“Juliette has awakened with a temperature of over 102,” Brian told her. “Sorry to wake you, but we need your help. As much as I hate doing it, I think she’s got to be seen again at the ED, and I need you to drive us so I don’t have to worry about parking.”
“Oh, no! I’m sorry to hear,” Camila said, now looking more alert. “She seemed fine yesterday after her upset stomach. Are there any other symptoms?”
“Yes, she again has a sore throat and headache. On the positive side, I don’t think she has any digestive complaints, but I didn’t specifically ask her.”
“Do you want to go right away?”
“I do,” Brian said. “I’d like to get in and out of the ED as quickly as possible. We’re both expected to show up for Emma’s funeral mass at ten and the sooner we get there the sooner we’ll be seen.”
“Let me throw on some clothes.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll dress also and get Juliette’s robe. At the moment she’s in my room. She came in in the middle of the night feeling lonely and ended up staying with me.”
“The poor dear. Okay, I’ll be quick.”
After returning to his room with Juliette’s robe in hand, Brian approached the bed. Juliette appeared to have fallen back asleep, but her eyes opened the moment he sat down. “I was just talking with Camila,” he said. “She’s going to drive us back to the hospital so the doctors can take a look at you again.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“I’m afraid we have to go,” Brian said, suppressing the urge to say he didn’t want to go, either. He sat her up and helped her get her arms into her bathrobe. “We have to find out what’s making you have a fever, so we can get you some medicine to make you and Jeannot Lapin feel better. I imagine she’s not feeling so well, either.”
While he ducked into the master bedroom’s walk-in closet to dress, he found himself suddenly transfixed by the sight of the clothes hanging on Emma’s side. At this moment, with no warning whatsoever, his glass house of denial spontaneously shattered, forcing him to acknowledge that his wife had died, that she was gone, that she wasn’t coming back, and he was never again going to hear her crystalline voice or her infectious laughter or feel her touch or experience one of those marvelous episodes when they shared the very same thought at the same time. “Shit,” he hissed through clenched teeth, quiet enough so Juliette couldn’t hear. The existential question of why this terrible loss had happened to him leaped into the forefront of his mind, but he had no answer. All he knew was that this totally unexpected, unforeseen tragedy had happened because of a tiny mosquito.
Feeling suddenly drained of strength, Brian was forced to reach up and grab the hanger rod to keep himself upright. At the same time, he felt a rush of tears, and he let himself cry. But after a few quiet sobs, he regained his equilibrium. Remembering Juliette out in the room, he yanked himself back to reality. “Pull yourself together!” he commanded in a forced whisper, recognizing that Juliette’s needs trumped feeling sorry for himself. She needed him to buck up, and with the kind of determination that had characterized his life to date, he rapidly put on the same dark suit he’d worn for his brief appearance at the wake. Not knowing how long he’d be in the emergency department, and certainly hoping it wouldn’t be as long as the previous day, he wanted to be ready for the funeral mass at ten.
By the time they were in the Subaru heading for the hospital, it was going on eight o’clock. Hoping for the best but wanting to be ready for the worst, he again had his laptop with an attached DVD player and a selection of Juliette’s particularly favorite movies in a backpack. He also knew there was internet in the ED, so they’d also be able to stream PBS cartoons or other movies if Juliette preferred. Also, at Camila’s suggestion, he had some snacks if needed. All in all, he felt reasonably prepared provided they were treated fairly and didn’t have to wait for three hours. As he had anticipated, Juliette was obviously not feeling well and had resisted going, but now that they were in the car, she acted resigned and silent.
“If you can give me a little warning, I can be back here, so you don’t have to wait,” Camila said as Brian and Juliette got out at the hospital. He gave a thumbs-up as he and Juliette donned their masks and headed for the door.
The ED waiting room was sparsely populated, which encouraged Brian. At the information desk there was no line, and Brian was able to check in straightaway with one of the clerks who recognized them from having been there the day before. The clerk then passed on the information to a triage nurse who seemed distracted as she read aloud the symptoms of a 102.2 fever, sore throat, and headache with an episode of vomiting and diarrhea the previous day. She then wordlessly took Juliette’s temperature with a thermal scanner. Luckily Juliette was tolerant and silent through it all.
“What’s the temperature?” he asked.
“100.8,” the nurse replied.
“It was much higher less than an hour ago,” Brian said. He was relieved to hear it had come down yet worried it might put them in a less urgent section on the patient list. “Maybe you could take it again, please, just to be sure.”
Without comment, but with subtle signs of annoyance that were not lost on Brian, the nurse took the temperature again. “100.8,” she voiced with a roll of her eyes as if retaking the temperature had been an imposition.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Did my asking to retake my daughter’s temperature provoke you in some way?”
“I’ve been here since eleven o’clock last night,” the nurse responded, ignoring Brian’s question. “We’ll be with you as soon as we can.” She then walked off.
“Good grief,” Brian let out under his breath. Already his interaction with the ED staff was only marginally acceptable in his opinion, making him worried whether the current visit might end up rivaling yesterday’s fiasco.
Retreating to a relatively deserted corner of the waiting room, he and Juliette made themselves as comfortable as possible. Juliette wanted to lie down, and Brian allowed her to do so on a blanket he’d brought with them from the car. When he asked her if she wanted to watch something on the laptop, she said she wanted to sleep. As she settled in, he noticed that the perspiration that he’d seen earlier on her forehead had disappeared, making him more confident that the thermal scanner temperature the nurse had taken had been correct. It also made Brian wonder why, like yesterday, Juliette’s symptoms had suddenly disappeared.
“What about your headache and a sore throat?” he asked her, but she chose not to answer and already had her eyes closed. Thankful she was being cooperative, he didn’t press her. Instead he made himself as comfortable as he could, wondering how long they would have to wait. In the distance he heard the undulating sound of an approaching ambulance. As the siren progressively increased, he couldn’t help but selfishly hope it wasn’t some major trauma that would engulf the ED and extend the wait.
Trying to avoid revisiting the momentarily paralyzing episode he’d had in the closet, Brian kept his mind busy by mulling over the conversation he’d had the day before with Jeanne about how many other people in the community out of its sixty thousand residents had experienced the kind of tragedy that he and Jeanne had suffered. Although at the time he had thought that he didn’t have the time or the fortitude to participate in any intensive investigation in the near term, Jeanne had asked him to call Grady Quillen and ask if he would provide a list of all the neighborhood people he’d served in the last year or so.