Blood Test

4

The walls of the ward were covered with sunny yellow paper patterned with dancing teddy bears and grinning rag dolls. But the hospital smells that I’d grown used to when I worked there — disinfectant, body odor, wilting flowers — assaulted my nostrils and reminded me I was a stranger. Though I’d walked this same corridor a thousand times, I was gripped with the chilling uneasiness that hospitals inevitably evoke.

The Laminar Airflow Unit was at the east end of the ward behind a windowless gray door. As we approached, the door swung open and a young woman stepped into the hallway. She lit up a cigarette and began to walk away, but Raoul hailed her and she stopped, turned, bent a knee and froze the pose, one hand on the cigarette, the other on her hip.

“The sister,” he whispered.

He’d called her a looker but it was an understatement.

The girl was stunning.

She was tall, five eight or nine, with a body that managed to be both womanly and boyish. Her legs were long, coltish, and firm, her breasts high and small. She had a swan’s neck and delicate, slender hands ending in crimson lacquered nails. She wore a white dress made of T-shirt material and had cinched it with a silver cord that showed off a tiny waist and flat belly. The soft fabric molded to every angle and curve and ended midthigh.

Her face was oval with a strong cleft chin. She had prominent cheekbones and a clean jawline leading to lobeless ears. Each ear was pierced with two threadlike hoops of hammered gold. Her lips were straight and full, her mouth a generous red slash.

But it was her coloring that was most striking.

Her hair was long, lustrous, combed straight back from her high smooth forehead, and coppery red. But unlike most redheads she had no freckles and lacked the buttermilk complexion. Her skin was blemishless and burnished a deep California tan. Her eyes were wide-set, thick-lashed, and inky black. She’d used a bit too much makeup but had left her eyebrows alone. They were full and dark, with a natural arch that gave her a skeptical look. She was a girl anyone would notice, with a strange combination of simplicity and flash, almost overwhelmingly physical without trying to be.

“Hello,” said Raoul.

She shifted her weight and looked both of us over.

“Hi.” She spoke sullenly and regarded us with with boredom. As if to underscore her apathy, she gazed past us and sucked on her cigarette.

“Nona, this is Dr. Delaware.”

She nodded, unimpressed.

“He’s a psychologist, an expert in the care of children with cancer. He used to work here, in Laminar Flow.”

“Hello,” she said, dutifully. Her voice was soft, almost whispery, the inflection flat. “If you want him to talk to my parents, they’re not here.”

“Uh, yes, that is what I wanted. When will they be back?”

The girl shrugged and flicked ashes onto the floor.

“They didn’t tell me. They slept here so they probably went back to the motel to clean up. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

“I see. And how have you been doing?”

“Fine.” She looked up at the ceiling and tapped her foot.

Raoul raised his hand to offer the classic physician’s pat on the back, but the look in her eyes stopped him and he immediately lowered it.

Tough kid, I thought, but then, this was no day at the beach for her.

“How’s Woody?” he asked.

The question infuriated her. Her lean body tensed, she dropped the cigarette and ground it under her heel. Tears collected in the inner corners of the midnight eyes.

“You’re the damned doctor! Why don’t you tell me!” She tightened her face, turned, and ran away.

Raoul avoided eye contact. He picked up the crushed butt and deposited it in an ashtray. Covering his forehead with one hand he took a deep breath and gave a migraine grimace. The pain must have been excruciating.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go in.”

A hand-scrawled sign in the nurses’ office said “Welcome to Space Age Medasin.”

The bulletin board was tacked with layers of paper — shift schedules, cartoons cut out of magazines, chemotherapy dosage charts, and an autographed picture of a famous Dodger with a young bald boy in a wheelchair. The child held a bat with both hands and gazed up at the baseball player, who looked slightly ill at ease among the I.V. lines.

Raoul picked a medical chart out of a bin and flipped through it. He grunted and pushed a button on a panel above the desk. Seconds later a heavyset woman dressed in white stuck her head in.

