Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

The light went on in the room upstairs. A wait. The back door opened and she appeared. Same bunny jumpsuit, same messy ponytail positioned too high on her head.

He rocked slightly in the car, his hands gripping segments of the broken steering wheel. When he looked to the side, his pupils beat once, twice, unable to hold in place.

With a whooshing whistle, she stepped down off the porch, activating the motion-sensor lamp. Her hands fluttered up to her face as she gasped, her eyes widening until he could see the whites even through the spiderweb crack in the windshield.

The scraggly dog lay on its side in the tall weeds of the yard, its head bent back across the neck, broken. A trickle of blood ran from a wound at the base of its throat, where a jagged bone had punctured the flesh.

Her mouth bent wide, wavering. She sank to her knees.

He drank her tears.

He got out from the Chevy, slamming the car door behind him. She kept her gaze on the dead lump of fur, even as he walked toward her drunkenly.

Her hand trembled as she reached for the dog. She began to pet the coarse hair covering its ribs, her hand moving soothingly while her breath came in sharp gasps.

He stood over her, tall and powerful, the lamp casting his shadow across her face. She cowered in her bunny sweatsuit, but at last looked up at him, cringing. She smelled of tuna. Sounds came from within the house-an inner door closing hard, then the rapid beat of footsteps.

He fled, his feet dragging through weeds and broken bottles, leaving behind the light and the people. His breath came in animal grunts, sounds of exertion or of sobbing. He turned to squeeze his wide body through a missing slat in the wooden fence at the yard's edge and then he staggered toward home, his face flushed a deep red, almost matching the splatter of dog blood across his button-up shirt.

The ER bustled. Broken legs, hemorrhaging wounds, a Rorschach blot of vomit on the tiled floor of Exam Seven. Don had been called in to provide double coverage in the rush, and he and David spun from room to room, pushed, prodded, and pulled by residents and nurses. David didn't have time to check on Security, but he knew they were working double-time outside, fending off the almost constant influx of media. The flurry of press surrounding the hospital over the past week made him feel increasingly claustrophobic.

At one point, David had tried to go up to see Diane, but he'd been pulled into a food poisoning case by an anxious medicine intern. It was already past lunch, and neither he nor Don had had a moment to sit down. A college kid who'd been in a motorcycle accident came in DOA, and Don was walking a medical student through the gestures with the defibrillator.

Stepping on a pedal to turn on the sink, David rinsed his hands and shook them dry before sliding on another pair of gloves and stepping back into the hall. He pivoted quickly, dodging a cooler that a smiling orderly wheeled past him from the ambulance bay-probably a heart on ice. When he stuck his head in the CWA, he saw the board was filled, a Magic Marker tribute to bad doctor scrawl.

"Someone call the blood bank and get a few units on the way for Jefferson in Fifteen Two," he said to a passing nurse. "Where's Carson? Has anyone seen Carson? Someone call him and get him in here. And get urology on the phone again-they're dragging their feet on Kinney in Four because he's MediCal." He glanced down Hallway One and saw, through the small windows atop the swinging doors, Don speaking to a man in his forties. Don held a hot dog in one hand and was chewing between words; the man's face was lowered and he held his head, as if in great pain. It took a moment for David to put it together-the man was the father of the student who'd died in the motorcycle wreck, and Don had just informed him of his son's death. While eating a hot dog.

His temper flaring, David stormed down the hall. He forced himself to calm down, knowing that it would make matters worse for the father if he made a scene. Instinctively, David thought to grab Diane to see to the father, before remembering why she wasn't working.

Don was finishing as David approached. "So, again, I'm really sorry to have to bring you this news."

David struggled to keep his rage from finding its way into his voice. "Dr. Lambert, would you mind if I had a word?"

"Not at all." Don gave the man's elbow a cursory squeeze before following David back into Exam Fourteen.

David closed the door and took a moment to get his breathing under control while Don watched expectantly, hot dog in hand.

"Do you think, Dr. Lambert, that you could refrain from eating while informing people of deaths in their families?"

Don popped the end of the hot dog in his mouth. "Sure. Whatever."

"This is not a whatever issue. I know you do this every day, but he doesn't." David jabbed an angry finger in the direction of the father outside.

"Oh come on. Look, Dave-"

"David will do just fine."

"Let's not make a big deal out of this. I've been on my feet all day. If I'm hungry and cranky, that doesn't help anyone, least of all my patients."

"So eat in the doctors' lounge."

"I would, but I haven't had time to get back there."

Someone rapped on the door. "Be there in a minute!" David said. He turned back to Don. "Then wait to eat, or if the agony is too much for you to bear, come get me, and I'll take care of dealing with the family members."

"That man just lost his son. Do you really think my not eating a hot dog is going to make things easier for him? I doubt he even noticed." He crossed his arms. "Look, you brought a bunch of shit down on yourself lately. The press is beating you up. The board's on your ass. Don't take it out on me. This is preposterous."

"No, Don. It's shitty care."

"You are always on my ass. What are you worried about? Do you think if I'm gone for an extra ten minutes, or I'm eating a hot dog, that someone's gonna sue your precious department?" He shook his head. "Well, rest assured. Everything I do can hold up in a court of law."

"Since when is that the gauge by which we judge our level of treatment?"

Don did not respond. On his way out, David grabbed a roll of gauze from the counter and tossed it at him. "You have mustard on your lip," he said.

He found the man sitting stunned in a chair in the lobby, people bustling around him in all directions. His face had reddened and he was breathing hard, as though fighting down a panic attack.

David crouched and looked up into his face. "Mr. Henderson? Robert Henderson?"

The man's eyes flickered, but there was no look of recognition in his face.

"Why don't you come back with me for a minute?" David said. "We can find a private room."

With a hand in the small of Henderson's back, David guided him back to Fourteen. The sleeves of Henderson's yellow Carhartt jacket extended down over hard, calloused hands. A white outline, the shape of a tin of tobacco dip, had been worn into the back pocket of his jeans.

Henderson sat on the bed, paper crinkling beneath his legs. He turned his hands over before his eyes, as if checking to see if they were real. His face, slightly sunburned, was wrinkled beyond its years from hours spent working outside. His face quivered, as though he were about to cry, then stiffened again. David sensed that Henderson did not cry very often.

David slowly became aware of his own discomfort in the face of Henderson's suffering. He was inadequate at this-the comforting. As a diagnostician, as a technician, as a scientist, he was exceptional, but in this department he was lacking. There was nothing for him to do-no action to take, no medicine to administer, no test to run. If these past few days had driven anything home, it was the fact that people suffer from events beyond their control. Often, they make all the right choices and suffer anyway. Again, he found himself wishing Diane were here to console Henderson.