“I’m fine. Totally fine. I—”
“No, actually, you’re not. That’s why I’ve been trying to reach you. Part of why I’ve been trying to reach you.” He cleared his throat. “I set things up with Dr. Gellert. The neurosurgeon. He can squeeze you in Friday afternoon. That works, right? You’re still flying back to DC tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. I also showed your X-ray and MRI to an orthopedic surgeon, an old friend of mine from med school. He agreed that your original doctors must have decided against removing the bullet because it was jammed so tight in there, against so many important nerves.”
“Makes sense.”
“But his question was, what if the bullet has shifted? He thinks your wrist pain is almost certainly related. And that didn’t start until a few months ago. Which means something is pressing down in a way that it didn’t used to. Do you have a family history of osteoporosis?”
“Will. For God’s sake. You of all people should know I have no idea what my family medical history is.”
He sucked in his breath. “Of course. Sorry. The reason I ask is, as we age, our bodies change. The spine compresses. Most people lose about half an inch in height, every decade. That begins in our late thirties. How old are you exactly?”
“Not old enough for my spine to be buckling, thank you very much.”
“I can pull your chart, if you prefer.”
“Thirty-seven,” I said disagreeably.
“So you’re on the young side, but that’s around when it starts. Think of your disks as jelly-filled pads between your vertebrae. Over the years they lose fluid and flatten out. Like a house settling on its foundation.”
“Oh, that’s a lovely image. My body, a collapsing old house . . .”
“That’s not what I meant. Your body is a lot of things, but old and collapsing would not be the words that spring to mind.”
I absorbed that. My face felt hot. I was blushing.
“That was inappropriate,” he said after a long moment. “I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. ” He cleared his throat again, more ferociously this time. “I’ve lost my train of thought. I—oh, yes. My point was that if your spine has compressed—even by a millimeter—that’s a problem. We need to jump on it. My med school buddy suggested you get a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree X-ray taken, to give us a better idea what’s going on. What time does your flight get in tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure yet. I need to sort out my reservation tonight.”
“Do you actually have a ticket booked?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yes, but I paid for a flexible fare. I wasn’t sure how long I would want down here.”
“Would you e-mail me your itinerary once you nail it down?”
“Why?” It was my turn to sound suspicious.
“Because, Caroline,” retorted Will, “we’re not messing around here. There’s a piece of metal buried in your neck. Your symptoms suggest that it may have shifted. I don’t mean to scare you, but you can’t put this off. Do you understand? You could risk paralysis.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice.
“All I mean to say,” he added more gently, “is that at a certain point, the risk of doing nothing begins to outweigh the risk of surgery. I think we may be nearing that point.”
Sixteen
* * *
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
The picture that ran on the front page of the Journal-Constitution was arresting.
The photographer had screeched up half an hour late, ranting about traffic and bad directions. He whipped out his camera and positioned me hurriedly on Mrs. Dorminy’s lawn, swearing the whole time. But his timing was exquisite. The portrait was saturated with golden light. My lips stood out, a slash of scarlet across pale skin. The angle of the shot made me appear smaller than I am, fragile even. The effect was haunting, even before you got to the caption: Caroline Cashion standing in front of the house where she lived with her parents until she was three years old . . . On the inside pages, they ran the X-ray image, cropped to emphasize the bullet glowing inside my neck.
It was surreal, reading Leland’s account of how I had returned to Atlanta. He told the story chronologically, and he got the facts more or less correct, yet the article felt somehow disconnected from me. I wondered if this is how celebrities feel when they see glossy profiles of themselves. There was nothing per se to quibble with; it just read like an account of someone else’s life.
In any case, Leland Brett had been right. The article immediately produced results. Two phone calls. The first rang through the hotel switchboard to the phone beside my bed.
“Hello, Caroline?” said a deep voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Ethan Sinclare. I was a friend of your father’s.”
“Oh! Hi.”
“Forgive me for calling so early. I’m staring at your picture in this morning’s paper. What a shock.”
“It’s okay. But—can I ask how you got this number?” I was irritated with Leland. He had no business telling people where I was staying, not without checking first with me.
It turned out, though, that Sinclare had figured it out on his own. “Lucky guess. It says in the article that you granted an interview over breakfast at the St. Regis. That’s not a place that AJC reporters typically frequent, I wouldn’t think. So it seemed reasonable to assume that’s where you must be staying.”
“Ah, I see.”
“I always wondered what had happened to you. The police wouldn’t tell friends of the family anything. It’s a relief to know everything worked out for you.”
“Thank you. So how did you know Boone Smith?”
“We were tennis buddies. Same ALTA team. That’s the league here.”
“I didn’t know he played.”
“Oh, sure. Boone was pretty good. He played varsity at Chapel Hill. We used to whack a ball around in the evenings, after work. We ended up doubles partners for a while.”