“Yes — oh, hi, Doctor Melendez.” She saw me and gave a nod with a question mark stuck to the end of it.

Raoul introduced me to the nurse, whose name was Ellen Beck-with.

“Good,” she said, “we could use you around here.”

“Dr. Delaware used to coordinate psychosocial care on this unit. He’s an international expert on the psychological effects of reverse isolation.”

“Oh. Great. Pleased to meet you.”

I took the proferred fleshy hand.

“Ellen,” said Raoul, “when are Mr. and Mrs. Swope due back on the unit?”

“Gee, I dunno, Doctor. They were here all last night and then they left. They usually come in every day, so they should be around sometime.”

He clenched his teeth.

“That’s very helpful, Ellen,” he said sharply.

The nurse grew flustered and her meaty face took on the look of an animal corralled in an unfamiliar pen. “I’m sorry, Doctor, it’s just that they’re not required to tell us—”

“Never mind. Is there anything new with the boy that hasn’t been charted?”

“No sir, we’re just waiting for—” she saw the look on his face and stopped herself. “Uh, I was just going to change the linens in unit three, Doctor, so if you have nothing more—”

“Go. But first get Beverly Lucas over here.”

She glanced at a chalkboard across the room.

“She’s signed out to page, sir.”

Raoul looked up and stroked his mustache. The only evidence of his agony was the slight tremble beneath the bristly hairs.

“Then page her, for God’s sake.”

She hurried off.

“And they want to be professionals,” he said. “Working hand in hand with the doctor as equal partners. Ludicrous.”

“Do you use anything for the pain?” I asked.

The question threw him.

“What — oh, it’s not so bad,” he lied, and forced a smile. “Once in a while I take something.”

“Ever tried biofeedback or hypnosis?”

He shook his head.

“You should. It works. You can learn to vaso-dilate and constrict at will.”

“No time to learn.”

“It doesn’t take long if the patient’s motivated.”

“Yes, well—” he was interrupted by the phone. He answered it, barked orders into the receiver, and hung up.

“That was Beverly Lucas, the social worker. She’ll be here shortly to fill you in.”

“I know Bev. She was a student here when I was an intern.”

He held out his hand palm down and moved it side to side. “Soso, eh?”

“I always thought she was pretty sharp.”

“If you say so.” He looked doubtful. “She wasn’t much use with this family.”

“That may be true of me as well, Raoul.”

“You’re different, Alex. You think like a scientist but can relate to patients like a humanist. It’s a rare combination. That’s why I chose you, my friend.”

He’d never chosen me but I didn’t argue. Maybe he’d forgotten the way it really started.

Several years back, he was awarded a government grant to study the medical value of isolating children with cancer in germ-free environments. The “environments” came from NASA — plastic modules used to prevent returned astronauts from infecting the rest of us with cosmic pathogens. The modules were filtered continuously and flooded with air blown out rapidly and smoothly in laminar flow. Such smooth flow was important because it prevented pockets of turbulence where germs collected and bred.

The value of an effective way to protect cancer patients from microbes was obvious if you understood a little about chemotherapy. Many of the drugs used to kill tumors also knock out the body’s immune system. It was as common for patients to die of infection brought about by treatment as to perish from the disease itself.

Raoul’s reputation as a researcher was impeccable and the government sent him four modules and lots of money to play with. He constructed a randomized study, dividing the children into experimental and control groups, the latter treated in regular hospital rooms using conventional isolation procedures such as masks and gowns. He hired microbiologists to monitor the germ count. He gained access to a computer at Cal Tech to analyze the data. He was ready to go.

Then someone raised the issue of psychological damage.

Raoul pooh-poohed the risk, but others weren’t convinced. After all, they reasoned, the plans were to subject children as young as two to what could only be termed sensory deprivation — months in a plastic room, no skin to skin contact with other human beings, segregation from normal life activities. A protective environment, to be sure, but one that could be harmful. It needed to be looked into.

