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The Final Diagnosis

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Àâòîð: Hailey Arthur
Æàíð: Òðèëëåðû

 

 


“Not really. It’s our second, but the first baby died.”

“We lost one like that—in between the fourth and the fifth. A good thing too.” The other man was searching his pockets. He asked, “You got a light?”

John produced a lighter and held it out. He asked, “You mean this is your sixth?”

“No—eighth.” The thin man had his cigarette going now. “Sometimes I reckon that’s eight too many.” Then he said sharply, “I suppose you wanted yours.”

“The baby, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, of course.” John sounded surprised.

“We never did. Not after the first—that was more than enough for me.”

“Why did you have eight then?” John felt impelled to ask; the conversation had taken on an almost hypnotic quality.

“My wife could tell you better’n me—she’s the one with the hot pants. Give her a couple of beers, let her wiggle her behind at a dance, and she’s got to have it right there and then, and no messing around waiting to get home.” The thin man blew out smoke, then went on calmly, “I reckon all our kids have been started in queer places. Once we was shopping in Macy’s and we had it in a broom closet in the basement. That’s where our fourth came from, I reckon—Macy’s basement, but no bargain.”

For a moment John was ready to laugh aloud, then he remembered his own reason for being there and stopped. Instead he said, “I hope everything’s all right for you—this time, I mean.”

The gaunt man said gloomily, “It’s always all right; that’s our trouble.” He returned to the other side of the room and picked up a newspaper.

Left alone, John glanced at his watch again. He saw that it was an hour and three quarters since he had come here; surely there must be something soon in the way of news. He wished he had seen Elizabeth before she had gone into the delivery room, but everything had happened so quickly that there had not been time. He had been in the hospital kitchens when Carl Bannister had come to bring him the news. John had gone to the kitchens on Dr. Pearson’s instructions. Pearson had told him to take cultures from plates which had passed through the kitchen dishwashers; John gathered that the machines were suspected of being unhygienic. But he had left the work as soon as Bannister had told him about Elizabeth and had gone to Emergency, hoping to intercept her there. But by that time she had already arrived by ambulance and had gone upstairs to Obstetrics. It was after that that he had come straight here to wait.

Now the door from the corridor opened, and this time it was Dr. Dornberger. From his face John tried to read the news, but without success. He asked, “You are John Alexander?”

“Yes, sir.” Though, he had seen the elderly obstetrician several times in the hospital, this was the first time they had spoken to each other.

“Your wife is going to be all right.” Dornberger knew better than to waste time on preliminaries.

John’s first impression was of overwhelming relief. Then he asked, “The baby?”

Dornberger said quietly, “You have a boy. He was premature, of course, and I have to tell you, John—he’s very frail.”

“Will he live?” Only when he had asked the question did it occur to him how much depended on the answer.

Dornberger had taken out his pipe and was filling it. He said evenly, “Let’s say the chances are not as good as if he had gone to full term.”

John nodded dully. There seemed nothing to say, nothing that would matter now.

The older man paused to put away his tobacco pouch. Then in the same quiet, careful tone he said, “As near as I can tell, you have a thirty-two-week baby; that means he was born eight weeks early.” Compassionately he added, “He wasn’t ready for the world, John; none of us are that soon.”

“No, I suppose not.” John was scarcely conscious of speaking. His mind was on Elizabeth and what this baby was to have meant to them both.

Dr. Dornberger had produced matches and was lighting his pipe. When he had it going he said, “Your baby’s birth weight was three pounds eight ounces. Perhaps that will mean more if I tell you that nowadays we consider any baby less than five pounds eight ounces at birth to be premature.”

“I see.”

“We have the baby in an incubator, of course. Naturally we’ll do everything we can.”

John looked at the obstetrician directly. “Then there is hope.”

“There’s always hope, son,” Dornberger said quietly. “When we haven’t much else, I guess there’s always hope.”

There was a pause, then John asked, “May I see my wife now?”

“Yes,” Dornberger said. “I’ll come to the nursing station with you.”

As they went out John saw the tall, gaunt man watching him curiously.


