Passage

Beside him, the attendant gasped, his grip tightening on Richard’s arm, but Mr. Wojakowski, oblivious, swept on. “I saw her up in Medicine,” he said, “and she was — Say,” he said, looking at the attendant and then back at Richard, “say, Doc, are you okay?”

The attendant pulled him off to one side, whispering, and Richard watched his face go white and abruptly old, the freckles standing out starkly against his skin. “Hell, if I’d known, I wouldn’t of — How’d it happen?”

The attendant whispered some more, and the elevator opened on emptiness. Richard stared into it.

“I want to tell him I didn’t have any idea — ” Mr. Wojakowski said, looking anxiously in Richard’s direction.

“Not now,” the attendant said and led Mr. Wojakowski by the arm into the elevator, and then stood there like a bouncer, arms folded, till it closed.

He came back over to Richard. “Are you okay, Dr. Wright?” he said, taking possession of Richard’s arm again. “Do you want me to call somebody?”

Yes, Richard thought. The Carpathia. The Californian. But their wireless is turned off. The captain’s gone to bed.

“You’re sure there’s nobody I can call? Girlfriend? Somebody you work with?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be driving right now, man,” he’d said. “Is there someplace here you could lie down?”

“Yes,” Richard had said, and gone back up to the lab. He’d slept on the floor, wrapped in the blanket he’d covered Amelia Tanaka, covered Joanna with, his pager next to him, turned on, as if it were not too late, as if what had happened were somehow reversible.

He wondered if the wireless operator on the Californian had done that, leaning endlessly over the key, headphones on, listening for other messages, hoping for a second chance. Or if, after two days, the operator had switched it off again, the way he did, unable to stand the questions, the condolences.

The resident who’d tried to save Joanna had called, and three reporters, and Tish. “I’ve decided to go back to Medicine,” she said. “In light of everything that’s happened… I’ve put in a formal transfer request. I’ll need your signature.”

In light of everything that’s happened.

“I’ll be glad to show my replacement the lab procedures, of course.” She hesitated. “I haven’t told anybody about… I don’t want to get you in trouble with the hospital for going under like that. I wouldn’t want you to lose your funding, and I know you reacted out of panic and weren’t responsible for what you were doing—”

Responsible. I left Joanna on the Titanic, he thought, I left Joanna to drown.

“Dr. Wright?” Tish was saying. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I think it might be a good idea for you to talk to somebody,” she said. “There’s a really good doctor on staff here. Dr. Ainsworth. She’s a psychiatrist who specializes in cases like this.”

Like what? he wondered. Cases of abandonment? Of betrayal? He thought of Tish, standing over him, tears running down her mascara-stained cheeks. “I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said into the phone.

“I know,” Tish said, and her voice quavered. “I couldn’t bring you out of it…” Her voice broke. “I thought you were dead.”

“Tish,” he said, but she’d recovered herself.

“Dr. Ainsworth’s extension is 308,” she said steadily. “She specializes in posttraumatic stress disorders. I really think you should call her.”

Richard lasted two days with the pager on. Carla from Oncology called to tell him about a wonderful book called Dealing with Tragedy in the Workplace, and Dr. Ainsworth, and a police officer. “I just need to ask you a few questions,” he said. “Just for the record. Were you there when the incident occurred?”

“No,” Richard said, “I wasn’t there.” I was in the White Star offices in New York, too stupid to tell the difference between an office building and a ship, too late to be of any use.

“Oh, sorry,” the police officer said. “I’d been told you witnessed the murder.”

“No,” Richard said.

The officer hung up, and Richard unplugged the phone. And turned his pager off. But that only made it worse. When they couldn’t get him on the phone, they came. Eileen from Medicine, to bring him a wonderful book called The Healing Help Book, and Maureen from Radiology with Nine Steps to Recovering from Personal Tragedy, and Dr. Jamison.

She had a book, too. The Idiots’ Guide to Mourning? Richard wondered, but it was a medical journal. “This is that study I called you about,” she said. “I’ve found concentrating on your work is the best way to get through a loss.” She tried to hand him the journal. “It’s the article by Barstow and Skal. They did a study of aspartate endorphins, and theta-asparcine—”

“The project’s canceled.”

Her face went maddeningly sympathetic. “I understand how you feel, but in a week or two—”