At the time I was a junior level psychologist and was offered the job because none of the other therapists wanted anything to do with cancer. And none of them wanted to work with Raoul Melendez-Lynch.

I saw it as an opportunity to do some fascinating research and prevent emotional catastrophe. The first time I met Raoul and tried to tell him about my ideas, he gave me a cursory glance, returned his attention to the New England Journal, and nodded absently.

When I finished my pitch he looked up and said, “I suppose you’ll be needing an office.”

It wasn’t an auspicious beginning, but gradually his eyes were opened to the value of psychological consultation. I badgered him into building the unit so that each module had access to a window and a clock. I nagged him until he obtained funds for a full-time play therapist and a social worker for the families. I cadged a healthy chunk of computer time for psychological data. In the end it paid off. Other hospitals were having to release patients from isolation because of psychological problems but our children adjusted well. I collected mountains of data and published several articles and a monograph with Raoul as co-author. The psychological findings received more scientific attention than the medical articles, and by the end of three years he was an enthusiastic supporter of psychosocial care and somewhat humanized.

We grew friendly, though on a relatively superficial level. Sometimes he talked about his childhood. His family, originally Argentinian, had escaped from Havana in a fishing boat after Castro nationalized their plantation and most of their wealth. He was proud of a family tradition of physician-businessmen. All of his uncles and most of his cousins, he explained, were doctors, many of them professors of medicine. (All were fine gentlemen except Cousin Ernesto, who was a scum-sucking Communist pig. Ernesto had been a doctor, too, but he’d abandoned his family and his profession for the life of a radical murderer. No matter that thousands of fools worshipped him as Ché Guevara. To Raoul he’d always be despicable Cousin Ernesto, the black sheep of the family.)

As successful as he was in medicine, his personal life was a disaster. Women were fascinated by him but ultimately repelled by his obsessive character. Four of them endured marriage with him and he sired eleven children, most of whom he never saw.

A complex and difficult man.

Now he sat in a plastic chair in a drab little office and tried to be macho about the buzz saw ripping through his skull.

“I’d like to meet the boy,” I said.

“Of course. I can introduce you now, if you’d like.”

Beverly Lucas came in just as he was about to get up.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. “Alex — how nice to see you.”

“Hi, Bev.”

I rose and we embraced briefly.

She looked good, though considerably thinner than I remembered. Years ago, she’d been a cheerful, rather innocent trainee, full of enthusiasm. The kind voted Miss Bubbly in high school. She had to be thirty by now, and some of the pixie cuteness had turned to womanly determination. She was petite and fair, with rosy cheeks and straw-colored hair worn in a long soft perm. Her round open face was dominated by hazel saucer eyes and untouched by makeup. She wore no jewelry and her clothes were simple — knee-length navy skirt, short-sleeved blue-and-red plaid blouse, penny loafers. She carried an oversized purse, which she swung up on the desk.

“You look svelte,” I said.

“Running. I’m doing long distance, now.” She flexed a muscle and laughed.

“Very impressive.”

“It helps center me.” She sat on the edge of the desk. “What brings you around here after all this time?”

“Raoul wants me to help out with the Swopes.”

Her expression changed without warning, the features hardening and gaining a few years. With forced amiability she said, “Good luck.”

Raoul stood up and started to lecture.

“Alex Delaware is an expert in the psychosocial care of children with malignant—”

“Raoul,” I interrupted, “why don’t you let Beverly fill me in on the case. There’s no need for you to spend any more time at this point.”

He looked at his watch.

“Yes. Of course.” To Beverly: “You’ll give him a comprehensive rundown?”

“Of course, Dr. Melendez-Lynch,” she said sweetly.

“You want me to introduce you to Woody?”

“Don’t bother. Bev will handle it.”

His eyes darted from me to her and then back to his watch.

“All right. I’m off. Call if you need me.”

He removed the stethoscope from around his neck and swung it at his side as he left.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her when we were alone.