Vivian was not quite sure what was happening. All she knew was that one of the staff nurses had come into her room and told her they were going to Radiology immediately. With help from another student nurse she had been put on a stretcher and now was being wheeled along the corridors where so short a time ago she had walked herself. Her movement through the hospital had a dream-like quality; it complemented the unrealness of everything else that had happened so far. Momentarily Vivian found herself abandoning fear, as if whatever followed could not matter to her in the end because it was inevitable and would not be changed. She found herself wondering if this feeling were a form of depression, of abandoning hope. She had known already that this was the day which might bring the verdict she had dreaded, a verdict which would make her a cripple, depriving her of freedom of movement, removing from her in one swift stroke so many things she had taken for granted until this time. With this latest thought the moment of passivity left her and fear came crowding back. She wished desperately that Mike were with her at this moment.

Lucy Grainger met the stretcher at the entrance to Radiology. “We’ve decided to do another X-ray, Vivian,” she said. “It won’t take long.” She turned to a white-coated man beside her. “This is Dr. Bell.”

“Hullo, Vivian.” He smiled at her through thick horn-rimmed glasses, then, to the nurse, “May I have the chart, please?” As he studied it, turning the pages quickly, Vivian moved her head to look around her. They were in a small reception room with a glass-enclosed nursing station in one corner. Against one wall other patients were seated—two men in wheel chairs wearing pajamas and hospital robes, and a woman and a man in street clothes, the latter with a cast around his wrist. The last two, she knew, would have come here either from Outpatients or Emergency. The man with the cast looked uncomfortable and out of place. In his good hand was clasped a printed form; he seemed to be clutching it as if it were a passport he would need to come and go from these alien surroundings.

Bell finished reading the chart and handed it back. He said to Lucy, “Joe Pearson phoned me. I gather that you’d like to re-X-ray, so we can see if there’s any change in the bone appearance.”

“Yes.” Lucy nodded. “It’s Joe’s idea that something”—she hesitated, aware that Vivian would hear her words—“might have become visible in the meantime.”

“It’s possible.” Bell had crossed to the nursing station and was scribbling an X-ray requisition. He asked a girl clerk behind the desk, “Which technicians are free?”

She consulted a list. “There’s Jane or Mr. Firban.”

“I think we’ll have Firban do this one. Will you find him, please?” He turned to Lucy as they moved back toward the stretcher. “Firban’s one of our best technicians, and we want good films.” He smiled at Vivian. “Dr. Pearson-asked me to take a personal interest in this case, so that’s what I’m doing. Now let’s go in this room over here.”

With help from Bell the nurse guided the stretcher out of the reception area and into a larger room opening from it. Most of the room was taken up by an X-ray table, with the machine’s picture tube above and suspended on overhead rollers. In an adjoining smaller section, behind thick glass, Vivian could see an electric control panel. Almost at once they were followed into the room by a short, youngish man with crew-cut hair and wearing a white lab coat. His movements were jerky and hurried, as though he wished to achieve whatever he was doing quickly but with a minimum of energy expended. He glanced at Vivian, then turned to Bell.

“Yes, Dr. Bell?”

“Oh, Karl, I’d like you to handle this case for me. By the way, do you know Dr. Grainger?” To Lucy, “This is Karl Firban.”

“I don’t think we’ve met.” Lucy offered her hand and the technician took it.

“How do you do, Doctor.”

“And our patient is Vivian Loburton.” Bell smiled down at the stretcher. “She’s a student nurse. That’s why we’re making such a fuss over her.”

“Hullo, Vivian.” Firban’s greeting was as taut as his other actions. Now, swinging the X-ray table from a vertical position to horizontal, he talked on with brisk brightness. “For special customers we offer a choice of Vista Vision or CinemaScope—all in glorious gray and black.” He glanced at the requisition which Bell had put down. “The left knee, eh? Anything special, Doctor?”

“We’ll want some good A.P., lateral and oblique views, and then I think a coned-down view of the knee area.” Bell paused and considered. “I’d say about five or six films, and then duplicates of the opposite extremity.”

“Do you want any views on a fourteen by seventeen, to include the anterior tibia and fibula?”

Bell considered, then nodded. “That might be a good idea.” To Lucy he said, “If it’s osteomyelitis there could be periosteal reaction further down the bone.”

“All right, Doctor. I’ll have something for you in half an hour.” It was a polite hint from Firban that he preferred to work alone, and the radiologist accepted it.

“We’ll have a coffee and come back.” Bell smiled in Vivian’s direction. “You’re in good hands.” Then, with Lucy ahead of him, he went outside.

