Sympathy Between Humans Part 13

"That's what doctors always say," I told him.

"No, we say, 'This won't hurt a bit,' " he corrected me.

I laughed. "Sorry I'm late, by the way. I got stuck in your elevator."

I'd intended to entertain him with the story of how the emergency phone hadn't worked and I'd been rescued by a pair of teenage residents with a pry bar, who'd forced open a gap about the size of a doghouse door, and how I'd lowered myself awkwardly down to the fourteenth-floor hallway. But Cicero turned so sharply, the words died on my lips.

"You did?" he said.

"What's wrong?" I said. "It was just an inconvenience."

Cicero shook his head and rolled back into the living room. "That elevator's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned menace," he said vehemently. "You're the third person I've heard about that's been trapped." He rummaged in his supply chest, shook down a thermometer. "Okay, put this under your tongue."

"I don't have a temperature."

"Sarah, quit doing my job for me." There was a bit of iron in his voice now. Meekly, I complied.

Cicero took his time inspecting my ear. Then he took the thermometer from my mouth. He read it silently. When he spoke it was to ask me questions about symptoms I'd had in the past two days: dizziness, pain, difficulty or anomalies in my hearing? I told him no to all those inquiries, and that yes, I'd been taking my antibiotics.

He put the thermometer and the otoscope away.

"Well, your temperature is 98.6, your ear looks very nice, and you sound like you're doing quite well," he said. "You heal fast." He took out his legal pad and wrote again.

"What are you writing?" I asked.

"Just notes," he said. "Even though you're reportedly 'never sick,' you may need to come see me again someday, given your aversion to traditional doctors."

"I hope not to," I said. "No offense."

"Still, do you mind if I ask a few questions, like a medical history, in case I see you again?"

Something about the idea made me nervous; Cicero saw it. "They're just for my private use," he said. "No one else will see them."

What the h.e.l.l, all he would ask about was my health history, which was extremely uneventful. And he was right: I might need to see him again someday. "All right," I said.

The first questions were easy.

"Last name?"

"Pribek." I spelled it for him.

"Age?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Known allergies?"

"None," I said.

"Are your parents living?"

I shook my head again.

"What were the causes of death?" he asked me.

"My father had a heart attack a few years ago. My mother-" I swallowed. "My mother died of ovarian cancer."

"Were you a child?"

"At one time, sure, we all were," I said, trying to make a joke of it.

"I mean, when your mother died, were you a child?" He wouldn't let me evade it.

"I was nine." My throat felt stiff, and I wasn't sure why. I'd told this to other people before.

"Siblings?" Cicero asked quietly.

"One brother, he's dead," I said, and quickly added, "An accident, not related to any health concerns." Buddy had died in a helicopter crash in the Army, and I didn't want to answer any more questions about him.

"What about your husband, how long has he been in prison?"

"Five months," I said. Quickly I lowered my head. "Sorry, I think I've got something in my eye," I said, rubbing wetness away.

"Are you in contact with him at all?"

"No," I said.

My head was in my hands now. We were both still trying to pretend: Cicero was pretending to take a medical history, and I was pretending I wasn't crying.

"But you've got plenty of friends in the Cities you can talk to?"

I didn't say anything.

"Oh," Cicero said.

"You do an interesting medical history," I said, my voice wet.

It's hard for people in wheelchairs to enfold people, so Cicero reached across the s.p.a.ce between us to rub between my bowed shoulder blades and stroke my hair. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay."

I'd like to say that he initiated the s.e.x, afterward. But I did. like to say that he initiated the s.e.x, afterward. But I did.

I rarely cry, and it seems like bad form to do it in front of a virtual stranger. But with Cicero it was different. He'd already seen me sick, phobic, irrational, drunk, and in pain. There weren't a lot of barriers left to fall. Then, when the brief spasm of sadness had pa.s.sed, I'd wanted to do this with him.

"I'm sorry," I said aloud, lying wedged against Cicero in his single bed, my cheek against his bare shoulder.

"What for?" he asked.

"Being a basket case every time you've seen me, I guess," I said. "I'm surprised you even like me."

"How do you know I like you?" Cicero asked me lightly.

"I don't think you'd sleep with someone you didn't like," I told him seriously. "Am I wrong about that?"

"No," Cicero said. "You're not wrong."

"Why don't you have a girlfriend?" I asked him. "Is it because you're agoraphobic?"

Cicero raised himself up on his elbows, looking at me quizzically. "Where'd you get the idea I was agoraphobic?"

"Ghislaine," I said. Everything I'd seen since meeting him had supported what she'd said.

"Ghislaine," he said. "Of course."

"You really don't like her," I said, sitting up. "What's the story there? By the way, she's not a friend of mine. I barely know her."

"I barely know her either," Cicero said. "She doesn't know much about me either; I'm not agoraphobic. But to answer your question, Ghislaine is the person who brought me the prescription pad."

I was only briefly surprised. Cicero had referred to the person who'd brought him the pad as "she." I didn't even want to know where she got it. I didn't even want to know where she got it.

Cicero went on. "She came to visit me. Brought her cute little kid with her, told me how hard it was, raising a son on her own. His father's not around anymore, she says, and there's no support from her parents in Dearborn."

"That part I know," I said.