“Forget it, it’s not your fault. He’s such an asshole.”

“You’re the second person he’s riled this morning.”

“There’ll be plenty of others before the day’s up. Who was the first?”

“Nona Swope.”

“Oh. Her. She’s angry at the world.”

“It must be rough for her,” I said.

“I’m sure,” she agreed, “but I think she was an angry young lady long before her brother got cancer. I tried to develop a rapport with her — with all of them — but they shut me out. Of course,” she added, bitterly, “you may do much better.”

“Bev, I’ve got no stake in being a miracle worker. Raoul called me in a panic, gave me no background, and I tried to do a friend a favor, okay?”

“You should pick your friends with greater care.”

I said nothing, just let her listen to the echoes of her own words.

It worked.

“Okay, Alex, I’m sorry for being such a bitch. It’s just that he’s impossible to work for, gives no credit when you do a good job, and throws these incredible tantrums when things go wrong. I’ve put in for a transfer, but until they find a sucker to replace me, I’m stuck.”

“No one can do this type of work for very long,” I said.

“Don’t I know it! Life’s too short. That’s why I got into running — I come home all burnt out and after a couple of hours of pushing my body to the limit I’m renewed.”

“You look great.”

“Do I? I was starting to worry about getting too thin. Lately I’ve been losing my appetite — oh, hell, I must sound like a real egomaniac, griping like this when I’m surrounded by people in real crises.”

“Griping is a God-given right.”

“I’ll try to look at it that way.” She smiled and pulled out a notebook. “I suppose you want a psychosocial rundown on the Swopes.”

“It would help.”

“The name of the game is weird — these are strange people, Alex. The mother never talks, the father talks all the time, and the sister can’t stand either of them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The way she looks at them. And the fact that she’s never around when they are. It’s like she feels out of place. She doesn’t pay much attention to Woody when she’s here, keeps strange hours — shows up late at night, or really early in the morning. The night staff says she mostly sits and stares at him — usually he’s asleep, anyway. Once in a while she’ll go in the unit and read him a book, but that’s about it. The father doesn’t do much in the way of stimulation, either. He likes to flirt with the nurses, acts like he knows it all.”

“Raoul told me the same thing.”

“Raoul’s not totally incapable of insight.” She laughed maliciously. “Seriously, Mr. Swope is a different kind of guy. Big fellow, gray-haired with a beer gut and a little goatee. Kind of like Buffalo Bill without the long hair. He’s really cut off from his feelings — I know it’s denial and I know it’s not unheard of, but he goes beyond what we normally see. His son’s diagnosed with cancer and he’s laughing and joking with the nurses, trying to be one of the gang, talking about his orchard and his precious plants, throwing around horticultural jargon. You know what can happen to guys like that.”

“Sudden breakdown.”

“Exactly. All at once it hits them and pow! Pathological grief reaction.”

“Doesn’t sound like the boy has much support.”

“The mother. She’s got to be the most unliberated thing I’ve ever seen — Garland Swope is the king of his castle — but she does seem to be a good mother — nurturant, gives lots of hugs and kisses, goes into the unit a lot, and without any hesitation. You know how scary the spacesuit can be for lots of parents. She jumped right in. The nurses see her go off into the corner and cry when she thinks no one’s looking, but when Garland comes around she puts on a great big smile, lots of ‘Yes, Dears’ and ‘No, Dears.’ It’s really sad.”

“Why do you think they want to pull the kid out?” I asked.

“I know Raoul believes it was those people from the Touch — he’s so paranoid about anything holistic — but how can he be so sure? Could be he’s to blame for the whole thing. Maybe he screwed up communication with them — he’s very aggressive when he describes the treatment protocols and lots of people are put off.”

“He seemed to think the Fellow was at fault.”

“Augie Valcroix? Augie marches to his own drummer but he’s a good guy. One of the few docs who actually takes time to sit down with the families and act like a human being. He and Raoul hate each other’s guts, which makes sense if you know them. Augie thinks Raoul’s a fascist and Raoul sees him as a subversive influence. It’s been great fun working in this department, Alex.”

