Fever by Robin Cook Read Free Book Online

she seemed exhausted and her hands lay immobile in her lap like a puppet’s, waiting to be moved from above.
    â€œWhat are you thinking?” asked Cathryn, breaking the silence. There were no parking spaces available and they kept driving from one level to the next.
    â€œNothing,” said Michelle without moving.
    Cathryn watched Michelle out of the corner of her eye. She wanted so much to get Michelle to let down her guard, to let Cathryn’s love in.
    â€œDon’t you like to share your thoughts?” persisted Cathryn.
    â€œI don’t feel good, Cathryn. I feel really bad. I think you are going to have to help me out of the car.” Cathryn took one look at Michelle’s face, and abruptly stopped the car. She reached out and put her arms around the child. The little girl didn’t resist. She moved over and put her head on Cathryn’s breast. Cathryn felt warm tears touch her arm.
    â€œI’ll be glad to help you, Michelle. I’ll help you whenever you need me. I promise.”
    Cathryn had the feeling that she’d finally crossed some undefined threshold. It had taken two and a half years of patience, but it had paid off.
    Blaring auto horns brought Cathryn back to the present. She put her car in gear and started forward, pleased that Michelle continued to hold on to her.
    Cathryn felt more like a real mother than she ever had before. As they pushed through the revolving door, Michelle acted very weak and allowed Cathryn to help her. In the lobby a request for a wheelchair was promptly filled, and although Michelle initially resisted, she let Cathryn push her.
    For Cathryn, the happiness in the new closeness to Michelle helped dull the specter of the hospital. The decor helped, too; the lobby was paved with a warm Mexican tile and the seating was done in bright oranges and yellows. There were even lots of plants. It was more like a luxury hotel than a big city hospital.
    The pediatric offices were equally nonthreatening. There were five patients already in Dr. Wiley’s waiting room. To Michelle’s disgust, none was over two years of age. She would have complained except she glimpsed the examining rooms through an open door and remembered why she was there. Leaning toward Cathryn she whispered, “You don’t think I’ll get a shot, do you?”
    â€œI have no idea,” said Cathryn. “But afterwards if you feel up to it, we can do something fun. Whatever you like.”
    â€œCould we go visit my father?” Michelle’s eyes brightened.
    â€œSure,” said Cathryn. She parked Michelle next to an empty seat, then sat down herself.
    A mother and a whimpering five-year-old boy emerged from the examining room. One of the mothers with a tiny baby got up and went in.
    â€œI’m going to ask the nurse if I can use the phone,” said Cathryn. “I want to find out where Tad Schonhauser is. You’re okay, aren’t you?”
    â€œI’m okay,” said Michelle. “In fact, I feel better again.”
    â€œGood,” said Cathryn as she got up. Michelle watched Cathryn’s long brown hair bounce on her shoulders as she walked over to the nurse, then dialed the phone. Remembering her father say how much he liked it, Michelle wished hers were the same color. Suddenly she wished she were really old, like twenty, so she could be a doctor and talk to Charles and work in his lab. Charles had said that doctors didn’t have to give shots; the nurses do. Michelle hoped she didn’t have to get a shot. She hated them.
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    â€œDr. Martel,” called Dr. Peter Morrison, standing at the doorway to Charles’s lab. “Didn’t you get my message?”
    Straightening up from loading serum samples into an automatic radioactivity counter, Charles looked at Morrison, administrative head of the department of physiology. The man was leaning on the doorjamb, the fluorescent ceiling light reflecting off the lenses in