“All righty. Let’s get to work.” The technician motioned to the nurse, and together they eased Vivian from the stretcher to the X-ray table. After the stretcher’s comparative softness the black ebonite table felt hard and unyielding.

“Not so comfortable, eh?” Firban was moving Vivian carefully into the position he wanted, leaving her left knee exposed. As she shook her head he went on, “You get used to it. I’ve slept on this table plenty of times when I’ve been on night duty and things have been quiet.” He nodded to the nurse, and the girl went to wait behind the glassed-in section.

With Vivian watching, the technician went through the routine movements of an X-ray series. Still with the same swift jerkiness, he took a film casette from an upright container built into the wall, inserting it deftly in a tray beneath the X-ray table. Next he positioned the tray below the area of Vivian’s knee. Then, using press-button controls suspended from the ceiling by a heavy electrical cord, he maneuvered the heavy X-ray tube along its rollers and downward, until it was immediately above the knee, the arrow on the machine’s calibrated height scale pointing to forty inches.

In contrast to so much else in the hospital, Vivian thought, this room appeared almost unearthlike and remote. The shining black and chrome machinery seemed monstrous as it slid slowly and in massive murmur. There was an aura of science and neutrality in this place, in a way as remote from medicine as a great ship’s engine room might seem from a sunlit bridge deck far above. And yet here, with these ominous, ponderous instruments, so much of medicine’s real detective work was done. The thought for a moment frightened her. There was a dreadful impersonality in it all, so little of people in these machines. Whatever they might discover was relayed and reported without warmth or pleasure, without sadness or regret. Good, bad—it was all the same. For a moment she fancied the picture tube suspended above her to be an eye of judgment, inflexible, dispassionate. What was its judgment now? Would there be hope, or even reprieve . . . or a solemn sentence from which there could be no appeal? Again she found herself wishing for Mike; she would call him as soon as she returned to the hospital room.

The technician had finished his preparation. “I think that will do.” He took a final look around. “I’ll tell you when to keep perfectly still. This is the only place in the hospital, you know, where we can say you won’t feel a thing and really mean it.”

Now he moved behind the inch-thick glass screen which protected the X-ray operator from radiation. Out of the periphery of her vision Vivian could see him moving, holding a check list, setting switches.

At the master control panel Firban was thinking: A pretty kid. Wonder what’s wrong. Must be something serious for Bell to take all that interest; usually the chief doesn’t pay attention to patients until after the films are made. He double-checked the panel controls; in this work you acquired the habit of taking no chances. Settings were okay—84 kilovolts, 200 milliamps, exposure time fifteen hundredths of a second. He pressed a button which set the rotating anode of the picture tube in motion. Then calling out the familiar formula, “Don’t move! Keep still!” he thumbed the second button and knew that whatever was to be seen by the osmotic eye of X-ray was recorded now for others to evaluate.


In the X-O-Mat room of Radiology, the Venetian blinds lowered to cut off the light from outside, Drs. Bell and Lucy Grainger were waiting. In a few minutes the films which Firban had taken would be ready for comparison with those of two weeks before. The technician had already fed his undeveloped negatives into the autodeveloping machine, and at this moment, looking somewhat like an oversized oil furnace, its interior was humming. Now, one by one, the developed films began to fall too a slot at the front of the machine.

As each film appeared Bell placed it under the clip of a viewing box, lighted by fluorescent tubes behind. On a second viewing box, immediately above, he had already put in position the earlier films.

“Did we get good pictures?” There was a touch of pride in the technician’s question.

“Very good indeed.” It was a reflex answer; Bell was already studying the new negatives intently, then comparing the corresponding areas in the two sets of films. He used a pencil point to aid his own thought process and so that Lucy could follow him.

When they had gone over both sets completely, Lucy asked, “Do you see any difference? I can’t, I’m afraid.”

The radiologist shook his head. “There’s a little periosteal reaction here.” He pointed with the pencil to a slight difference in gray shading at two points. “But that’s probably the result of your own biopsy. Otherwise there’s been no conclusive change.” Bell removed his heavy glasses and rubbed his right eye. He said, almost apologetically, “I’m sorry, Lucy; I guess I have to throw the ball back at Pathology. Will you tell Joe Pearson, or shall I?” He began to take down the two sets of films.

“I’ll tell him,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “I’ll go and tell Joe now.”