“What about those cultists?”

She shrugged.

“What can I say? Another group of lost souls. I don’t know much about them — there are so many fringe groups it would take a specialist to understand all of them. Two of them showed up a couple of days ago. The guy looked like a teacher — glasses, scuzzy beard, wimpy manner, brown oxfords. The lady was older, in her forties or fifties, the kind who was probably a hot number when she was younger but lost it. Both of them had that glazed look in their eyes — the I-know-the-secret-of-the-universe-but-I-won’t-tell-you trance. Moonies, Krishnas, esties, Touchers, they’re all the same.”

“You don’t think they turned the Swopes around?”

“They may have been the straw that broke it,” she conceded, “but I don’t see how they could be entirely responsible. Raoul’s looking for a scapegoat, for easy answers. That’s his style. Most of the docs are like that. Instant fix-its for complex issues.”

She looked away and folded her arms across her chest.

“I’m really tired of all of it,” she said softly.

I steered her back to the Swopes.

“Raoul wondered if the parents’ being older had anything to do with it. You pick up any hints the boy was an unwanted accident?”

“I didn’t get close enough to even touch on stuff like that. I was lucky to get enough for a bare-bones intake. The father smiled and called me “dear” and made sure I never got enough time alone with his wife to develop a relationship. This family’s armored. Maybe they’ve got lots of secrets they don’t want coming out.”

Maybe. Or maybe they’re terrified at being in a strange environment so far from home with a gravely ill child and don’t want to strip themselves bare in front of strangers. Maybe they don’t like social workers. Maybe they’re simply private people. Lots of maybes…

“What about Woody?”

“A cutie pie. He’s been sick since he got here, so it’s hard to judge what kind of kid he really is. Seems like a little sweetie — isn’t it always the sweet ones who suffer?” She took out a tissue and blew her nose. “Can’t stand the air in here. Woody’s a nice little boy who’s agreeable and kind of passive. A people pleaser. He cries during procedures — the spinal tap really hurt him — but he holds still and gives no serious problems.” She stopped for a moment and fought tears.

“It’s a goddamn crime, their pulling him out of treatment. I don’t like Melendez-Lynch, but goddamn it, he’s right this time! They’re going to kill that little boy because somehow we screwed up, and it’s driving me nuts.”

She pounded a small fist on the desk, snapped herself to a standing position, and paced the cramped office. Her lower lip quivered.

I stood up and put my arms around her and she buried her head in the warmth of my jacket.

“I feel like such a fool!”

“You’re not.” I held her tightly. “None if it is your fault.”

She pulled away and dabbed at her eyes. When she seemed composed I said, “I’d like to meet Woody.”

She nodded and led me to the Laminar Airflow Unit.

There were four modules, placed in series, like rooms in a railroad flat, and shielded from one another by a wall of curtain that could be opened or drawn by pushing buttons inside each room. The walls of the units were transparent plastic and each room resembled an oversized ice cube, eight feet square.

Three of the cubes were occupied. The fourth was filled with supplies — toys, cots, bags of clothing. The interior side of the curtained wall in each room was a perforated gray panel — the filter through which air blew audibly. The doors of the modules were segmented, the bottom half metal and closed, the top plastic, and left ajar. Microbes were kept out of the opening by the high speed at which the air was expelled. Running parallel to all four units were corridors on both sides, the rear passage for visitors, the front for the medical staff.

Two feet in front of the doorway to each module was a no-entry area marked off by red tape on the vinyl floor. I stood just outside the tape at the entrance of Module Two and looked at Woody Swope.

He lay on the bed, under the covers, facing away from us. There were plastic gloves attached to the front wall of the module, which permitted manual entry into the germ-free environment. Beverly put her hands inside them and patted him on the head gently.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

Slowly and with seeming effort, he rolled over and stared at us.

“Hi.”

