The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [72]
David became excited. “That’s a great idea. How about past employment at Charlotte Thomas’s nursing agency?”
“We could try that.”
“And graduates of her nursing school. And . . and activists supporting patients’ rights, living wills, things like that. And …”
“Whoa! Slow down, David. First things first. You just stay where I can get in touch with you, and fight that self-destruct impulse of yours. I’ll do the rest—don’t worry. Are you coming back to work?”
“Tomorrow. I thought I’d try tomorrow. Anything would be better than sitting around like this waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thanks to you, it’ll be much easier to concentrate on my job knowing at least that something’s being done.”
“Something’s being done,” Armstrong echoed.
Margaret Armstrong set the receiver down and glanced through her partially open office door at the patients in her waiting room—half a dozen complex problems that she would, almost certainly, unravel and deal with. Even after so many years, her own capabilities awed her.
“Mama, please. Tell me what I can do to help.”
She understood now. She had the knowledge and the power and she understood. But how could she have been expected to know then what was right? She had been still a girl, barely fifteen years old.
“Kill me! For Gods sake, please kill me.”
“Mama, please. You don’t know what you’re saying. Let me get you something for the pain. When you feel better, you’ll stop saying such things. I know you will.”
“No, baby. It doesn’t help. Nothing has helped the pain for days. Only you can help me. You must help me.”
“Mama, I’m frightened. I can’t think straight. That lady down the hall keeps screaming and I can’t think straight. I’m so frightened. I … I hate this place.”
“The pillow. Just set it over my face and lean on it as hard as you can. It won’t take long.”
“Mama, please. I can’t do that. There must be another way. Something. Please help me to understand. Help me to know what to do.… ”
Margaret Armstrong’s receptionist buzzed several times on the intercom, then crossed to the office door and knocked. “Dr. Armstrong?”
The door swung open and the receptionist knew immediately that she should have been more patient. It was just one of those times when the cardiac chief was totally lost in thought. One of those times when she sat fingering a small strip of linen, staring across the room. They came infrequently and never lasted long.
The receptionist eased the door closed and returned to her desk. Minutes later, her intercom buzzed.
The talk with Margaret Armstrong and their plan of action, however ragtag, injected a note of optimism into David’s day. Some Bach organ music and twenty minutes of hard, almost vicious lifting nurtured the mood. He was showered, dressed, and stretched out, thumbing through a journal, when a key clicked in the front door. He charged down the hall and was almost to the door when Lauren entered. She was carrying her raincoat and a floppy hat, but otherwise looked as if she had just come in from a garden party. Her light blue dress clung to her body, more out of will, it seemed, than design. A thin gold necklace glowed on the autumn brown of her chest.
In those first few moments, standing there, looking at her, nothing else mattered. Then, as he focused on her face, she looked away. Suddenly David felt frightened even to touch her. “Welcome home,” he said uncertainly, reaching a tentative hand toward her. She took it and moved to him, but there was no warmth in her embrace. Her coolness and the scent of her perfume—the same fragrance she had worn the morning she left—filled him with a sense of emptiness and apprehension. “I had no idea when you’d be coming back,” he said, hoping that something in her response would dispel the feelings.
“I told you when I called the other day that I’d be tied up with the Cormier story,” she said, settling into an easy chair in the living room. David noted that she had avoided the couch. “What a shitty thing to have happen,” she went on. “Of all the people I ever interviewed in Washington, Dick Cormier was