a fresh one. “Much better,” I say out loud.

As I’m pulling the shirt down over my head I knock my glasses askew and almost off my face. I fumble for them, and as I do I could swear I see someone peer around from behind the row of lockers. Mortified that someone has heard me talking to myself, I push my glasses back on and go to see who it was. Instead I only hear footsteps rushing out and the door slamming.

I frown a bit, then shrug. Someone probably thinks I’m crazy, and I don’t even know who it is, but I guess it’s not such a big deal. I’ll just have to make a point of acting sane around everyone for a while, I suppose.

I suddenly realise I have thrown my staff ID badge into the laundry bin with my soiled shirt. “Oh, fuck,” I mutter.

Chapter 16

I get another couple of short breaks to grab some sleep during the rest of the weekend shift. The bit of rest helps to keep me going – along with liberal ingestion of caffeine – but by Monday morning I’m starting to feel the effects of the long hours with limited sleep. I’m counting down the last couple of hours before I can go home when Charlie Tran appears in emergency to see me.

“Morning, Dr Tran,” I say, stifling a yawn.

“Hi, Klein,” he replies. “Listen, Professor Barlow spoke to me about your patient, Rossi, with the FFI. He and I would like to write a case study paper, and I’d like you to co-author.” He looks at me expectantly.

“Hmm… a publication would be good for my resume,” I say, frowning slightly. This could be a big deal, actually; there are so few cases of FFI that our paper would become fairly prominent in the field by default. I’m not sure how I’d feel about writing a case study, though. The guy upstairs isn’t just the patient, he’s Chris. He has a family, and a life – and he’s dying.

“Well, why don’t I catch up with you about it later, Lucy,” says Tran, obviously sensing my hesitation. He gives me a nod before heading for the elevators.

I doze a little on the train home after I leave work. The carriage is full of commuters heading into the city, so I don’t get to sit down, but I lean up against a wall and close my eyes for a while. The air conditioning on the train is refreshing even as it struggles against the sticky heat outside and the closely-spaced bodies inside.

I feel like I’m almost asleep on my feet by the time I get home and let myself into the apartment. I grab a strawberry breakfast drink from the fridge and drink it mechanically on my way to the bedroom.

I almost choke when I see the flowers.

There’s a small glass vase on my bedside table, containing three red roses. They’re beautiful, but I’m fucking sure they weren’t there when I left. I don’t remember getting them.

I shuffle back to the kitchen to throw out my empty drink carton, rubbing my eyes as I go. I’m not sure what I expect, but the flowers are still there when I return to my bedroom. “Shit,” I say out loud, “I’m too tired to deal with this.” I move the flowers out into the living room for now, then drop onto the bed and into a deep, dreamless sleep.

My alarm clock wakes me late in the afternoon. I lie in bed for a while, listening to the radio, before deciding I am rested enough to get up and go to karate training. Eventually I get up and take a quick shower before grabbing my gym bag and heading out.

Training is a solid workout, as usual, and it feels good to stretch my muscles and move a bit after the long weekend shift. I find I’m still holding back a bit during sparring for fear of losing my glasses again; it will be good once I’ve had the surgery to be able to forget about that.

After training I shower again at the gym and change back into my street clothes. Before I walk home I take a small device out of my bag and slip it into my hip pocket. For all my martial arts training, I’m not hugely confident by myself at night; my order from the online security supply company arrived today.

Ken, the Japanese instructor of the class, stops me on my way out. “Will we see you at the grading next month?” he asks.

“Yeah, I think so,” I reply. I’ve been considering it for a while, and I think as long as I keep coming to training regularly I can make the next grading.

Ken nods and hands me a registration form. “Thanks,” I say. “I’ll pay the fee next week.” Unfortunately, the fee for grading gets higher and higher for each belt. The next grading, for my black belt, will be a couple of hundred dollars – but the cost will be completely worth it, if only for bragging rights.

The street is fairly quiet as I walk home. There are a few late-shift office workers waiting for buses, but otherwise nobody around.