A week before Robin left for Japan, she and I went to an exhibition of photographs by Roman Vishniac. The pictures had been a chronicle of the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe just before the Holocaust. Many of the portraits were of children, and the photographer’s lens had caught their small faces unaware, flash-freezing the confusion and terror it found there. The images were haunting, and afterward we cried.

Now, looking into the large dark eyes of the boy in the plastic room, these same feelings came back in a rush.

His face was small and thin, the skin stretched across delicate bone structure, translucently pale in the artificial light of the module. His eyes, like those of his sister, were black, and glassy with fever. The hair on his head was a thick mop of henna-colored curls. Chemotherapy, if it ever happened, would take care of those curls in a brutal, though temporary, reminder of the disease.

Beverly stopped stroking his hair and held out her glove. The boy took it and managed a smile.

“How we doing this morning, doll?”

“Okay.” His voice was soft and barely audible through the plastic.

“This is Dr. Delaware, Woody.”

At the mention of the title he flinched and moved back on the bed.

“He’s not the kind of doctor who gives shots. He just talks to kids, like I do.”

That relaxed him somewhat, but he continued to look at me with apprehension.

“Hi, Woody,” I said. “Can we shake hands?”

“Okay.”

I put my hand into the glove Beverly relinquished. It felt hot and dry — coated with talc, I recalled. Reaching into the module I searched for his hand and found it, a small treasure. I held it for a moment and let go.

“I see you’ve got some games in there. Which is your favorite?”

“Checkers.”

“I like checkers, too. Do you play a lot?” “Kind of.”

“You must be very smart to know how to play checkers.”

“Kind of.” The hint of a smile.

“I bet you win a lot.”

The smile widened. His teeth were straight and white but the gums surrounding them were swollen and inflamed.

“And you like to win.”

“Uh huh. I always win my mom.”

“How ’bout your dad?”

He gave a perplexed frown.

“He doesn’t play checkers.”

“I see. But if he did, you’d probably win.”

He digested that for a minute.

“Yeah, I pro’ly would. He doesn’t know much about playing games.”

“Anyone else you play with besides Mom?”

“Jared — but he moved away.”

“Anybody besides Jared?”

“Michael and Kevin.”

“Are they guys at school?”

“Yeah. I finished K. Next year I go into one.”

He was alert and responsive but obviously weak. Talking to me was taxing and his chest heaved with the effort.

“How about you and I play a game of checkers?”

“Okay.”

“I could play from out here with these gloves, or I could put on one of those spacesuits and come in the room with you. Which would you like better?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, I’d like to come in the room.” I turned to Bev. “Could somebody help me suit up? It’s been a long time.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be in there in a minute, Woody.” I smiled at him and stepped away from the plastic wall. Rhythm-and-blues music blared from the module next door. I glanced over and caught a glimpse of a pair of long brown legs dangling over the foot of a bed. A black boy around seventeen was sprawled atop the covers, staring at the ceiling and moving to the sounds that screamed from the ghetto blaster on his nightstand, seemingly impervious to the I.V. needles imbedded in the crooks of both arms.

“See,” said Bev, speaking up to be heard, “I told you. A sweetie.”

“Nice kid,” I agreed. “He seems bright.”

“The parents describe him as having been very sharp. The fevers have pretty much knocked him out but he still manages to communicate very well. The nurses love him — this whole pullout thing is making everyone very uptight.”

“I’ll do what I can. Let’s start by getting me in there.”

She called for help and a tiny Filipino nurse appeared bearing a package wrapped in heavy brown paper and marked STERILE.

“Take off your shoes and stand there,” ordered the nurse, pintsized but authoritative. She pointed to a spot just outside the red taped no-entry zone. After washing her hands with Betadyne, she unwrapped a pair of sterile gloves and slipped them on her hands. Having inspected the gloves and found them free from flaws, she removed a folded spacesuit from the brown paper and placed it inside the red border. It took a bit of playing with the suit — which, in a collapsed state, looked like a heavy paper accordion — but she found the footholes and had me step inside them. Gingerly, she took hold of the edges and pulled it up over me, tying the top seam around my neck. Being so short, she had to stretch to do the job so I bent my knees to make it easier.

