'Fair enough.'
'I saw two men not wearing their hard-hats,' Marvin Wilson said to the boss.
'I'll talk to them.'
'Aside from that, thanks a lot for your cooperation.' He'd made a total of eleven safety recommendations, and the owner of the cement company had adopted every one, hoping for a reduction in his insurance rates. Marvin took off his white hard-hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was going to be a hot one. The summer climate was not all that much unlike Moscow, but more humid. At least the winters were milder.
'You know, if they made these things with little holes in them for ventilation, they'd be a lot more comfortable to wear.'
'I've said that myself,' Captain Yegorov agreed, heading off to his car. Fifteen minutes later he pulled into a Howard Johnson's. The blue Plymouth took a spot along the west side of the building, and as he got out, a patron inside finished off his coffee and left his spot at the counter, along with a quarter tip to thrill the waitress. The restaurant had a double set of doors to save on the air-conditioning bill, and when the two men met there, just the two of them, moving, with the glass of the doors interfering with anyone who might be observing them, the film was passed. Yegorov/Wilson continued inside, and a 'legal' KGB major named Ishchenko went his way. Relieved of his burden for the day, Marvin Wilson sat at the counter and ordered orange juice to start. There were so many good things to eat in America.
'I'm eating too much.' It was probably true, but it didn't stop Doris from attacking the pile of hotcakes.
Sarah didn't understand the Americans' love for emaciation. 'You lost plenty in the last two weeks. It won't hurt you to put a little back,' Sarah Rosen told her graduating patient.
Sarah's Buick was parked outside, and today would see them in Pittsburgh. Sandy had worked on Doris's hair a little more, and made one more trip to get clothes that befitted the day, a beige silk blouse and a burgundy skirt that ended just above the knee. The prodigal son could return home in rags, but the daughter had to arrive with some pride.
'I don't know what to say,' Doris Brown told them, standing to collect the dishes.
'You just keep getting better,' Sarah replied. They went out to the car, and Doris got in the back. If nothing else, Kelly had taught them caution. Dr Sarah Rosen headed out quickly, turning north on Loch Raven, getting on the Baltimore Beltway and heading west to Interstate 70. The posted limit on the new highway was seventy miles per hour, and Sarah exceeded it, pushing her heavy Buick northwest toward the Catoctin Mountains, every mile between them and the city an additional safety factor, and by the time they passed Hagerstown she relaxed and started enjoying the ride. What were the chances, after all, of being spotted in a moving car?
It was a surprisingly quiet ride. They'd talked themselves out in the previous few days as Doris had returned to a condition approximating normality. She still needed drug counseling, and seriously needed psychiatric help, but Sarah had already taken care of that with a colleague at the University of Pittsburgh's excellent medical school, a sixtyish woman who knew not to report things to the local police, assured that that part of the matter was already in hand. In the silence of the car Sandy and Sarah could feel the tension build. It was something they'd talked about. Doris was returning to a home and a father she'd left for a life that had nearly become a death. For many months the principal component of her new life would be guilt, part earned, part not. On the whole she was a very lucky young lady, something Doris had yet to grasp. She was, first of all, alive. With her confidence and self-esteem restored she might in two or three years be able to continue her life on a course so normal that no one would ever suspect her past or notice the fading scars. Restored health would change this girl, returning her not only to her father but also to the world of real people.
Perhaps she might even become stronger, Sarah hoped, if the psychiatrist brought her along slowly and carefully. Dr Michelle Bryant had a stellar reputation, a correct one, she hoped. For Dr Rosen, still racing west slightly over the legal limit, this was one of the hard parts of medicine. She had to let the patient go with the job not yet complete. Her clinical work with drug abusers had prepared her for it, but those jobs, like this one, were never really finished. It was just that there came a time when you had to let go, hoping and trusting that the patient could do the rest. Perhaps sending your daughter off to be married was like this, Sarah thought. It could have been so much worse in so many ways. Over the phone her father seemed a decent man, and Sarah Rosen didn't need a specialization in psychiatry to know that, more than anything else, Doris needed a relationship with an honorable and loving man so that she could, one day, develop another such relationship that would last her lifetime. That was now the job of others, but it didn't stop Sarah from worrying about her patient. Every doctor can be a Jewish mother, and in her case it was difficult to avoid.
The hills were steep in Pittsburgh. Doris directed them along the Monongahela River and up the right street, suddenly tense while Sandy checked the numbers of the houses. And there it was. Sarah pulled the red Buick into a parking place and everyone took a deep breath.
'You okay?' she asked Doris, getting a frightened nod in response.
'He's your father, honey. He loves you.'
There was nothing remarkable about Raymond Brown, Sarah saw a moment later. He must have been waiting at the door for hours, and he, too, was nervous, coming down the cracked concrete steps, holding the rail as he did so with a trembling hand. He opened the car door, helping Sandy out with awkward gallantry. Then he reached inside, and though he was trying to be brave and impassive, when his fingers touched Doris's, the man burst into tears. Doris tripped coming out of the car, and her father kept her from falling, and clutched her to his chest.
'Oh, Daddy!'
Sandy O'Toole turned away, not put off by the emotion of the moment, but wanting them to have it alone, and the look she gave Dr Rosen was its own culminating moment for people of their profession. Both medics bit their lips and examined the other's moist eyes.
'Let's get you inside, baby,' Ray Brown said, taking his little girl up the steps, needing to have her in his house and under his protection. The other two women followed without being bidden.
The living room was surprisingly dark. A day-sleeper, Mr Brown had added dark shades to his home and had forgotten to raise them this day. It was a cluttered room of braided rugs and overstuffed '40s furniture, small mahogany tables with lacelike dollies. There were framed photos everywhere. A dead wife. A dead son. And a lost daughter - four of those. In the dark security of the house, father clutched daughter again.
'Honey,' he said, recounting words that he'd been practicing for days. 'The things I said, I was wrong, I was so damned wrong!'
'It's okay, Daddy. Thank you for... for letting me -'
'Dor, you're my little girl.' Nothing more had to be said. That hug lasted over a minute, and then she had to draw back with a giggle.
'I have to go.'
'The bathroom's in the same place,' her father said, wiping his own eyes. Doris moved off, finding the stairs and going up. Raymond Brown turned his attention to his guests.
'I, uh, I have lunch ready.' He paused awkwardly. This wasn't a time for good manners or considered words. 'I don't know what I'm supposed to say.'
'That's okay.' Sarah smiled her benign doctor's smile, the sort that told him that everything was all right, even though it wasn't, really. 'But we need to talk. This is Sandy O'Toole, by the way. Sandy's a nurse, and she's more responsible for your daughter's recovery than I am.'
'Hi,' Sandy said, and handshakes were exchanged all around.
'Doris still needs a lot of help, Mr Brown,' Dr Rosen Said. 'She's been through a really terrible time. Can we talk a little bit?'