Faithless

  Jeffrey sighed as he walked along the sidewalk. There were more maybe’s in his life than he knew what to do with.

  Sara’s clinic was on the opposite side of the street from the station, right by the entrance to Grant Tech. He glanced at his watch as he opened the front door, thinking that at a little after seven she would already be in. The clinic didn’t see patients until eight on Mondays, but a young woman was already pacing the front waiting room, jiggling a crying baby as she walked the floor.

  Jeffrey said, “Hey.”

  “Hey, Chief,” the mother said, and he saw the dark circles under her eyes. The baby on her hip was at least two, with a set of lungs on him that rattled the windows.

  She shifted the kid, lifting her leg for support. She probably weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and Jeffrey wondered how she managed to hold on to the baby.

  She saw him watching and told him, “Dr. Linton should be right out.”

  Jeffrey said, “Thanks,” taking off his suit jacket. The east-facing side of the waiting room was built with glass brick, so even on the coldest winter morning the rising sun could make you feel like you were in a sauna.

  “Hot in here,” the woman said, resuming her pacing.

  “Sure is.”

  Jeffrey waited for her to say more, but she was concentrating on the child, shushing him, trying to soothe his crying. How mothers managed to keep from falling over into a coma when they had small children was beyond Jeffrey. At times like this, he understood why his own mother had kept a flask in her purse at all times.

  He leaned back against the wall, taking in the toys stacked neatly in the corner. There were at least three signs posted around the room that warned, “NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED.” Sara figured if a kid was sick enough to go to the doctor, the parents should be paying attention, not yakking on the phone. He smiled, thinking of the first and only time Sara had carried a phone in her car. Somehow, she kept accidentally hitting the speed dial, so that Jeffrey would answer his phone and hear her singing along to the radio for minutes at a time. It had taken three calls before he figured out he was hearing Sara trying to harmonize with Boy George and not some sick freak beating up a cat.

  Sara opened the door beside the office and went to the mother. She didn’t notice Jeffrey, and he kept quiet, taking her in. Normally, she pulled her long auburn hair back into a ponytail while she worked, but this morning it was loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and a black A-line skirt that hit just below the knee. The heel on her shoe wasn’t high, but it did something nice to her calf that made him smile. In the outfit, anyone else would look like a waitress from an uptown steakhouse, but on Sara’s tall, slim frame, it worked.

  The mother shifted the baby, saying, “He’s still fussy.”

  Sara put her hand to the boy’s cheek, shushing him. The child calmed as if a spell had been cast, and Jeffrey felt a lump rising in his throat. Sara was so good with children. The fact that she couldn’t have any of her own was something they seldom talked about. There were some things that just cut too close.

  Jeffrey watched as Sara took a few more seconds with the baby, stroking his thin hair over his ear, a smile of sheer pleasure on her lips. The moment felt private, and Jeffrey cleared his throat, having the strange sensation of being an intruder.

  Sara turned around, taken off guard, almost startled. She told Jeffrey, “Just a minute,” then turned back to the mother, all business as she handed the woman a white paper bag. “These samples should be enough for a week. If he’s not significantly better by Thursday, give me a call.”

  The woman took the samples with one hand, holding tight to the baby. She had probably had the kid while she was just a teenager. Jeffrey had learned just recently that before going off to college he had fathered a child. Well, not a child anymore— Jared was nearly a grown man.

  “Thank you, Dr. Linton,” the young mother said. “I don’t know how I’m gonna pay you for—”

  “Let’s just get him better,” Sara interrupted. “And get some sleep yourself. You’re no good to him if you’re exhausted all the time.”

  The mother took the admonishment with a slight nod of the head, and without even knowing her, Jeffrey understood the advice was falling on deaf ears.

  Sara obviously knew this, too well. She said, “Just try, okay? You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  The woman hesitated, then agreed, “I’ll try.”

  Sara looked down at her hand, and it seemed to Jeffrey that she had not realized she was holding the baby’s foot in her palm. Her thumb rubbed his ankle, and she gave that private smile again.

  “Thank you,” the mother said. “Thank you for coming in so early.”

  “It’s fine.” Sara had never been good at taking praise or appreciation. She walked them to the door, holding it open as she reminded, “Call me if he’s not better.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sara pulled the door shut after them, taking her time as she walked back across the lobby, not looking at Jeffrey. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it, asking, “Anything on the Jane Doe?”

  “No,” he said. “We might get something later on when the West Coast opens for the day.”

  “She doesn’t look like a runaway to me.”

  “Me, either.”

  They were both quiet for a beat, and Jeffrey didn’t know what to say.

  As usual, Sara broke the silence. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, walking back toward the exam rooms. He followed her, thinking he was hearing good news until she said, “I want to draw some blood for a hep and liver panel.”

  “Hare already did all that.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, leaving it at that. She didn’t hold the door for him, and he had to catch it before it popped back in his face. Unfortunately, he used his left hand and the hard surface caught him smack on the bandaged cut. He felt like someone had stuck him with a knife.