“Thanks,” she giggled. “Now your gloves — don’t touch anything until they’re on.”

She worked quickly and soon my hands were sheathed in surgical plastic, my mouth concealed behind a paper mask. The headpiece — a hood fashioned of the same heavy paper as the suit attached to a plastic, see-through visor — was slipped over my face and fastened to the suit with Velcro strips.

“How does that feel?”

“Very stylish.” The suit was oppressively hot and I knew that within minutes, despite the cool rapid airflow in the unit, I’d be drenched with sweat.

“It’s our continental model.” She smiled. “You can go in now. Half hour maximum time. The clock’s over there. We may be too busy to remind you, so keep an eye on it and come out when the time’s up.”

“Will do.” I turned to Bev. “Thanks for your help. Any idea when the parents will be in?”

“Vangie, did the Swopes say when they’d be in?”

The Filipino nurse shook her head. “Usually they’re here in the morning — right around now. If they don’t come soon, I don’t know when. I can leave a message for them to call you, Doctor—”

“Delaware. Why don’t you tell them I’ll be here tomorrow at eight thirty and if they arrive earlier, please have them wait.”

“Eight thirty you should catch them.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Bev, “I’ve got the number of the place they’re staying — some motel on the west side. I’ll call and leave a message. If they show up today do you want to come back?”

I considered it. Nothing on the agenda that couldn’t wait. “Sure. Call my exchange. They’ll know where to reach me.” I gave her the number.

“All right, Alex, you’d better get in there before you truck a few million pathogens over the border. See ya.”

She hoisted the large purse over her shoulder and walked out the door.

I stepped into the Laminar Airflow Room.

He’d sat up and his dark eyes followed my entry.

“I look like a spaceman, huh?”

“I can tell who you are,” he said gravely, “everyone looks different.”

“That’s good. I always had trouble recognizing people when they wore these things.”

“Ya gotta look close, with strong eyes.”

“I see. Thanks for the advice.”

I got the box of checkers and unfolded the board on the armlike table that swung across the bed.

“What color do you want to be?”

“Dunno.”

“Black goes first, I think. You wanna go first?”

“Uh huh.”

He was precociously good at the game, able to plot, set up moves, and think sequentially. A bright little boy.

A couple of times I tried to engage him in conversation but he ignored me. It wasn’t shyness or lack of good manners. His attention was focused on the checkerboard and he didn’t even hear the sound of my voice. When he completed a move he’d lean back against the pillows with a satisfied look on his grave little face and say, “There! Your turn,” in a voice made soft by fatigue.

We were halfway through the game and he was giving me a run for my money when he clutched his abdomen and cried out in pain.

I eased him down and felt his brow. Low-grade fever.

“Your tummy hurts, doesn’t it?”

He nodded and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

I pressed the call button. Vangie, the Filipino nurse, appeared on the other side of the plastic.

“Abdominal pain. Febrile,” I told her.

She frowned and disappeared, returning with a cup of liquid acetominophen held in a gloved hand.

“Swing that counter over this way, would you.”

She set the medicine on the slab of Formica.

“You can take it now and give it to him. The resident’s due by within the hour to check him over.”

I returned to the boy’s bedside, propped him up with one hand behind his head, and held the liquid to his lips with the other.

“Open up, Woody. This will make it hurt less.”

“Okay, Doctor Delaware.”

“I think you’d better rest now. You played a good game.”

He nodded and the curls bounced. “Tie?”

“I’d say so. Although you were getting me pretty good at the end. Can I come back and play with you again?”

“Uh huh.” He closed his eyes.

“Rest up, now.”

By the time I was out of the unit and had shed the paper suit, he was asleep, lips parted, sucking gently at the softness of the pillow.