Seventeen

Staff Nurse Mrs. Wilding pushed back a wisp of gray hair that seemed forever to be falling out from under her starched cap and walked briskly down the fourth-floor corridor of Obstetrics a little ahead of John Alexander. At the fifth door they came to she stopped and looked inside. Then she announced cheerfully, “A visitor for you, Mrs. Alexander,” and ushered John into the small semi-private room.

“Johnny darling!” Elizabeth held out her arms, wincing slightly as the movement caused her to change position in the bed, and he went to her, kissing her tenderly. For a moment she held him tightly. He felt her warmth and under his hand the crisp, clean coarseness of the hospital nightgown she had on. There was a smell in her hair that resembled a combination of sweat and ether; it seemed a reminder of something he had been unable to share, as if she had been to a distant place and was now returned, a touch of strangeness with her. For a moment he sensed a constraint between them, as if, after separation, there was the need to find and to know each other again. Then gently Elizabeth drew back.

“I must look a mess.”

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

“There wasn’t time to bring anything.” She looked down at the shapeless hospital garment. “Not even a nightgown or a lipstick.”

He said sympathetically, “I know.”

“I’ll make a list. Then you can bring the things in.”

Behind them Mrs. Wilding had drawn the overhead curtain that separated them from the other bed in the tiny room.

“There you are. Now you’re as private as can be.” She took a tumbler that was on a bed table beside Elizabeth and refilled it from a jug of ice water. “I’ll come back in a little while, Mr. Alexander; then you can see your baby.”

“Thank you.” They both smiled gratefully as the nurse went out.

As the door closed Elizabeth turned to face John again. Her expression was strained, her eyes searching.

“Johnny dear, I want to know. What are the baby’s chances?”

“Well, honey . . .” He hesitated.

She reached out and covered his hand. “Johnny, I want the truth. The nurses won’t tell me. I’ve got to hear it from you.” Her voice wavered. He sensed that tears were not far distant.

He answered softly, “It could go either way.” He went on, choosing the words carefully. “I saw Dr. Dornberger. He said the chances are just fair. The baby might live, or . . .” John stopped, the sentence unfinished.

Elizabeth had let her head fall back into the pillows behind her. Looking at the ceiling, the words little more than a whisper, she asked, “There really isn’t much hope, is there?”

John weighed the impact of what he might say next. Perhaps, if the baby were going to die, it was better for them both to face it now, better than to buoy up Elizabeth’s hopes and then in a day or two have them cruelly destroyed. Gently he said, “He’s . . . awfully small, you see. He was born two months too soon. If there’s any kind of infection . . . even the smallest thing . . . He doesn’t have much strength.”

“Thank you.” Elizabeth was quite still, not looking at him, but holding his hand tightly. There were tears on her cheeks, and John found his own eyes moist.

Trying to keep his voice even, he said, “Elizabeth darling . . . Whatever happens . . . We’re still young. We’ve a lot ahead of us.”

“I know.” The words were scarcely audible, and his arms went around her again. Her head close against him, he heard her, muffled through sobs. “But . . . two babies . . . this way . . .” She lifted her head, her cry despairing. “It isn’t fair!”

He felt his own tears coursing. Softly he whispered, “It’s hard to figure . . . We’ve still got each other.”

For a minute longer he held her; she was sobbing quietly, then he felt her stir. She murmured, “Handkerchief,” and, taking one from his own pocket, he passed it to her.

“I’m all right now.” She was wiping her eyes. “It’s just . . . sometimes.”

He told her softly, “If it helps, honey . . . you cry. Any time you want.”

She smiled wanly and returned the handkerchief. “I’m afraid I’ve messed it all up.” Then her voice changed. “Johnny . . . lying here . . . I’ve been thinking.”

“What about?”

“I want you to go to medical school.”

He protested gently. “Now, honey, we’ve been over all this . . .”

“No.” Elizabeth stopped him. Her voice was still weak, but it had an edge of determination. “I’ve always wanted you to, and now Dr. Coleman says you should.”

“Do you have any idea what it would cost?”

“Yes, I do. But I can get a job.”

Gently he said, “With a baby?”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Elizabeth said softly, “We may not have a baby.”

The door opened noiselessly and Nurse Wilding came in. She glanced at Elizabeth’s red-rimmed eyes, then discreetly avoided them. To John she said, “If you like, Mr. Alexander, I’ll take you to see your baby now.”


