The Tennis Partner [antikvár]

Prologue He had started rounds at five-thirty in the morning, working his way from one room to the next, writing progress notes as he went. He was at the bedside of his last patient when his beeper went off. When he saw the number displayed, his throat constricted. A crimson flush spread up his neck, to his cheeks. The elderly woman with Crohn's disease and a short-bowel syndrome, who quite liked this blond, boyish doctor, looked up at him with concern. A minute ago he had been listening to her heart; now she could almost swear she heard his. He staggered out into the corridor, and stood there, leaning on the chart rack. He took a step in the direction of the stairwell. Then stopped. Then took another step that way. Then turned back. The flush on his face retreated, taking every drop of color from his skin until it matched the whiteness of the walls. His world and his vision narrowed and he was unaware of the nurse who walked by him. He did not notice that his patient had come out of the bed, pushing her IVAC pump before her, the yellow, white, and clear bags dangling from their hooks. She stood staring at him through the doorway. With great difficulty he wheeled the charts back to the nurses' station and took up his pen in a peculiar four-fingered, childlike grip. His hand trembling, he brought the progress note he was writing to a close. To anyone but a nurse, his handwriting would have been completely illegible. He did not answer the page from the phones nearby. Instead, he took the elevator down from the fifth floor to the lobby and walked directly to Dr. Lou Binder's office.