"Ghislaine said she hated going to the public clinic and being treated like a second-cla.s.s citizen, so here she was. I said, 'Glad to help, what can I do for you?' She tells me she thinks there's a lump in her breast, can I check for her? And she takes off her shirt. I do what she asks. And I'm very careful about it, I don't want to miss anything. I don't feel a thing and tell her so. I tell her she's young and breast cancer isn't too great a risk at her age, but to please keep examining monthly and stay vigilant."

"You felt comfortable with that? You didn't send her elsewhere for a test?"

"I really am a doctor," he reminded me. "I'm as competent here as I would be in an office. Any doctor would have told her the same thing. Particularly in the age of HMOs, not one doctor in a hundred would have ordered a mammogram based on what she reported and I felt."

"Sorry," I said.

"It's okay. Besides, you haven't heard the whole thing yet. She cheered up and agreed she was probably overreacting. Then she put her shirt back on and said that she had something for me."

"Here it comes," I said.

"Right. The prescription pad. She was sweet as saccharine. She told me she wanted me to have it, because she knew I could do a lot of good with it, for my patients. Then she asked me to write her a scrip for Valium."

"Are you kidding?" But I knew he wasn't.

"It all made sense then. She never thought there was a lump in her breast. She decided she'd soften me up by showing me her goods, and I'd be willing to do anything for her. I don't know if she wanted the Valium for herself, or more likely, if she had a boyfriend who could turn around and sell it. I didn't want to know."

"You told her no, obviously," I said. The reason for Ghislaine's small scowl in the diner, when the subject of "Cisco" had first come up, was now quite clear.

"I told her no, I wasn't going to get into the scrip-writing business, not even to help my patients, much less to start perpetrating prescription fraud. So she asked for the pad back. Again, I said no. I wasn't going to use it, but I saw no reason she should have it." Cicero paused, remembering. "Then she asked me what would happen if she told the cops about me. I said, 'The same thing that would happen if I told the cops you stole a prescription pad, so let's both pretend this never happened.' She got up and said, 'Fine, keep it.' I was still worried about her threat to turn me in, so I told her she could take her forty dollars back. She did."

"Jesus," I said.

"When she picked up the money, she asked if I'd always been a paraplegic. I said no. She said, 'I guess that's why you can afford to let forty dollars walk out the door. Since you don't have working equipment, you're not paying for s.e.x anymore.' "

I winced. When people can quote verbatim like that, it's usually because the words in question had ricocheted around inside the psyche like the fragments of a hollow-point bullet.

"Hey, don't look like that," Cicero said. "She was ignorant."

The truth was that I'd been nearly as naive as Ghislaine, shocked when Cicero had taken my hand and guided it down to where I could feel him stiffening under my touch. Later, he'd explained to me about reflex erections.

"Ignorant is excusable," I said. "Spiteful is something else."

"She probably doesn't feel very good about herself," Cicero said. "Unkind people often don't."

"You're so charitable," I said.

"What's wrong with that?" he asked.

I looked out the window at the city below. "We don't live in a world that rewards that anymore," I said. "If it ever did."

My first day back on daytime shifts was about as unproductive as I'd expected. I reported for work with shadows under my eyes and helped my body clock to readjust with a lot of coffee. On my lunch break, I went to Family Services and made the required minors-at-risk report on the Hennessys. I didn't allow myself to feel as though I was letting Marlinchen down. The system was there to help kids like her; my report was part of that. on daytime shifts was about as unproductive as I'd expected. I reported for work with shadows under my eyes and helped my body clock to readjust with a lot of coffee. On my lunch break, I went to Family Services and made the required minors-at-risk report on the Hennessys. I didn't allow myself to feel as though I was letting Marlinchen down. The system was there to help kids like her; my report was part of that.

The most significant job of the day was a robbery. I took the call and interviewed witnesses. The details were familiar: two young white guys with nylon-stocking masks taking down a convenience store at gunpoint, quite similar to the robbery I'd investigated last week. We love patterns, We love patterns, I imagined telling the anonymous young gunmen, consolidating the two reports into one folder. I imagined telling the anonymous young gunmen, consolidating the two reports into one folder. Don't quit while you're ahead; just keep on doing it like you're doing it. We'll meet someday. Don't quit while you're ahead; just keep on doing it like you're doing it. We'll meet someday.

My phone rang, and I picked it up with my mind still half on the young robbers.

"Ms. Pribek?" The voice was clearly coming across long-distance wires. "This is Pete Benjamin."

"Mr. Benjamin," I said. Hugh Hennessy's friend, who'd taken Aidan in. "Thank you for calling back."

"I've already spoken to the authorities here, Ms. Pribek," said Benjamin. "I'd be happy to tell you what I told Mr. Fredericks: Aidan didn't disappear. He left of his own accord, which is unfortunate but not terribly unusual. There's a long history of young people striking out on their own when they tire of the life a farm provides. And Aidan, unlike many young people, didn't even have family ties to keep him here."

When he fell silent, I asked him a question. "But specifically, what do you think led Aidan to leave when he did?"

"Well, as I said, the rural lifestyle is very unsatisfying to young people."

"Other than that, I mean," I said.

There was a beat of silence. "I'm not sure why there has to be an 'other than that.' "

"Let me put it this way: Did you talk to Aidan about what was going on in his life?" I asked.

"Aidan and I spoke daily," Benjamin said.

I let the silence underline the evasiveness of his answer.

"I was not Aidan's father. But if something were troubling him, I think I would have known," Benjamin said.

"If I can ask," I said, "why did you agree to take on Hugh Hennessy's oldest son? It seems like a huge burden, even for a friend of the family."