  He hissed, “Jesus, Sara.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her apology seemed genuine, but there was a flash of something like revenge in her eyes. She reached for his hand and he pulled back on sheer reflex. Her look of irritation at this persuaded him to let her see the bandage.

  She asked, “How long has it been bleeding?”

  “It’s not bleeding,” he insisted, knowing she’d probably do something really painful to it if he told her the truth. Still, he followed her down the hall toward the nurses’ station like a lamb to the slaughter.

  “You didn’t get that prescription filled, did you?” She leaned over the counter and riffled through a drawer, grabbing a handful of brightly colored packets. “Take these.”

  He looked at the pink and green sample packs. There were farm animals printed on the foil. “What are these?”

  “Antibiotics.”

  “Aren’t they for kids?”

  Her look said she wasn’t going to go for the obvious joke. “It’s half the dose of the adult formula with a movie tie-in and a higher price,” she told him. “Take two in the morning and two at night.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until I tell you to stop,” she ordered. “Come in here.”

  Jeffrey followed her into an exam room, feeling like a child. His mother had worked in the hospital cafeteria when Jeffrey was a kid, so he had missed out on going to a pediatrician’s office for various bumps and scrapes. Cal Rodgers, the ER doc, had taken care of him and, Jeffrey suspected, had taken care of his mother as well. The first time he had heard his mother giggle was when Rodgers had told a stupid joke about a paraplegic and a nun.

  “Sit,” Sara ordered, cupping his elbow as if he needed help getting up on the exam table.

  “I’ve got it,” Jeffrey told her, but she was already unwrapping his hand. The wound gaped open like a wet mouth, and he felt a throbbing ache pulse up his arm.

  “You broke it open,” she admonished, holding a silver basin under his hand as she washed out the wound.

  Jeffre
y tried not to react to the pain, but the truth was it hurt like hell. He never understood why an injury hurt more during treatment than it did when you first got it. He could barely remember cutting his hand in the woods, but now, every time he moved his fingers, he felt like a bunch of needles were digging into his skin.

  “What did you do?” she asked, her tone full of disapproval.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he thought about the way Sara had smiled with that baby. He had seen Sara in a lot of moods, but he had never seen that particular smile.

  “Jeff?” she prompted.

  He shook his head, wanting to touch her face but afraid he’d pull back a bloody stub where his hand used to be.

  “I’ll wrap it again,” she said, “but you need to be careful with this. You don’t want an infection.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, waiting for her to look up and smile.

  Instead, she asked, “Where did you sleep last night?”

  “Not where I wanted to.”

  She didn’t take the bait, rather she began wrapping his hand again, her lips pressed together in a tight line. She used her teeth to cut through a strip of surgical tape. “You need to be very careful and keep this clean.”

  “Why don’t I drop by later and you can do it?”

  “Right . . .” She let her voice trail off as she opened and closed some drawers. She took out a vacuum tube and a syringe. Jeffrey felt a moment of panic that she was going to stick a needle in his hand but then remembered she wanted to draw blood.

  She unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and rolled up the sleeve. He looked up at the ceiling, not wanting to watch, waiting for the sharp sting of the needle. It didn’t come— instead he heard her give a heavy sigh.

  He asked, “What?”

  She tapped his forearm to find a vein. “It’s my fault.”

  “What’s your fault?”

  She waited before answering, as if she needed to think about how to phrase her response. “When I left Atlanta, I was in the middle of my vaccinations for hep A and B.” She wrapped a tourniquet around his biceps, pulling it tight. “You get two injections a few weeks apart, then five months later you get the booster.” She paused again, wiping his skin with alcohol. “I got one and two, but when I moved back here, I didn’t follow up. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, let alone whether or not I was going to keep practicing medicine.” She paused. “I didn’t think to finish the series again until around the time . . .”

  “Around what time?”

  She used her teeth to uncap the syringe, saying, “The divorce.”

  “Well, that’s good, then,” Jeffrey said, trying not to jump off the table as she slid the needle into his vein. She was being gentle, but Jeffrey hated shots. Sometimes just thinking about them could make him woozy.

  “These are baby needles,” she told him, more out of sarcasm than consideration. “Why is it good?”

  “Because I only slept with her once,” he said. “You kicked me out the next day.”

  “Right.” Sara hooked up the vacuum tube and released the tourniquet.

  “So, you were finished with the vaccinations by the time we started seeing each other again. You should be immune.”

  “You’ve forgotten that one time.”

  “What one—” He stopped, remembering. The night before the divorce was finalized, Sara had shown up on his doorstep drunk as a mop and in a receptive mood. Desperate to have her back, Jeffrey had taken advantage of the situation, only to have her sneak out of the house before the sun came up the next morning. She hadn’t returned his calls the next day and when he had shown up at her house that night, she had slammed the door in his face.

  “I was in the middle of the series,” she told him. “I hadn’t had the booster.”

  “But you had the first two?”

  “It’s still a risk.” She slid out the needle and topped it. “And there’s no vaccination for hepatitis C.” She put a cotton ball on his arm and made him bend his elbow to hold it in place. When she looked up at him, he could tell he was about to get a lecture.

