Ellie sits back, thunderstruck.
“No way.”
“Why?” Shannon wonders if being a physiotherapist is that unusual in Dolphin’s Bay. Surely they must have a hospital?
“No.” