Chapter 23: The Exam Room Door

My annual checkup was on a Thursday at three, and I almost forgot it.

I had been in the tower since eight, on the phone with Lisbon about shipping dates and with a vendor about a banner.

At two fifty-five my new doctor's assistant called my desk.

"We've moved you up to the 47th," she said. "Exam room one. The other rooms are being painted."

"All of them?"

"It's a very big can of paint," she said, and hung up.

I should have known then.

I rode up in the public elevator with a man carrying a ficus.

The doors opened on the same glass waiting room where I'd once held my own wrist so it would stop shaking.

The receptionist looked up and went red.

"Go right in, Mrs. Dunning," she said.

"It's Ms. now. Almost."

"Of course. Go right in."

I walked down the corridor.

My hands weren't shaking.

I noticed it, in the way you notice a noise has stopped.

Exam room one had its door wide open.

Ronan stood in the doorway.

He was wearing a white coat.

It was crisp and long, and it made him look broader across the shoulders than the suits ever did.

His stethoscope hung round his neck, and his hands were empty at his sides.

I stopped about three feet away.

"You're not my doctor," I said.

"No."

"You're wearing a coat."

"I haven't worn it in two years. I wanted you to see me in it. Once. Not as the man who signs your paycheck."

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