16. Erin
ERIN
Faye used to say it matters to know when to cut your losses. Know when you’re ahead, Clark. Know when to walk. I should have listened months ago.
I came with a duffel. I’m leaving with it.
After the parking lot, I take the first bus back to Cedar Hollow. Straight to the cottage, pack enough to last a week or two, close the door behind me, come back down. The flight is booked for ten-fifteen, which gives me three hours.
Faye has her new place in Philadelphia now that she’s transferred to CHOP, and the offer’s standing, and that is enough of a plan. Somewhere that is not here, not this city, not that parking lot outside this particular hospital. That’s all I need.
The folder is under my arm — fifty-two pages, everything Faye will need. The duffel is over my shoulder. I push through the main doors of Northwest Memorial into the familiar antiseptic weight of the air. I don’t let myself breathe too deeply.
The PICU is quiet this early. The nurse at the station desk has dark curly hair and the efficient manner of someone three hours into a twelve-hour shift. He looks up when I come through.
"I’d like to sit with Cleo Perry for a few minutes," I say.
"Of course." He checks his watch. "Mr. Perry stepped out, went to Mrs. Westcott’s to clean up and get a few things. He said he’d be back in about an hour, if you’re waiting."
"Just visiting." I shift the duffel on my shoulder. "I won’t be long."
He nods and buzzes me through.
The room is doing its quiet mechanical breathing.
Monitors, IV pump, the soft percussion of equipment keeping time.
Cleo is asleep on her back, both arms at her sides, the hospital blanket to her chin.
Her KN95 hangs from the bed rail, set aside for sleep.
Small. Pale. Her beanie has slipped sideways and I can see the crown of her head, her hair pressed flat against the pillow.
There is a large armchair beside the bed. David has not slept in two nights and the shape of him is still in the cushion.
I sit down in it.
Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.
Her respirations per minute are elevated. I push the number somewhere I don’t have to look at right now and I count instead. Forty-four. Forty-five. I count because counting is how I am built, because it is the last reliable thing I know how to do.
Under the blanket, Pip is tucked into the crook of her arm. The small wooden fox, worn smooth from handling. I don’t let myself look at it too long.
Forty-six.
The chair is too warm. That’s the thing I notice.
Not the armrests, not the height of it, just the residual warmth of a man who sat here through the last two nights and left an hour ago.
I shift my weight, and the cushion gives the same way it gave for him, and I stop counting somewhere in the forties and don’t start again.
I let my mind go blank for a moment. Then I take the notepad from my coat pocket. I write the note on my feet, standing beside the bed, because if I sit back down, I won’t get back up again.
David,
I am no longer the right doctor for Cleo.
Dr. Faye Mackenzie, pediatric hematology, CHOP, will take excellent care of her.
She was recently transferred to Philadelphia and comes with my full confidence.
Complete handoff paperwork will be at the front desk by morning.
Everything Faye needs is there. Please don't call me.
I fold it once and set it on the bedside table, on top of the stack of nursing notes and discharge prep forms that have accumulated over two nights.
I look at Cleo. Her chest rises and falls. The monitors trace their lines. She is seven years old, sick since October. She has reached for me every time I walked into a room, and I spent two months telling myself that was pediatric medicine, that was what children do.
I don't kiss her forehead. I don't touch her cheek. I don’t have the right.
I pick up the duffel and walk out.
The elevator opens on the lobby. Northwest Memorial at shift change is its own particular weather: nurses arriving from the parking structure in pairs, a resident in rumpled scrubs angling for the coffee cart, a man in a transport chair pushed by a volunteer in a purple vest. Families coming in through the automatic doors, carrying paper bags, a child’s backpack, grocery-store carnations in cellophane.
Cold air gusting in with every opening of the doors. December in Denver.
I have the folder under my arm, the duffel over my shoulder, and three hours until my flight boards.
I cut across the atrium on the diagonal. The front desk is on the far side, past the information kiosk and the gift shop. I keep my eyes on it.
Twenty feet. My hand goes to my chest. The locket catches the light. I bring the hand back down.
Fifteen.
Ten.
"Erin!"
The voice comes from my left. A woman in a white coat, silver-streaked hair cut close at the jaw, moving toward me with the brisk stride of someone between rounds. She’s beaming.
"You look well! How have you —"
Dr. Linden stops. Not a pause, but a full stop, mid-step, mid-sentence. She was looking at something past my shoulder, behind me. Her expression shifts.
"Mr. Perry." Her voice lifts, warm and uncomplicated. "What a coincidence."
I feel the familiar cold start at the tips of my fingers. I watch Linden’s eyes move from the man two steps behind me to my own face, then back again. It's a rapid social calculation, the one you make when two people you know are placed suddenly in the same frame.
I don’t turn around.
Oh god.
Not now. Not them.
Of all the people in the world.