Opal is asleep against Miranda’s shoulder when I arrive. She’s wearing her purple cardigan over her pajama shirt because that’s what she was in when the fever got bad, and her hair is tangled, and even from ten feet away, I can see the flush on her cheeks. I take her before I even say hello to Miranda, and press my lips to her forehead, and close my eyes.
Too hot. Not the regular sick-hot that resolves with Tylenol and a good night’s sleep. The other kind.
“Thank you for bringing her, Miranda.”
“Of course.” She squeezes my arm, looks at me with the wrinkled expression she saves for moments she thinks I need something, but she knows I won’t ask for it. “Do you want me to stay?”
I shake my head and try not to notice the way Opal is sleeping through all of this. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime.” She heads out. I appreciate that fact. She knows I handle things better with less of an audience.
I get Opal’s name on the sign-in sheet. The woman behind the desk has a laminated name tag that says RITA, and the energy of someone who is processing human suffering at a volume that would break most people. She’s fine, she’s used to it, next.
I get it. That kind of apathy is a form of protection. I don’t hold it against her. I take the clipboard and find us two chairs that are next to each other and settle in.
Opal wakes up partway when I shift her. Her eyes open, register me, and do the specific softening that means I’m the correct person. “Mama.”
“Hey, baby. We’re at the clinic. The fish one.”
“Fish,” she says and looks toward the tank. The fish have arranged themselves in the corner farthest from the glass, all facing the same direction, which I have never been able to explain.
Time has no meaning here.
I’ve been here for an hour and twenty-three minutes. I do what I do, which is count things. The ceiling tiles. The water stains look like different animals from different angles. The people in the waiting room. Eleven adults, four children, and the man in the corner who’s always asleep there.
I don’t count him with the adults. They’re visitors. He’s a resident.
There’s a family two rows over. It’s a dad with a toddler in his lap, the toddler gnawing on the arm of a toy stethoscope, completely unbothered by the situation. The dad has been awake since at least yesterday, I think. We make eye contact for half a second, the two of us, and there’s that brief exchange that happens between parents in waiting rooms at night.
Fatigued. Overwhelmed. Unable to quit.
Other responsibilities come to mind again. Bills. Debts. Those two blend and overlap. How much longer can I lean on Miranda? She’s elderly, and she takes care of Opal in exchange for me occasionally going to doctor appointments with her, since her kids have moved away. My mother is… she does her own thing. Her pastor is the most important person in her life, and last year, she told me she’s leaving everything to her church.
Not me. Not her sickly granddaughter. A megachurch.
Not that she has much to leave behind anyway.
And then, there’s Ed. I try not to think about Ed a lot. I’m not good at it.
He likes to show up at the weirdest times to remind me what I owe him. I know what I owe the bastard, and I don’t need reminding. But I can’t say any of that to him. Loan sharks aren’t known for their patience, so I never push things with Ed. I pay him what I can when I can, and thankfully, he’s usually okay with that.
The triage nurse who calls us back is brisk and capable and has the careful kindness of someone doing more with less. She takesOpal’s temperature, writes it down without blinking, looks at her throat, and asks me about her history. I know the history by heart. Seven prior strep visits over fourteen months, two courses of amoxicillin and one of penicillin. She nods and sets us up in a curtained bay. The doctor will be with us shortly.
It’s chronic strep that no one can seem to get under control. They took her tonsils, but it’s not helping, and that surgery sank me into a debt that Ed holds now.
The exam table is narrow. After about twenty minutes of Opal shifting and whimpering at every swallow, I lower us both to the floor, because the floor is wider and she can put her head in my lap, and that’s better. I pull her cardigan closed and rub her back in slow circles and watch the curtain and wait.
Dr. Hale should be here any moment. That’s what the nurse said. The truth is, that moment could be five minutes from now or tomorrow. We have never been his priority. He thinks I’m a worrywart, and he’s said as much. Doesn’t matter that we have the bloodwork and history to back up my claims.
The supply closet door across the hall opens.
A man comes through it sideways. Not Dr. Hale. Broad shoulders, dark hair with silver at the temples, jaw unshaved, wearing a lab coat that’s had a long day. He’s carrying a small box, moving with the economy of someone who has somewhere to be, already mentally checked out of this particular hallway before he’s finished walking through it.
He almost makes it past us.
But he stops.
He scans us with those cold, dark eyes. Opal’s flush, her stillness, the floor, me. Something in his expression does the thing where it doesn’t soften but sharpens instead, like a lens finding its focus. He looks down the hall in the direction of whatever Dr. Hale is buried in. Something moves through his face that I can’t name.