When I get in I turn on the air conditioning immediately and grab a beer from the fridge. Standing in the kitchen doorway, I glare at the flowers in the living room. I don’t think the building manager would just let anyone in to deliver flowers, so that leaves a couple of even less desirable explanations. The one I’m worrying about now is that I might be losing it: either I bought them and forgot, or maybe they aren’t even real. I’m not quite old enough to be out of the danger zone for schizophrenia yet.

As I thirstily drain my beer I feel the alcohol hit me fast, and realise I haven’t really eaten all day. I finish the bottle and take a box of toaster pastries from the cupboard, managing to eat one before tiredness overwhelms me again and I go back to bed.

I sleep until a little before noon. I’m mildly surprised when I see the time, but I guess I must have had a lot of sleep to catch up on. I wake up slowly, enjoying the luxury of not having to get up right away.

I change into clean clothes when I get up, having fallen asleep in my clothes from last night. Since the air conditioner is keeping the apartment cool I put on a slightly heavy pair of jeans with one of my old T-shirts.

While I’m eating a bowl of bran cereal in the kitchen my phone beeps, prompting me to look for it around the room and finally locate it on top of the fridge. It’s a text from Dave, asking if it’s ok for him to head over now. A glance at the clock reminds me it’s not early, even though I just got up, so I send a reply that he can.

I’m just cleaning up my breakfast stuff and taking my meds when Dave arrives. I hit the intercom button to let him in and shortly he knocks at the door.

“Ooh, you brought the schmancy stuff!” I say, noticing at once that he’s carrying a six-pack of fairly decent imported beers.

“Yeah,” he says, sounding short of breath and looking a bit flushed. “I just wish I’d thought to buy them closer to your place instead of carrying them here from Spring Hill. They’d better go in the fridge.”

I take the beers and put them away in the fridge, then grab a couple of mine. I try to look apologetic as I hand Dave a bottle of much cheaper domestic beer. He opens it and drinks about half the bottle right away, then wipes his brow.

“So, how was the long shift?” he asks.

I shrug and open my own beer. “Same as usual… long,” I say. “Tran and Barlow want me to co-author a paper about Chris – the FFI patient.”

Dave grins and points at me with his bottle. “Nice one,” he says. “You deserve credit for picking that up.”

“Thanks,” I say, as we both move into the living room. “I guess I’m pretty excited to have an opportunity to publish.”

I take a seat on the sofa as Dave starts looking through my DVD collection. “By the way,” I say, “see these flowers?” He turns and I gesture to the roses on the side table.

He nods.

“Good,” I mutter.

Dave raises an eyebrow. “Trying to tell me something?” he asks, amused.

I make a little annoyed sound. “No. Um, can you keep a secret?” He nods again. I suppose I can trust Dave; we’ve known each other a few years, and I don’t think he’s the type to start rumours or gossip. “I actually thought they might have been a hallucination,” I admit, and take a sip of my beer.

Dave continues to look surprised. “I don’t know where the damn things came from,” I say. “I was afraid I might have imagined them.”

“Okay,” he says. “Well, did you find them in here?”

“In my bedroom, yesterday morning.”

Dave looks thoughtful. “I guess, unless someone else has a key, maybe you brought them in yourself and forgot. How tired were you after the weekend shift?”

“I guess pretty tired,” I say. “I don’t know.” I rub my eyes and take another drink.

“We all get messed up by the long hours sometimes,” says Dave with a little smile. He comes over and sits next to me on the sofa. I notice he leaves a reasonable space between us. “You’re not having any blonde moments at work, right?”

That’s the connection I’ve been trying not to think about. “I don’t think so,” I say weakly.

Dave stands up again and finishes his beer. “Well, don’t be afraid to ask me for a second opinion, if you ever need it,” he says, touching my shoulder briefly. “Don’t worry too much about it.”

He steps into the kitchen and returns with a couple of the imported beers, passing one to me. I set it down on the coffee table since I haven’t finished the first one yet.

Dave selects a Simpsons DVD from my collection and puts it into the player. He brings the remote control and sits down with me on the sofa again, a bit closer than before.

I drain my beer with a soft sigh and lean back into the sofa cushions. Maybe it really is all nothing; I guess I might just be tired at the moment.

“Hey, wanna order a pizza?” says Dave, opening his second beer.

I do.