After he had left John Alexander at the nursing station Dr. Dornberger had headed for the hospital nursery.

The nursery lay at one end of a long, bright corridor, decorated cheerfully in pastel shades. It was in a section of the building which had been remodeled two years earlier and reflected the newer trend to spaciousness and light. Approaching, Dornberger could hear, as always, the cries of infants, ranging in pitch and volume from full-lunged, anguished howls to tentative falsettos. More out of habit than thought, he stopped to glance through the thick glass paneling which screened the nursery’s main area on three sides. Business, he reflected, noting the preponderance of occupied bassinets, appeared as brisk as ever. His glance ranged over the orderly rows.

These, he thought, were the normal, healthy animals who had won, for the moment, their battle for existence and in a few days more would go outward and onward into the waiting world. Their destinations were the home, the school, the strife of living, the competition for fame and possessions. Among these were some who would taste success and suffer failure; who, barring casualty, would enjoy youth, accept middle age, and grow old sadly. These were those for whom more powerful and glossier automobiles would be designed, in whose service aircraft would wing faster and farther, whose every whim and appetite would be wooed by others of their kind with wares to market. These were some who would face the unknown future, most with misgiving, many bravely, a few craven. Some here, perhaps, might breach the barriers of outer space; others with the gift of tongues might move their fellow men to anger or despair. Most, within twenty years, would fulfill their physical maturity, obeying, but never understanding, the same primeval craving to copulate which had sown their seed and brought them, mewling, puking, here. But for now these were the victors—the born and urgent. Their first and greatest barrier was down, the other battles yet to come.

Across the hallway was another area with a smaller nursery beyond. In it, quiet and separate, each in an incubator, were the premature babies; these—the doubtful starters, their existence insecure, their first encounter not yet won. Turning away from the main nursery, it was this section that Dornberger entered now.

When he had viewed his newest patient—a tiny fragment of insecure humanity—he pursed his lips and shook his head doubtfully. Then, methodical as always, he wrote careful instructions on the treatment to be followed.

Later, as Dornberger left by one door, Nurse Wilding and John Alexander came in by another.

Like everyone who approached the premature nursery, they had put on sterile gowns and face masks, even though plate glass separated them from the air-conditioned, humidity-controlled interior. Now, as they stopped, Mrs. Wilding leaned forward and tapped lightly on the glass. A younger nurse inside looked up and moved toward them, her eyes above the mask inquiring.

“Baby Alexander!” Wilding raised her voice enough to carry through to the other nurse, then pointed to John. The girl inside nodded and motioned for them to move. They followed her the length of the plate-glass window and stopped. Now she pointed to an incubator—one of the dozen the nursery contained—and turned it slightly so they could see inside.

“My God! Is that all?” The exclamation was torn from John even as it framed itself in mind.

Nurse Wilding’s glance was sympathetic. “He’s not very big, is he?”

John was staring as if in unbelief. “I’ve never seen anything so . . . so incredibly small.”

He stood looking down into the Isolette cabinet. Could this be human?—this tiny, shriveled, monkeylike figure, little larger than his own two hands.

The baby lay perfectly still, its eyes closed, only a slight regular movement of the tiny chest testifying to its breathing. Even in the incubator, designed for the smallest infants, the little helpless body appeared forlorn and lost. It seemed incredible that in such fragility life could exist at all.

The younger nurse had come outside to join them. Wilding asked, “What was the birth weight?”

“Three pounds eight ounces.” The young nurse turned to John. “Do you understand what’s happening, Mr. Alexander—how your baby is being cared for?”

He shook his head. He found it hard to tear his eyes away, even for a moment, from the tiny child.

The young nurse said practically, “Some people like to know. They seem to think it helps.”

John nodded. “Yes; if you’d tell me. Please.”

The nurse pointed to the incubator. “The temperature inside is always ninety-eight degrees. There’s oxygen added to the air—about 40 per cent. The oxygen makes it easier for the baby to breathe. His lungs are so small, you see. They weren’t really developed when he was born.”

“Yes. I understand.” His eyes were back on the faint pulsing movement in the chest. While it continued it meant there was life, that the tiny burdened heart was beating, the thread of survival still unbroken.

