Under the Knife(18)

—(alcohol, couldn’t possibly be alcohol)—

—or some other type of stress on the body.

She saw it often in her patients after surgery, especially the elderly ones. At night, it happened with enough regularity that doctors and nurses had an informal term for it: sun downing.

“Dr. Wu?”

Delirium was common. Delirium wasn’t serious. Most important, delirium was temporary.

Delirium. Okay. So, now what do I do?

Diagnosis was the first step, she reasoned. Physician, heal thyself. That’s what Spencer liked to say.

(Spencer—wish he were here)

It was just a matter of convincing herself that she was chatting with an errant series of electrical signals in her brain rather than a real person.

All in my head. Not real. Just delirium.

She took a few deep, controlled breaths. Her breathing rate slowed—not quite to normal, but closer to normal. The shaking in her body continued but with less violence.

“Dr. Wu.”

Not happening. Delirium.

“You can still hear me, can’t you? Answer me, please.”

All in my head.

“Dr. Wu.”

All in my head.

“We need to talk about my wife. Jenny Finney.”

She opened her eyes and stared at her hands, still gripping the sides of the sink. Her knuckles had turned bone white. Her breathing sped back up; her heart hammered at the back of her sternum, as if trying to break free of her chest.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

All thoughts of ignoring him—of rationalizing whatever was happening into nonexistence, or writing it off as some kind of temporary medical condition—had evaporated at the mention of that name.

Jenny Finney.

“Thank you. I thought you could hear me.”

She clutched the sides of the sink as if holding on to her sanity. She worried that she really was breaking with reality.

The voice claiming to be Morgan Finney seemed to be reading her thoughts.

“I realize that this situation, what’s happening to you this morning, must be difficult for you to grasp, Dr. Wu. That it might seem like you’re losing your mind. But you’re not. You’re completely sane. My name is Morgan Finney. I really am speaking to you right now. I’m not just an imaginary voice inside your head.”

“Stop talking,” she whispered.

“There are some very rational explanations involved.”

“Stop talking. Please. Stop talking.” She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the mirror over the sink. It was cool and, under the circumstances, even a little pleasant. “Stop talking.”

“It’s important you hear me out.”

“Please. Just stop talking.”

“It’s very important you not lose control.”

“STOP TALKING.”

He paused, then said, “You can’t wish me away, Dr. Wu.”

Something occurred to her. “Okay,” she said warily, pushing herself away from the mirror and opening her eyes. “If you’re really talking to me right now, it has to be through some kind of speaker system, or radio, right? Which means other people can hear you. If you’re real.”

As if on cue, the locker-room door opened—not the one she’d entered from, but a separate door, near the sinks, that led to a different part of the hospital. Through it trudged another surgeon, one of Rita’s colleagues. At first, Rita couldn’t decide which the woman’s scrubs sported more of: wrinkles or blotchy stains of various shades of black and red. She settled on wrinkles.

“Oh. Hi, Rita.”

Rita released her grip on the basin and stood up straight as the woman approached the sink next to her and turned on the faucet. She felt pinpricks in the tips of her fingers as blood rushed into them. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

The woman looked at her curiously.

“Aren’t you going to say hello, Dr. Wu?” the voice in her left ear said.

“What?” Rita said.

“Hi,” the woman repeated.

The voice said, “Hello. Say hello to her, Dr. Wu.”

“Did you hear that, Lucy?” Rita said.

“What? Hear what?”

“That voice.”

“What voice? You mean—mine? My voice?”

“His voice,” Rita said.

“What are your talking about?”

“I…”

Lucy looked baffled, and it occurred to Rita that she was the only one in the room having a three-way conversation. This did not bode well for her sanity—

(I don’t care, the boy who would be Moses had said. I don’t need you to believe in me.)

—so she decided to keep the information to herself, at least for now.

“Never mind,” Rita said. “Sorry. My mind’s a little fuzzy. Long night.”

Lucy, a thickset, taciturn surgeon, nodded solemnly. She looked exhausted. “Me too.” Her voice was deep—almost as deep as the one knocking around inside Rita’s head.

Lucy splashed water from the faucet over her face and short brown hair as she studied Rita’s ashen complexion in the mirror.

“Yeah. Yeah, you definitely look the way I feel right now: like hell. Maybe even worse.” She guffawed, a sonorous growl from low in her throat. “Every part of me aches.”