Chapter 4: The Man in the Grey Suit

By morning, my name was in six hundred comments.

I made myself read the first ten.

"People like her should be in jail."

"Pregnant women get hurt at work all the time and nobody believes them."

"Her badge photo looks so smug."

I put the phone face down on the kitchen table and drank my mother's burnt coffee.

My dad sat across from me, buttering toast with one hand and rubbing his arm with the other.

"What's all the fuss on your phone?" he said.

"A coworker told a lie about me."

"Then she's a liar." He took a bite. "Don't let it eat you."

"Dad, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything. Within reason."

"Come to a doctor today."

He laughed with his mouth full.

"I'm fine, kid."

"You've been rubbing that arm for a month."

"Since when do you keep count?"

Since I stood at your funeral, I thought.

"Since I got worried," I said. "Please. I'll drive. I'll sit with you. I'll buy you a donut after."

My mother turned the radio down.

"Ray," she said. "Go."

He looked from her to me.

"Two against one," he said. "That's not fair."

"It's your heart, Ray."

He put the toast down.

"Okay," he said at last, and his voice was a little rough.

"Okay. Just to shut you both up."

The cardiologist's office was in a medical building on the near west side.

A nurse took him back for an EKG, and fifteen minutes later the doctor came out into the waiting room with a folder.

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