The nurse went on. “Your baby isn’t strong enough to suck, so we have to use intubation. You see the little tube?” She pointed to a plastic cord with a hollow center which ran from the top of the incubator into the infant’s mouth. “It goes directly into the stomach. He’ll be having dextrose and water through the tube every hour and a half.”

John hesitated. Then he asked, “You’ve seen a lot of these cases?”

“Yes.” The nurse nodded gravely, as if sensing the question which would follow. He noticed she was petite and pretty, with red hair tucked under her cap. She was surprisingly young, too; perhaps twenty, certainly no more. But she carried an air of professional competence.

“Do you think he’ll live?” He glanced down again through the paneled glass.

“You can never tell.” The younger nurse’s forehead was creased in a frown. He could sense that she was trying to be honest, not to destroy his hopes and yet not to raise them. “Some do; some don’t. Sometimes it seems as if some babies have a will to live. They fight for life.”

He asked her, “This one—is he fighting?”

She said carefully, “It’s too early to know. But those extra eight weeks would have made a lot of difference.” She added quietly, “This will be a hard fight.”

Once more he let his eyes stray back to the tiny figure. For the first time the thought occurred to him: This is my son, my own, a part of my life. Suddenly he was consumed by a sense of overwhelming love for this fragile morsel, fighting his lonely battle inside the warm little box below. He had an absurd impulse to shout through the glass: You’re not alone, son; I’ve come to help. He wanted to run to the incubator and say: These are my hands; take them for your strength. Here are my lungs; use them and let me breathe for you. Only don’t give up, son; don’t give up! There’s so much ahead, so much we can do together—if only you’ll live! Listen to me, and hold on! This is your father and I love you.

He felt Nurse Wilding’s hand on his arm. Her voice said gently, “We’d better go now.”

He nodded, unable to speak. Then with a last glance backward they moved away.


Lucy Grainger knocked and went into the pathology office. Joe Pearson was behind his desk, David Coleman on the far side of the room, studying a file. He turned as Lucy entered.

“I have the new X-rays,” Lucy said, “on Vivian Loburton.”

“What do they show?” Pearson was interested at once. He pushed some papers aside and got up.

“Very little, I’m afraid.” Lucy had moved to the X-ray viewer which hung on the office wall, and the two men followed her. Coleman reached out and snapped a switch; after a second or two the fluorescent lights in the viewer flickered on.

Two at a time, they studied the comparative films. Lucy pointed out, as Dr. Bell had done in Radiology, the area of periosteal reaction created by the biopsy. Otherwise, she reported, there had been no change.

At the end Pearson thoughtfully rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger. Glancing at Coleman, he said, “I guess your idea didn’t work.”

“Apparently not.” Coleman kept his voice noncommittal. In spite of everything they were still left with a question—a division of opinion. He wondered what the older man would do.

“It was worth trying anyway.” Pearson had a way of making the most ordinary acknowledgment sound grudging, but Coleman guessed he was talking to gain time and to cover up his indecision.

Now the old man turned to Lucy. Almost sardonically, he said, “So Radiology bows out.”

She answered levelly, “I suppose you could say that.”

“And it leaves it up to me—to Pathology?”

“Yes, Joe,” she said quietly, waiting.

There was a ten-second silence before Pearson spoke again. Then he said clearly and confidently, “My diagnosis is that your patient has a malignant tumor—osteogenic sarcoma.”

Lucy met his eyes. She asked, “That’s quite definite?”

“Quite definite.” In the pathologist’s voice there was no hint of doubt or hesitation. He went on, “In any case, I’ve been sure from the beginning. I thought this”—he indicated the X-ray films—“would give some extra confirmation.”

“All right.” Lucy nodded her acceptance. Her mind was working now on immediate things to do.

Pearson asked matter-of-factly, “When shall you amputate?”

“Tomorrow morning, I expect.” Lucy gathered up the X-rays and went to the door. Her glance taking in Coleman, she said, “I suppose I’d better go and break the news.” She made a small grimace. “This is one of the hard ones.”

When the door had closed behind her, Pearson turned to Coleman. He said with surprising courtesy, “Someone had to decide. I didn’t ask your opinion then because I couldn’t take the chance of letting it be known that there was doubt. If Lucy Grainger knew, she would have no choice but to tell the girl and her parents. And once they heard, they would want to delay. People always do; you can’t blame them.” He paused, then added, “I don’t have to tell you what delay can do with osteogenic sarcoma.”


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