Strange. It was strange...but it was good, too.
Her pride continued to feel good until a few hours later. She had grabbed dinner for herself and Julie, and they had finished eating when Benjamin tapped on the door and came in.
“Hi, Julie. How are you doing?” he said.
“Good, thanks to your wife.”
“I’m going to borrow her for a second, if that’s okay with you both,” he said, his eyes drifting to Coral.
He led her into the waiting room. In the empty room, he said, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“What? Forever?” Her heart was in her throat. Surely he wouldn’t leave her. Did he think she wanted to stay here instead of with him?
“No, Coral,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I’m being sent on a scavenging mission.”
“Shit,” she said. “This is my fault. I pissed off Levi. That’s why.” Levi was punishing her for standing up to him.
“Or it could simply be my turn,” said Benjamin.
Coral didn’t believe that, not for a second. “Do you at least get your rifle back?”
“I asked about that. They said yes, once we’re beyond the town limits, it’ll be handed to me.”
“And then? Do you get to keep it?”
“I’ll do my damnedest to.”
“I swore I’d never let anyone separate us again. Now it seems I hardly see you. I don’t know what happened this past few days, how I’ve gotten swept up into the life of this town so completely.”
“You’ve been taking care of Julie.”
“But—”
“And learning something by it, right? You’ll be a better doctor for your time here in this clinic.”
He was right about that. It was like the world’s hardest practicum in medicine. “I don’t care about these people.”
“Bull,” he said. “Obviously, you do.”
“Not like I care about you. I’m worried.”
“Don’t be. You know I can take care of myself.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“I’m going out with Kathy and Martin.”
“That makes me feel a little better.”
“It makes me feel a lot better. I’ve worked with both of them on perimeter duty. I think they’re okay.”
“So only the three of you?”
“Parnell, too. Probably to keep an eye on me.”
“You watch him. At least as carefully as he’s watching you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry if I got you into this by mouthing off to Levi this morning.”
“It would have happened eventually if we stayed much longer. So don’t stress over it.”
She could see almost nothing, and she wanted to see his face. “You’re sure it’s okay?” She wasn’t. The thought of letting him walk away—that far away—made her heart race in fear.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Anytime you want to leave Boise, you tell me. If you want to leave now, great. I can be ready to go in an hour.”
“You wouldn’t leave Julie right now.” He sounded amused.
It was true, someone was depending on her. Abigail was waiting for something from her, too. All these human connections were like ropes that had slithered around her and were tying her down. She had to remember they were imaginary. In reality, she could walk out—or at least sneak out—of Boise any time she chose. “Edith is around,” she said. “I could go get her and tell her I’m not feeling well. We could go tonight. Should we? Do you think we should leave?”
“Not yet. I think we’re both safe for the moment. If I had any doubt, I wouldn’t be leaving you.” He cleared his throat. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”
Coral forced her thoughts away from selfish ones. “No, go back to the apartment and get a good night’s rest, so you’ll be alert tomorrow. I don’t want anyone taking you unaware because you’re sleepy.”
“Okay, if you’re sure you don’t need me here.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Can you lock the door from the inside?”
“There’s a deadbolt, yeah.”
“Then lock it.”
“I think I’m safe here.” The townspeople might seem naive to her in how they hung on to the old world as they did, but that also meant there was respect for the clinic and doctor. “No one is going to come and hurt me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. There might still be a drug addict out there, craving drugs. While there are pain pills in here, I’d rather you kept it locked.”
Coral thought that if anyone wanted the handful of opiates that bad, the clinic would have been broken into already. There were glass windows to break, after all, an easy enough means of accessing the drugs. “By the way,” she said. “Did Parnell or someone give you a couple of condoms a few days back?”
She heard his breath stop. He held it for a few seconds before letting it ease out. “Uh, yeah?” Without being able to see him, she still knew he was blushing. He was oddly old-fashioned in certain ways.
“I could have used that information earlier today. But don’t worry. It’s okay.”
“Okay,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Do you need anything before I leave? I probably won’t see you tomorrow. They say we leave at dawn.”
“Just a hug.” She groped for him in the dark and they stood a moment in each other’s arms, their jackets squeaking against each other. “Take care.”
“You too. Don’t let your guard down here.”
“I won’t. And you don’t either.”
He patted her on the back, let her go, and walked to the door. “We’ll see each other in a couple days,” he said.
“Yes, we will,” she said, hoping that they were both right.
If she hadn’t had Julie to worry over the next two days, she would have been obsessed with anxiety about Benjamin. But just before dawn, that same night, Julie’s temperature began to rise. Coral wasn’t entirely sure at first, but then Julie grew fretful in her sleep, and Coral’s worry increased as she felt her patient grow warmer.
She wished for Edith’s experience, for a second opinion from her, but she wouldn’t be here until after breakfast. When Julie woke, she asked her how she felt.
“Fine, I think. Worn out.”
“Okay.” She managed a smile, though she was worried. “I’m going to change the bandage again, all right?”
Julie yawned and nodded.
Coral carefully untied the cotton bandage that covered Julie’s foot and checked the wound. The stitches were dark lines across the smooth place where the two toes had been. The swelling had gone down. The tissue was dark with what Coral hoped was only bruising, and she could detect a bit of redness around each stitch, but it didn’t look worse than last night. She knew her eye wasn’t expert, but there was no discharge, no bad odor. She wondered if she had not cut far enough, if there were some necrotic tissue, turning into a systemic infection and spiking Julie’s temperature.
