Fire & Water by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder Read Free Book Online

crime.”
    “Yeah, Mary K, my housemate, is like that for me, I guess.”
    “Is she a doctor, too?”
    “Yeah. We’ve been friends since our undergraduate freshman year. She’ll be doing a residency in—” I stopped myself.
    Jake stopped eating again and looked into my eyes. “Another fresh wound?”
    Before I knew it, I was telling him all about Mary K’s diabetes and her decision to decline her residency in transplant. “She’s home from the hospital now. Like it never happened. Won’t accept any care at all. But that’s Mary K.” I struggled for words to define my prickly, affection-intolerant friend. “She’s sort of a paradox.”
    Our conversation drifted, weaving easily between topics of music and art, politics and medicine, and though I was enjoying it, images of one of my ER patients from earlier that day kept popping into my mind.
    “What is it?” Jake asked. “Something is troubling you.”
    I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “Just a little tired, I guess. I had a patient that really got to me today. It happens.”
    Jake’s face was an invitation. “Tell me about today.”
    The restaurant had nearly cleared, but for a few lingering students sharing a pitcher of beer at the bar.
    “An ambulance brought in an unconscious woman, probably a prostitute, found tossed out of a car alongside the 101 freeway. SF General was overloaded, so they brought her to us. She’d been stabbed, her face and throat slashed. We’re not a trauma unit, but the EMTs didn’t think she’d make it to General. Everyone worked hard on her, but she arrested and we couldn’t save her.”
    Jake’s hand rose to his throat and his forehead creased. He seemed to feel the slashes in his own flesh as I spoke.
    “Look,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. ER is pretty grisly stuff. I’m around doctors all day. They’re thick-skinned and—”
    He shook his head. “No, no. Tell me about her. Give me the whole picture. I’m trying to see her.”
    I hesitated, but his expression compelled me to say more. “She came in with a blood pressure of—”
    “No,” he whispered. “Not her medical picture. Tell me about her . Tell me about what you felt trying to help her. I’m trying to imagine doing what you do.”
    Looking into his open face, telling Jake about this patient felt natural. I’d seen many deaths since starting med school. I kept thinking I’d get used to it. Everyone else seemed to. “She was tiny. Maybe a hundred pounds. Looked about eighteen. She came in as a Jane Doe, so I don’t even know her name. I just hope—”
    “That she didn’t know what had been done to her?”
    How had he done it? Finished a sentence I’d barely begun—a thought I’d barely let myself think. My throat tightened.
    Jake pulled details from me: the mocha color and buttery texture of her skin; the graceful curve of her shoulder; her lavender nail polish and silver angel ankle bracelet; the Hello Kitty necklace that was covered in her blood.
    My medical cohorts had offered their obligatory words of comfort for losing a patient— best you could do, must’ve been her time, can’t save ’em all . They’d mouthed sympathies, then quickly changed the topic.
    Jake wore the loss of my Jane Doe; it was etched on his face. “Her pain is over now,” he said. “It will stay with you a while, I know. Now you’re the keeper of the last memory of her.”
    This simple statement caused me to tear up. Silence lingered between us, not uncomfortably, but like a pleasant fragrance. Unlike my colleagues, Jake cracked no joke to break the tension, didn’t change the subject or offer saccharine words of comfort. He simply grieved with me.
    I wiped my eyes with my greasy napkin. “Not exactly sanitary.”
    He smiled kindly and I felt exposed for changing the mood so abruptly.
    The waiter brought a tray with three different desserts. “Don’t tell me you made these too,” I said, grateful for the break.
    “’Fraid