Mercy 6

She offered a salute with sweep to it. The broad gestures seemed to work. She thought of the purple dinosaur of her youth. The driver’s attention again went toward the back of the van, then he looked at her anew. The van pitched, weight shifting to the rear. The driver’s door clicked. His shoulders braced for an outward shove, his jaw clenching, eyes lulling.

She looked to the hospital roof. No Mullich. He couldn’t risk that. To show any inkling of interest in her would be stupid. Still, she couldn’t accept that it was over this soon. She hadn’t even warmed up in her run. She was about to ask for at least that. Before they took her.

But something changed within the van. The overhead sound ladle redirected its aim. The driver relaxed his shoulders and turned swiftly toward the wheel. The van’s weight shifted again, and Mendenhall stumbled back as the van sped away, the driver still craning his neck toward the other side, over the shoulder, arms rolling the wheel.

She felt abandoned, took a breath, turned, and ran along the trail to begin her descent. To look back, to show any interest, would have been fatal to this diagnosis. But this was not coincidence.

Coincidence has no place in the ER. When her mentor had told her this they had been examining an X-ray, a .22-caliber bullet inside a lung tumor.

Maybe Mullich had provided distraction. Others were trying what she was trying, had been almost from the start. But that would be coincidence, someone breaking through just now. Mendenhall increased her pace, gauging the downward slope. The sting of sunlight on her nape pushed her into the canyon while tire scuffs and dull shouts slowed her, lured her, almost spun her, just to look and see.

49

Near the base of the canyon the asphalt trail became dust.

Mendenhall picked up a follower, heard the pop of running shoes behind her shift from hard to soft. Maybe it was just another runner using her for pace, getting set for a kick. They were on a lower ridge overlooking a housing tract. She risked one over-the-shoulder glance, a racer’s peek. Her trailer was smooth, swift, elusive, tracking her blind spot, sliding behind as though part of her shadow.

They dropped into the alluvial fan marking the trailhead. The switchbacks allowed her more glimpses, but she gathered nothing further. She didn’t turn and stop because she wanted this run to last as long as it possibly could, again feeling caught, finished. Would they use a net?

She took no rest and loped across the cul-de-sac. The tract was old enough to have grown trees, but its roads were wide and bowed and smooth, the roofs all black, the corners crisp, sidewalks fitted and even. The follower vanished. Immersed in this neighborhood, Mendenhall ran alone. But felt no relief.

In the ER, though predawn always brought the worst cases, each time of day held its own particular dread. Midafternoon was the most tragic, young deaths and self-inflictions from after-school malaise, the sorrowful domestic wounds, when those who don’t live alone feel most alone.

She rarely saw this light, only ran it on the hospital trails. The quiet houses and empty streets seemed to move while she ran in place, all coming to her. God, she thought. How have I become so crazy?

The homes, they could be tombs. She imagined a counterpart for herself in Reykjavik running toward a midnight sun. But that didn’t work. She was still the last person on Earth.

50

The bus proved a bad idea. Mendenhall realized this after the third stop. She could see downtown, the gray haze of the ocean beyond. The distant foothills opposite appeared to hover in the smog. Somewhere in that vague gray-and-white triangle the university nestled. After more than ten years, she knew the city only in relation to County and Mercy. The university sprawled behind County. The bus rumbled and stopped in increments, seemed to gain no distance, nothing more than walking speed. She had never ridden the bus. Her patients rode the bus.

Only five passengers rode with her. The driver’s elbows were locked, his head angled, jaw chewing nothing. Mendenhall figured his next dose of meth would have to be in less than one hour. She noted his sunglasses case clipped above the side window — his stash.

The passenger across from her was passed out, his head against the window, lips squished open and drooling. His ear was yellow, and a tremor quivered the lobe. He would be dead within the year. She might see him die.

The thickset woman with the housecleaner’s basket was pregnant, maybe knew this, probably didn’t. Mendenhall thought to go sit next to her and tell her, ask her how it felt. The woman’s black hair was luxurious, curling with life. Her set jaw and swallow reflex fought tears. Maybe she was sitting there realizing her condition for the first time.