She rested her hand on Julie’s ankle. Yes, she was definitely running a fever. Not bad yet, but enough to worry Coral. She replaced the bandage and arranged the blanket over Julie’s foot.
“Something wrong?” Julie asked.
“No, you’re healing fine.”
“You look worried.”
“It’s nothing.” She had to work on her poker face. Levi could read her, and Julie, and probably everybody left in the world, too. Months spent alone in the wilderness with only Benjamin had stripped her of normal social skills. “I think your temp might be up a degree, is all. I’m going to increase the antibiotic dose this morning.”
Julie moaned. “God, I hate these shots. They hurt worse than the toes.”
A smaller-bore needle could have easily survived, being stainless steel, but how would you stumble upon one when the snow was as high as your head out there? Even Benjamin would have a hard time spotting one on the bare ground.
He’d be leaving about now, with Parnell and Kathy and Martin. She had to force her mind away from him and back on the task at hand.
She upped the antibiotic dose by about a quarter, wishing again she had some better way to gauge the dose. Julie flinched as she gave her the injection. Coral helped her use a bed pan, emptied it, and came back to find Edith already there.
“You’re early.”
“I grabbed breakfast for Julie and myself and came early. Anything you need from me?”
“No, but thanks.” Coral watched her fuss over Julie’s blankets. Edith was a natural at nursing. Coral said, “I had an idea about organizing supplies in the other room, Edith. Let me show you what I was thinking.”
She went into the other treatment room, gloomy and dark this early and, when Edith came in, Coral said, “I’m afraid her temp is up. Maybe I should stay with her today.”
“You need to sleep, too.”
“I could stand a nap. Maybe I should sleep here, in Julie’s room.”
“You wouldn’t get any rest. She’ll be awake, and you’d hear everyone else in the clinic. Go home and sleep. I’ll come get you if her fever gets worse. Or I’ll send someone for you, because I wouldn’t leave her.”
“Come get me for anything, okay? If there’s any change at all, let me know.”
“Of course,” said Edith. “Now go get your breakfast and get some rest. You look tired.”
“I was reading all night, some veterinary medicine books from the library. I found a couple bits of information to share with you. Remind me another day, all right?” She’d dog-eared pages she thought might be useful.
“Okay. Get along, now.”
Coral left, blinking against the glare outside. Funny, it wasn’t that bright, as ash still hung suspended in the air, but after a night reading under lamplight, the morning outside seemed like too much light. If she could be lifted somehow above the suspended ash, and into direct sunlight, it’d probably blind her, after so many months without seeing the sun.
The dining room was noisy. Someone else at the table asked about when she’d be in the clinic for regular hours again. “Three days, I guess,” she told him, knowing that news would spread through the town before midday.
She told Doug about her request to Levi for a researcher for medical information. “I suggested you, if that’s okay.”
“Sure. I’d rather do that than what I am doing now.” He tapped his spoon on his bowl. “Maybe I’ll go tell him that.”
Abigail said, “Don’t, Doug.”
“Why not?”
“You know he doesn’t like it when you push.”
“I’d be volunteering. How is that pushing?”
“I don’t want you to cross him again.” Abigail glanced around the room furtively and whispered to Doug, “Please.”
Coral wondered what had happened between Doug and Levi, and why Abigail seemed frightened of him. Had Doug suffered some sort of punishment, too? She’d ask him when she could get him alone.
Benjamin’s assignment out of town was surely retaliation for her high-handed manner with Levi. He could make her life difficult in many ways. Perhaps that’s how he controlled the town, by assigning dangerous work for the crime of disagreeing with him. It’d keep people under his thumb, all right.
Coral didn’t like Levi and she didn’t trust him.
He had power, and a militia to back it up, and she shouldn’t have been so cavalier about making an enemy of him. They might want her as their doctor, but they’d survived without a doctor before just fine. And they could survive without Benjamin.
She could not.
Someone was shaking her out of a dreamless sleep. She swam up slowly to consciousness.
“Doctor?”
The word brought her fully awake. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at a teenage girl, not anyone whose name she knew. “Yeah?” Coral struggled to sit up.
“Edith at the clinic says she’d like to talk with you.”
Had Julie taken a turn for the worse? Coral swung her legs over and felt around for her shoes. She walked fast to the clinic and pushed through into the treatment room.
Coral looked to Edith, about to say “What’s wrong?” when Julie lurched up and vomited into an emesis basin and answered the question for her. “Is she feverish?”
“No. Just this,” said Edith.
“Reaction to the antibiotic dose, do you think?”
Edith shook her head. “In my line of work, I only saw reactions to local anesthetics. Or to the epi in them. So I don’t know.”
“Could just be a mild reaction.”
Or it might be that she was going septic
. I am so out of my depth here.
“Do we have anything at all to treat the nausea with?”
“Not a thing.”
“Damn.” She went to Julie’s side and took the basin from her, setting it on the counter. “I’m so sorry, Julie.”
“Not your fault.”
“But it might be. I might have given you too much antibiotic.”
“Am I going to die, then?”
“Are you having any trouble breathing?”
“No. I mean, when I puke, of course, but not otherwise. Can I have some water?”
“Sure.” Coral poured some for her.
“I wish there were gum or mints,” said Julie.
“Or white soda,” said Edith.
“Nothing like that in town?” Coral said, looking over Julie’s bed to Edith.