“There’s no doubt it’s improved,” Marjorie said. “It feels twenty times better than it did when I came in on Saturday.”
Although he was already late getting to the office, David spent another ten minutes talking with Marjorie about her phlebitis to be sure she understood the problem. When he was finished he went to the nurses’ station and read her chart. All was in order.
Next he called Dudley Markham to thank him for covering for him over the weekend and for seeing Marjorie.
“No problem,” Dudley said. “I enjoyed Marjorie. We got to reminisce. She had my oldest in the second grade.”
Before leaving the nurses’ station David asked the head nurse, Janet Colburn, why Marjorie was in an orthopedic bed.
“No reason,” Janet said. “It just happened to be in there. At the moment, it’s not needed elsewhere. She’s better off in that one, believe me. The electronic controls to raise and lower the head and feet never break down, something I can’t say about our regular beds.”
David wrote a short note in Marjorie’s chart to make it official that he was assuming responsibility for her care; then he checked in on Nikki. She was already doing much better, even though the respiratory therapist had yet to arrive. Her improvement was probably due to hydration from her IV.
Finally, David headed over to the professional building to start seeing his patients. He was almost an hour late.
Susan was upset when David arrived. She had tried to juggle the patients’ appointments and cancel those that she could, but there were still a number waiting. David calmed her as he slipped into his office to put on his white coat. She followed him like a hound, ticking off phone messages and consult requests.
With his white jacket half on, David abruptly stopped moving. Susan halted in mid-sentence, seeing David’s face go pale.
“What’s the matter?” Susan asked with alarm.
David didn’t move or speak. He was staring at the wall behind his desk. To his tired, sleep-deprived eyes, the wall was covered with blood.
“Dr. Wilson!” Susan called. “What is it?”
David blinked and the disturbing image disappeared. Stepping over to the wall, he ran his hand over its smooth surface to reassure himself it had been a fleeting visual hallucination.
David sighed, marveling at how suggestible he’d become. He turned from the wall and apologized to Susan. “I think maybe I watched too many horror pictures when I was a kid,” he said. “My imagination is working overtime.”
“I think we better start seeing patients,” Susan said.
“I agree.”
Launching into work with gusto, David made up for lost time. By midmorning he was caught up. He took a brief time-out from seeing patients in order to return some of the phone calls. The first person he tried was Charles Kelley.
“I was wondering when you would call,” Kelley said. His voice was unusually businesslike. “I have a visitor in my office. His name is Neal Harper. He’s from CMV utilization in Burlington. I’m afraid there’s something we have to go over with you.”
“In the middle of my office hours?”
“This won’t take long,” Kelley said. “I’m afraid I must insist. Could you please come over?”
David slowly put the receiver down. Although he didn’t know why, he felt immediately anxious, as if he were a teenager being asked to come to the principal’s office.
After telling Susan where he was going, David left. As he arrived at the CMV offices, the receptionist told him to go right in.
Kelley got up from behind his desk, appearing tall and tan as usual. But his manner was different. He was serious, almost dour, a far cry from his usual ebullient self. He introduced Neal Harper, a thin, precise man with pale skin and a small amount of acne. To David he appeared the apotheosis of the bureaucrat who’d been forever locked in his office, filling out his forms.
They all sat down. Kelley picked up a pencil and played with it with both hands.
“The statistics are in for your first quarter,” Kelley said in a somber tone. “And they are not good.”
David looked back and forth between the two men, feeling increasingly anxious.