Page 51 of A Better World

“Looks good, good-lookin’!” Sally announced. They high-fived, which they’d done on that first day out of spontaneity and now did every Friday. Then she went back to her booth, drew open the border wall.

The drive out of Plymouth Valley and into the clinic in PV Extension was a quick half kilometer. She passed small trailers and slab houses along the way, most of which belonged to dayworkers. PVE’s fortunes had declined along with the fortunes of the town it serviced. Rusted trampolines, slides, and swings dotted front yards.

The area had been plagued lately by dust storms, and visibility today was tough. She drove slowly and listened toNews in a Minutefrom a station out of Rapid City. PVE had good reception. They headlined with the good stuff: Oregon had ratified its state constitution and tornado mitigation efforts had saved Des Moines. On the East Coast,New York’s governor had announced a run for presidency. Along with the DA, she’d been responsible for indicting the heads of the Health Department, the Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Department of Education for corruption. She was ahead in the polls, but, because of gerrymandering, would need a popular vote of 70 percent. Right now, she had 65 percent.

The bad news: a new and aggressive strain of leprosy was spreading through Florida, a nuclear reactor outside Paris had leaked, and unemployment was at an all-time high of 29 percent.

In the short time she’d been living inside PV, she’d begun to see the outside as scarier and more chaotic. How had she tolerated so much noise and misery for so many years?

She pulled into her spot behind the one-level stucco building, which had once been a convenience store.FREE CLINICwas written on a small billboard in bold letters out front, beside the caladrius shelter Anouk’d insisted on installing.

But they can’t tolerate the air out here,Linda’d said.What’s the point of a shelter without birds?

When Caesar left Rome, he carried its dirt in his pocket,Anouk had replied.Where he went, Rome went.

Well, okay.

As soon as she got inside, a day-nurse and an admin greeted her. These were rotating volunteers who came as their schedules allowed. “Any new appointments?” she asked.

No. Just the four from the roster she’d checked last night. There was a reason she came only on Fridays. Still, four patients were better than last week’s three, and the previous week’s two, and her first week’s zero. This was progress.

Her morning patients came with the typical ailments like asthma and generalized fatigue. For the first, she gave company-mailer samples of alveolar macrophage down-regulator, as the three-dimension drug replicator the clinic had been promised still hadn’t arrived. Her afternoon patient’s problems were more complicated. Brought in by his father and his grandmother, six-month-old Carlos presented with lassitude and fever.

The family was repelled by the pomegranate- and stone fruit–filled altar Anouk had placed in the examining room. “Dios mío,” the grandmother said as she made the sign of the cross.

“Weird, right?” Linda asked. “I’m new, so I don’t know much about it. Plus, I’m lapsed Catholic, which makes me immune to all other religions, or whatever Hollow is.”

The dad, Danny, had callused hands and a scarred, lived-in face. He didn’t react to her joke. Linda had the feeling he found her frivolous and possibly stupid.

“Yes, but it’s an insult,” the grandmother said.

“I don’t think it’s personal,” Linda said. “Can you ignore it?”

The youngish grandmother gave her the stink eye. Linda didn’t read it as unkindness, but disappointment. The kind of look you might give to a neighborhood kid who litters, or your friend at the grocery store who doesn’t return their cart. “An insult to God,” the grandmother repeated.

“Right,” Linda said. “Sorry. It’s not up to me.”

A doctor in Sioux Falls had diagnosed Carlos with a bacterial infection, but after six weeks of antibiotics, the kid wasn’t any more energetic. He was slender, his hair not yet grown in, but he still had a thick down over his face and neck that indicated he wasn’t thriving. His eyes didn’t track her movements, either. “I think you’re right,” Linda told them. “There’s something more.”

Here, at least, their luck was in. She’d finagled a blood analysis machine as a donation just last week. Chernin had combined two departments, making his second machine redundant. It had been headed for storage. Still, she’d had to fight for it, presenting a strong argument before Chernin agreed. The guy was an odd duck.

The analysis took only a few seconds. The child’s WBC and RBC counts were irregular and mutated. In particular, his monocytes and platelets were a mess. This was cancer—a kind she’d never studied before. “I’d like to send this to the lab in PV. I think they’ll have more data than I do,” she said.

Father and grandmother conferred in excited whispers. Linda interrupted to show them her screen, let them see every note she’d takenalong with the statistics on pediatric leukemias. “Intervention now’s really important,” she said. “Take the help. It’s free.”

Danny crossed his arms. “I don’t want to insult you.”

“You can insult me.”

Carlos lay on his back, too still.

“The people of the valley…”

“What?” Linda asked.

He looked at her straight on. “They lie.”

She printed up the blood report and all her notes. Tried to hand them to him, but he wouldn’t accept the papers. The grandmother snatched them, secreted them into her purse beside an empty soda bottle and a Hershey Bar wrapper. All the while, Danny held his son’s belly, which seemed especially sad to Linda, given the child hadn’t the strength to roll. “I don’t know what you’ve experienced before. I told you, I’m new. I promise I’m not lying. Go. Get a second opinion. Then come back. He needs treatment.”

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