  “There are five major types of hepatitis, some with different strains,” she began, dropping the syringe into the red biohazard box. “A is basically like a bad flu. It lasts a couple of weeks, and once you have it, you develop antibodies. You can’t get it again.”

  “Right.” That was the one detail he remembered from his visit to Hare’s office. The rest was pretty much a blur. He had tried to listen— really tried— as Sara’s cousin explained the differences, the risk factors, but all he could really focus on was how to get out of the office as fast as he could. After a sleepless night, he had formed several questions, but couldn’t force himself to call Hare to ask them. In the ensuing days, he had found himself swinging back and forth between denial and cold panic. Jeffrey could remember every detail of a case from fifteen years ago, but couldn’t recall a damn thing about what Hare had said.

  Sara continued, “Hep B is different. It can come and go, or it can be chronic. About ten percent of the people who are infected with it become carriers. The risk of infecting another person is one in three. AIDS has a risk of about one in three hundred.”

  Jeffrey certainly didn’t have Sara’s mathematical abilities, but he could calculate the odds. “You and I have had sex more than three times since Jo.”

  She tried to hide it, but he saw her flinch at the name. “It’s hit-or-miss, Jeffrey.”

  “I wasn’t saying—”

  “Hep C is generally passed through blood contact. You could have it and not even know it. You usually don’t find out until you start showing symptoms, then it can go downhill from there. Liver fibrosis. Cirrhosis. Cancer.”

  All he could do was stare at her. He knew where this was going. It was like a train wreck and there was nothing he could do but hang on and wait for the wheels to skid off the rails.

  “I’m so angry at you,” she said, the most obvious statement that had ever come from her lips. “I’m angry because it’s bringing all this up again.” She paused as if to calm herself. “I wanted to forget it happened, to start over, and this just throws it back into my face.” She blinked, her eyes watering. “And if you’re sick . . .”

  Jeffrey focused on what he thought he could control. “It’s my fault, Sara. I fucked up. I’m the one who ruined things. I know that.” He had learned a long time ago not to add the “but,” though in his head he went through it. Sara had been distant, spending more time at work and with her family than with Jeffrey. He wasn’t the kind of husband who expected dinner on the table every night, but he had thought she would at least make some time for him out of her busy schedule.

  Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Did you do things with her that you do with me?”

  “Sara—”

  “Were you unsafe?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “You know what it means,” she told him. It was her turn to stare, and he had one of those rare moments when he could read her mind.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, wishing like hell he was anywhere but here. It wasn’t like they were a couple of perverts, but it was one thing to explore certain acts while you were in bed, quite another to analyze them in the cold light of day.

  “If you had a cut in your mouth and she was . . .” Sara obviously couldn’t finish. “Even with normal intercourse, people can get tears, microscopic injuries.”

  “I get what you’re saying,” he told her, his tone sharp enough to stop her.

  Sara picked up the tube of his blood and labeled it with a ballpoint pen. “I’m not asking this because I want the gory details.”

  He didn’t call her out on the lie. She had drilled him before when it happened, asking him pointed questions about every move he made, every kiss, every act, as if she had some sort of voyeuristic obsession.

  She stood, opening a drawer and taking out a bright pink Barbie Band-Aid. He had kept his elbow bent the entire time, and his ar
m felt numb when she straightened it. Peeling back the edges, she pressed the Band-Aid down over the cotton. She didn’t speak again until she had thrown the strips into the trash.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me I need to get over it?” She feigned a dismissive shrug. “It was only once, right? It’s not like it meant anything.”

  Jeffrey bit his tongue, recognizing the trap. The good thing about beating this dead horse for the last five years was he knew when to shut up. Still, he struggled not to argue with her. She didn’t want to see his side of things, and maybe she had a point, but that didn’t take away the fact that there were reasons he did what he did, and not all of them had to do with him being a total bastard. He knew his part in this was to play the supplicant. Being whipped was a small price to pay for peace.

  Sara prompted, “You usually say that I need to get over it. That it was a long time ago, that you’re different, that you’ve changed. That she didn’t matter to you.”

  “If I say that now, will it make any difference?”

  “No,” Sara said. “I don’t suppose anything will.”

  Jeffrey leaned back against the wall, wishing he could read her mind now. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I want to hate you.”

  “That’s nothing new,” he said, but she didn’t seem to catch the levity in his voice, because she nodded in agreement.

  Jeffrey shifted on the table, feeling like an idiot with his legs dangling two feet above the floor. He heard Sara whisper, “Fuck,” and his head snapped up in surprise. She seldom cursed, and he did not know whether to take the expletive as a good or bad sign.

  “You irritate the hell out of me, Jeffrey.”

  “I thought you found that endearing.”

  She gave him a cutting look. “If you ever . . .” She let her voice trail off. “What’s the use?” she asked, but he could tell it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, and he really meant it this time. “I’m sorry I brought this on us. I’m sorry I screwed things up. I’m sorry we had to go through that hell— that you had to go through that hell— to get us here.”