“You’ll have to wait here for me, Auntie. I’ll be back, just breathe deeply and don’t be afraid. I’ve got to get help, I can’t carry you on my own.”
Slowly, each leg weighing a thousand pounds, I dragged myself down the stairs, down through the cloud of smoke, past the point of feeling, to the place where breath and sight were collapsed into one solid pinpoint of agony, finding the end of the escape, swinging down, feeling the bottom flight fall loose and my feet dragging on the ground.
I rolled through the smoke and staggered around the side of the building. A multitude was there. Firemen, onlookers, cops, and a man in uniform who came to me and told me sternly the building was dangerous, no one was allowed beyond the police barricades.
“My aunt,” I gasped. “She’s up on the fire escape around the side. We were in the basement when the fire started. You’ve got to get her.”
He didn’t understand me and I turned to a fireman helping guide a heavy hose. I tugged on his sleeve until he turned in annoyance. I pointed and gasped until someone understood and a little troop jogged off into the smoke.
26
Doctor’s Orders
“What are you doing with your clothes on?” Lotty Herschel was sharp to the point of unfriendliness.
“I’m going home.” Getting dressed with both hands taped in gauze had been a chore. “You know I hate hospitals— it’s where they send people to die.”
“Someone should have burned those,” Lotty said coldly. “They smell so bad, I can hardly stand to be in the same room with you.”
“It’s the blood and the smoke,” I explained. “And I guess stale sweat—I worked up a pretty good meltdown hoisting myself up those ropes.”
Lotty’s nostrils curled in distaste. “All the more reason to remove them. Dr. Homerin cannot possibly examine you with that stench coming from you.”
I’d noticed a slender middle-aged man standing patiently behind Lotty and assumed he was another resident seeking education at my feet. At my head, actually.
“I don’t need another goddamn examination. Twenty-four hours here and I feel like a pot roast every housewife in Chicago has taken a poke at.”
“Mez Homerin is a neurologist. You got a nasty blow to the head. I want to make sure that that thick Polish skull of yours hasn’t taken any irremediable harm.”
“I’m fine,” I said fiercely. “I don’t have double vision, I can tie my shoes with my eyes closed, even with these baseball mitts covering my fingers, and if he sticks pins in my feet, I’ll know about it.”
Lotty came over to stand next to me, her black eyes blazing. “Victoria, I don’t even know why I bother. This is the third time you’ve been hit hard enough to knock you out. I don’t wish to spend my old age treating you for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s—which is exactly where you’re heading with your know-it-all reckless attitude. If you don’t get your clothes back off this minute—this instant—you may be sure of one thing—I will never treat you again. Do you understand?”
Her anger was so intense it made my knees wobble. I sat back on the bed. I was pretty angry myself, enough that my bead started pounding savagely as I spoke.
“Did I send for you? This is Michael Reese, not Beth Israel-you came barging in without so much as a by-your-leave, at least not a by-my-leave. Someone tried to murder both ray aunt and me. Getting out of that building was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life and you scream at me about my clothes and Alzheimer’s disease. It that’s your attitude, leave with my blessing—I don’t need your kind of medical care.”
Dr. Homerin coughed. “Miss Warshawski. I can understand your being upset—it’s a natural side effect of concussion and the other experiences you went through last night. But as long as I’m here, I think I might as well examine you. And it would be easier to do if you could take your clothes off and put on your hospital gown.”
I glowered at him. He turned to Lotty and said apologetically, “Dr. Herschel?”
“Oh, very well,” she snapped. She whirled on her heel with the precision of a figure skater and swept out of the room.
Dr. Homerin pulled the curtain around my bed. “I’ll wait out here—give me a call when you’re ready.”
I could go ahead and leave, but it would make me feel incredibly stupid. Angrily I kicked my running shoes off. With thick clumsy fingers I unfastened the buttons of my shirt and unzipped my jeans. I took as much time as I possibly could before sullenly calling out that I was ready.
Dr. Homerin sat on the chair next to the bed. “Tell me a little about your injury—what happened?”
“I was hit on the head,” I muttered churlishly.