I read another note in the file. The girl had been with her father at the time of the accident. “Divorced?”
“Who isn’t? The mother and daughter are in the lobby.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You’re a god. I can make my five-thirty yoga class.” Mickie’s slim and toned figure reflected the metabolism of a rabbit and her twice-a-day workout regimen—she swam laps in the morning and did hot yoga at night.
“I’m glad I can help keep you in top physical condition.”
“Not as glad as my date is going to be.”
“The golf pro?”
“Please, he was so last week.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I did, until he brought his short game to bed with him.”
“No driver?”
“No irons at all.”
“Well, thank goodness you’ll always have hot yoga to burn off energy.”
“Laugh all you want, but you won’t get a better workout, especially if you keep dating your roommate.”
“Subtle,” I said.
In our eighteen-year friendship, I’d never known Mickie to have a steady boyfriend, which she said was too much bother. She kept three pit bulls for companionship and maintained a stable of male admirers and wannabe boyfriends whom I assumed she called on to satisfy her inner urges. In her spare time she criticized my love life.
Mickie looked about to say something more—Mickie always had something more to say—but I think making her hot yoga class took precedent. She shrugged and departed. She’d never liked Eva, but she had refrained from ever telling me why. Instead she resorted to snide comments, such as referring to Eva as my roommate, as in, “So, where’s the roommate this weekend?” or “So, when’s the last time you and the roommate did it?”
Since my nurse had left for the day, I greeted Trina Crouch in the lobby. From her red and swollen eyes, she looked to have been crying, or she had terrible allergies. When she stood she nearly matched me in height, perhaps a shade over six feet. She was sturdy, which my mother had taught me was the polite word to describe someone overweight. Dirty-blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail accentuated a broad forehead.
“They said you wouldn’t be here,” she said.
“I had some personal plans change this afternoon.” I looked to the little girl and extended my hand. She didn’t accept it. I crouched. “And you must be Daniela. Daniela, I’m Dr. Sam.” I’d worn brown contacts for years. Red eyes had a way of upsetting the children. “We’re going to have a look at your eyes today. Is that okay with you?”
She was tall like her mother, with the same color hair and worried expression, but she was thin—too thin, it seemed—and skittish. She also looked familiar, but I could not place her or her mother. “Have we met?” I asked her mother.
“I don’t think so,” Trina Crouch said.
In my consult room, I asked Daniela to sit up on the table. Her mother stood beside her. I sat on a swivel chair and continued to review the file and to ask questions.
“It started about three weeks ago,” Trina Crouch said. “She hit her head.”
“How bad was the bike accident?”
“Her father didn’t see it; he came out and found her lying on the sidewalk. He lives at the bottom of a pretty steep hill. He thinks she rode to the top and lost control coming down, that she went over the handlebars and hit her forehead.”
“How long was she in the hospital?”