Robin Cook - Marker

"What stage was the cancer?" Laurie asked solicitously.

"A very early stage with no apparent nodal involvement," Sheldon said. "Things are going to be fine. The prognosis is excellent, although she'll have to undergo further treatment."

"And you say she is doing well?"

"Very well indeed. She's already taken some nourishment orally, and she's back to her old self by being genuinely demanding."

"Can I speak with her?"

"Unfortunately, that would be rather difficult. You see, I'm not in the room at the moment. I'm at the nurses' station. I was hoping you'd be able to come over here to see her this afternoon. There is an associated aspect to all this that I would like to discuss with you."

"I will be right over," Laurie said. She hung up the phone before turning back to Riva.

"Is it true you had no idea about any of this?" Riva asked.

"Not a clue. There wasn't even the slightest hint. I don't know whether to be angry, hurt, or sad. Actually, it's pathetic.

What a dysfunctional family! I can't believe it. I'm almost forty-three and a doctor, and my mother still treats me like a child about illness. Can you imagine, she wanted to shield me from unnecessary concern?"

"Our family is just the opposite. Everybody knows everything about everybody. It's the opposite extreme, but I don't advocate it, either. I think the best is somewhere in between."

Laurie got up and stretched. She waited for a moment of dizziness to pass. Her fatigue had come back with a vengeance after sitting at her desk. She then got her coat from behind the door. When she considered the differences between her family and Riva's, she thought she would pick Riva's, although she certainly wouldn't choose to live at home like Riva did. She and Riva were the same age.

"Want me to answer your phone?" Riva asked.

"If you won't mind, especially if it's either Maureen or Peter. Leave any messages on my corkboard." Laurie got out a package of Post-its and plopped them on her blotter. "I've got to come back here. I'm not going to take my suitcase with me."

Laurie stepped into the hall and briefly considered going down to Jack's office to tell him about her mother, then decided to skip it. Even though she was certain he'd ultimately be sympathetic, she had had quite enough of his levity and didn't want to risk having to deal with anymore.

On the first floor, Laurie took a quick detour into the administration office. Calvin's door was ajar. Unchallenged by the two busy secretaries, Laurie glanced in to see the deputy chief hunched over his desk. A standard-sized pen looked like a miniature in his huge hand. She knocked on the open door, and Calvin raised his intimidating face and drilled Laurie with his coal-black eyes. There had been times when Laurie had clashed with the deputy chief, since he was both a stickler for rules and a politically savvy individual willing to bend those rules on occasion. From Laurie's perspective, it was an untenable combination. The occasional political demands of being a medical examiner were the only part of the job Laurie didn't like.

Laurie mentioned that she was leaving early to visit her mom in the hospital. Calvin waved her away without a question. Laurie didn't have to clear such a thing with him, but she had been trying of late to be a little more politically sensitive herself, at least on a personal level.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped, making it easier to hail a taxi. The ride uptown went quickly, and in less than a half hour she was deposited at the front steps of the University Hospital. During the drive, she had tried to imagine what her father had meant by "an associated aspect" of her mother's illness that he wished to discuss. She truly had no idea. It was such an oblique statement, but she assumed he meant some limitations of her mother's activity.

The hospital's lobby was in its usual afternoon uproar with visiting hours in full swing. Laurie had to wait in line at the information booth to find out her mother's room number, castigating herself for failing to get it earlier. Armed with the information, she took the proper elevators up to the proper floor and walked past the nurses' station, where a number of people were busy at work. No one looked up at her. It was the VIP wing, which meant the corridor was carpeted and the walls were hung with original, donated oil paintings. Laurie found herself glancing into the rooms as she passed like a voyeur, reminding her of her first year of clinical residency.

Her mother's door was ajar like most of the others, and Laurie walked right in. Her mother was in a typical hospital bed with the guardrails up, an intravenous running slowly into her left arm. Instead of the usual hospital garb, she was wearing a pink silk robe.

She was sitting up with a number of pillows behind her. Her medium-length, silver-gray hair, which normally billowed on top of her head, was pressed down like an old-fashioned bathing cap. Her color was gray without her makeup, and her skin seemed to be pulled tighter than usual over her facial bones, and her eyes had retracted as if she was slightly dehydrated. She appeared fragile and vulnerable, and although Laurie knew she was petite, she looked particularly tiny in the large bed. She also looked older than she did less than a week before, when Laurie had seen her for lunch. There had been no conversation about cancer or imminent hospitalization.

"Come in, my dear," Dorothy said, waving with her free hand. "Pull a chair over. Sheldon told me he had called you. I wasn't going to bother you until I was home. This is all very silly. It's just not worth getting all upset over."

Laurie glanced over at her father, who was reading The Wall Street Journal in a club chair by the window. He glanced up, gave a little wave and a wan smile, and then went back to his paper.

Advancing to the side of the bed, Laurie took her mother's free hand and gave it a squeeze. The bones felt delicate and the skin cool. "How are you, Mother?"

"I'm just fine. Give me a kiss and then sit down."

Laurie touched her cheek to her mother's. Then she pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. With the hospital bed raised, she had to look up at her mother. "I'm so sorry this has happened to you."

"It's nothing. The doctor has already been in, and he said things are just fine, which is more than I can say about your hair."

Laurie had to suppress a smile. Her mother's ploy was transparent. Whenever she didn't want to talk about herself, she went on the offensive. Laurie used both hands to sweep her highlighted auburn hair back away from her face. It was shoulder-length, and although she usually wore it up with a clip or a comb, she'd taken it down to brush it out after her morning's stint in the "moon suit" and hadn't put it back up. Unfortunately, her hair had been a frequent target for her mother ever since Laurie's teenage years.

After the conversation about her hair and a short pause in which Laurie tried to ask a question about her mother's surgery, Dorothy switched to another convenient target by saying that Laurie's outfit was much too feminine for working in a morgue. With some difficulty, Laurie restrained herself in response to this new criticism. She made it a point to wear such clothing. It was part of her identity, and she saw no conflict with her place of employment. Laurie also knew that part of her mother's response was derived from her distaste for Laurie's career choice. Although both her parents had mellowed to a degree and had even grudgingly come to recognize the merits of forensics subsequent to Laurie's work, they had been disappointed from the moment she had announced her decision to become a medical examiner. At one point, Dorothy had actually told Laurie that she had no idea what to say when her friends asked what kind of a doctor Laurie was.