students.
“Slow down, you two,” Nancy called to them. “I don’t want you, or me, winding up with another heart attack.”
Edison was getting a little winded as well.
“Sorry,” Galen said. “We just naturally revert to hospital walk sometimes. When you’re a student or house staff doc, you move like the devil is on your tail.”
Sandy nodded. ”And maybe Old Ketch was.”
She took his hand and squeezed it, which slowed him down.
Maybe I am being chased, chased by my own personal demons of time and memory.
They crossed Marshall once more and entered the Gateway Building. Up the escalator and a short walk down the bustling hospital corridor, then a turn to the left there stood Anna Huntington’s stone copy of her bronze statue of three playful bear cubs. It seemed incongruous at first.
The cubs were posed cavorting and licking themselves, though exposure to decades of the elements made them seem worn. Now they were a side thought to the left of a gift shop entrance.
Sandy and Galen stood before them, worshippers in a cathedral of healthcare. To the old pair it was an icon.
The legend of the bear as healer and giver of strength pervades many cultures, and this particular statue of the bears had been a source of comfort when patients went sour despite their best efforts.
Maybe, on some primitive level, the cubs were Galen’s totem against the Bone Man, that personification of Death introduced to him by Aunt Hattie, the “conjer lady,” so many years ago.
Even Edison refrained from speaking as his two friends gazed silently.
Then Galen realized that Sandy had once more slipped her hand into his, and she was looking at him.
“Guess we’d better get back to the dorms. I wonder how that granddaughter of mine is doing.”
5. The Weaker Sex?
Sarah Knowlton had just unpacked her things when the dorm room swung open and a pretty young woman loaded down with tote bags and a huge suitcase on wheels breezed in.
“Hi, are you my roommate?”
“I am if you got room 603,” Sarah responded.
The other girl dropped all the bags at once and extended a hand.
“Judy Hicks.”
“Sarah Knowlton.”
They liked each other instantly.
“Are your parents doctors, Sarah?”
“Mom and Dad were killed in the World Trade Center attack when I was just a baby. But Grandma Sandy’s an MD. She and Grandpa Josh raised me. They were missionaries. I grew up in Kenya. What about you?”
“Mom was a school teacher and Dad sold life insurance in Canton, Ohio, where I’m from.”
Sarah caught the past tense in the response.
“What happened?”
Judy hesitated.
“They ... they were all killed; Mom, Dad, my little brother Dave and my sister Cathy. A drunk driver ... the day after I got my med-school acceptance letter.”
“Oh Judy, that’s horrible. So you’re...?”
“I’m the only one left now.”
She said it quietly, almost matter-of-factly.
She’s got a lot going on beneath the surface.
“I hope you don’t mind, I went ahead and picked my bunk and dresser.”
“Of course not,” Judy said.
She started unpacking, silently for a few moments, until Sarah started talking about her experiences in Kenya.
“You know how arguments were settled? The guys would carry this club with a ball-like swelling on the end. If they didn’t like someone they’d bash their brains in. It’s called rungee.”
“I could’ve used something like that with a few of the guys I’ve dated.”
“I didn’t need a club. I had a pet cheetah. It almost took the you-know-whats off this one guy when it thought he was getting fresh. I swear his voice sounded an octave higher for weeks.”
That did it. Soon the new roomies were engaged in the typical, non-stop gab fest that only females can sustain.
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll be spending enough time cooped up once school starts.”
They changed into shorts and tops, two young lionesses ready to prowl the savanna that was the dorm complex. With those eyes, faces and forms they had no trouble stopping traffic, so to speak, and both were accustomed to it.
They ended up in the central lounge. That’s where she spotted him again, standing by the entrance with another newcomer.
Let me guess—his roommate?
Both young men wore light khakis and torso-conforming tee shirts. Both were good looking but one stood out.
What was his name? Antonio Hidalgo!
Sarah noticed Judy looking at the other one and nudged her.
“Why do you suppose they’re holding up the door post?”
They both giggled as they moved in for the kill, smiling broadly.
“Yo, spaghetti-sauce boy. You eaten yet?”
Tonio batted his eyelids in his own practiced move.
“Sarah, hey, I’ve been trying to call you. We’re all going out to dinner with my folks and your grandma.”
She slowly patted the pockets in her top and shorts. Tonio’s eyes reflexively widened.
“Tsk, I must have left the phone in my room. Mind if I use yours?”
Before he could answer she snatched his out of his pants pocket, smiling as she keyed in the number.
“Hi, Grandma. We’re all here. Where we going?”
She licked her lips and gazed directly into Tonio’s eyes.
Meanwhile, JP was being mesmerized by Judy Hicks’s long auburn hair and hazel eyes.
What’s that on her top, a tennis emblem? Yowzah!
JP nudged Tonio.
“Oh ... uh ... yeah, this is my roommate, Julius Petrie. Call him JP.”
Sarah shook his hand
