Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto
the base of her breast. I stopped again but this time sat up.
    "John, what's the matter?"
    "Hold still a minute."
    "What are you doing?"
    I touched and pushed and probed.
    "John?"
    "Nance, I feel something here."
    "Something?"
    "I don't . . . it's like a small lump."
    "Oh, that's nothing."
    "Nancy, it's the size of a cherry pit."
    "Sebaceous cyst."
    "A what?"
    "It's just a cyst from the oil in my skin. My
mom had them all the time, and I've had a few already."
    "I've never seen one on you. Or felt it before."
    “ That's because the last time was years ago. They
form pretty quickly, and you can either have them cut out or just
leave them."
    "Leave them?"
    "Yes. They usually kind of wax and wane on their
own."
    I stayed sitting up, images of Beth flooding into me.
The hospital room's mechanical bed and tiled walls, the smell of
disinfectant, the sound of hushed voices. And too many tubes
connected at too many places, her head on a pillow, the white turban
wrapped in an unbalanced way around where her hair used to—
    Nancy said, "John, what's the matter?"
    I let out the breath I was holding. "It just
took me back."
    "What did?"
    "Finding something like that lump."
    "How would . . . oh." Nancy drew herself up
to her knees, her arms around my neck again, but differently than in
the kitchen. "Oh, I'm sorry. This reminds you of Beth."
    "Yes."
    "John, believe me. The lump is nothing. I—"
    “ You've had it looked at?"
    "Like I said, the doctors have always—"
    “ This particular one?"
    A pause. "No."
    I searched for the right words. "Nancy, I know
you're trying to make me feel better, but I'm not completely rational
on this, and I really wish you'd go to the doctor."
    "Soon as I can."
    "Name the day, Nance."
    "I'll call you."
    "Now."
    She broke off the embrace. "John, I told you
outside the office, I have an attempted murder—"
    "Nancy, that's your job. This is your life. Not
to mention mine, if I'm lucky."
    A quieter voice. "And ours, if I'm lucky too."
Another pause. "I'll call her tomorrow before court."
    "Thank you."
    We hugged and kissed. Rolled over and stayed still.
But I don't think either of us got much sleep.
 

    =3=
    The next morning, I woke up when Renfield licked my
eyelids open. Nancy wasn't next to me in her bed. I felt the sheets
where she'd been lying. Cold.
    Swinging my legs to the floor, I stood with that dull
fatigue that comes from getting only half as much rest as you need. I
used the bathroom, then went into the kitchen. There was a
handwritten note propped up against the sugar bowl.
John,
I didn't have
the heart to wake you this morning
when I
knew you hadn't slept well.
Thanks for
pushing me last night.
I'll call my doctor
today.
Love,
Nancy
    Today. Not "before
court," as she'd promised. Crumpling the note and pitching it
into the wastebasket, I went to see if I had some clean clothes in
her dresser.
    * * *
    I didn't. Have any clean clothes at Nancy's, I mean.
After riding the bus to South Station, I took the Red Line to Park
Street Under. I seemed rank enough to myself that instead of walking
to the office across Tremont, I turned west and moved through the
brisk morning air toward Back Bay. It being a Wednesday, most of the
people with real jobs were already at them. While the Common
therefore wasn't crowded, the grass wasn't empty, either.
    The nice fall weather brought out the decrepit
homeless, the crazy homeless, and the enterprising homeless.
Interspersed with them were others, like a young mom and her toddler
playing Frisbee with a Heinz-57 mutt, the dog able to leap nearly two
of its own body lengths into the air from a standing start, the child
squealing in delight. Farther along the winding walkway, separate
benches held African-American teenagers necking chastely, a
middle-aged Asian-American man in a business suit working on a
note-book computer, and an elderly white couple, apparently having an
argument, each angled away from the other but speaking alternately in
grumbles and