V.I. Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine Read Free Page B

you.”
     
    He nodded briefly and disappeared inside. I left Mrs. Alvarado standing in the entrance while I moved the Dodge next to my Chevy Citation. When I rejoined her, she flickered flat black eyes over me in a glance so dispassionate as to seem contemptuous. I tried telling her something, anything, about Consuelo, but her heavy silence made the words die in my throat. I escorted her down the hallway without speaking. She followed me into the garish sterility of the waiting room, her yellow Meal Service uniform pulling tightly across her generous hips. She sat for a long time with her hands folded in her lap, her black eyes revealing nothing.
     
    After a while, though, she burst out, “What did I do that was so wrong, Victoria? I wanted only the best for my baby. Was that so bad?”
     
    The unanswerable question. “People make their own choices,” I said helplessly. “We look like little girls to our mothers, but we’re separate people.” I didn’t go on. I wanted to tell her that she had done her best but it wasn’t Consuelo’s best, but even if she wanted to hear such a message, this wasn’t the time to deliver it
     
    “And why that horrible boy?” she wailed. “With anyone but him I could understand it. She never lacked for boyfriends-so pretty, so lively, she could pick from the boys who wanted her. But she chooses this-this garbage. No education. No job. Gracias a dios her father didn’t live to see it.”
     
    I said nothing, certain that this blessing had been heaped on Consuelo’s head-“Your father would turn in his grave”; “if he hadn’t died already, this would kill him”-I knew the litany. Poor Consuelo, what a burden. We sat again in silence. Whatever I had to say could bring no comfort to Mrs. Alvarado.
     
    “You know that black man, that doctor?” she asked presently. “He is a good doctor?”
     
    “Very good. If I couldn’t have Lotty-Dr. Herschel-he would be my first choice.” When Lotty first opened her clinic she’d been “esa judia”-“that Jew”-first, then the doctor. Now, the neighborhood depended on her. They went to her for everything, from children’s colds to unemployment problems. With time, I supposed, Tregiere would also be looked on as a doctor first.
     
    It was six-thirty before he came out to us, accompanied by another man in scrubs and a middle-aged priest. The skin on Malcolm’s face was gray with fatigue. He sat down next to Mrs. Alvarado and looked at her seriously.
     
    This is Dr. Burgoyne, who’s been looking after Consuelo since she got here. We couldn’t save the baby. We did what was possible, but the poor thing was too little. She couldn’t breathe, even with a respirator.“
     
    Dr. Burgoyne was a white man in his mid-thirties. His thick dark hair was matted to his head with sweat. A muscle twitched next to his mouth and he was kneading the gray cap he’d taken off, pushing it from one hand to the other.
     
    “We thought if we did anything else to retard labor it might seriously harm your daughter,” he said earnestly, to Mrs. Alvarado.
     
    She ignored that, demanding fiercely to know if the baby had been baptized.
     
    “Yes, yes.” The middle-aged priest was speaking. “They called me as soon as the baby was born-your daughter insisted. We named her Victoria Charlotte.”
     
    My stomach lurched. Some age-old superstition about names and souls made me shiver slightly. I knew it was absurd, but I felt uneasy, as though I’d been forced into an alliance with this dead infant because it bore my name.
     
    The priest sat in the chair on the other side of Mrs. Alvarado and took her hand. “Your daughter is being very brave, but she’s scared, and part of her fear is that you are angry with her. Can you see her and make sure she knows you love her?” Mrs. Alvarado didn’t speak, but stood up. She followed the priest and Tregiere to whatever remote recess harbored Consuelo. Burgoyne remained in the waiting room, not looking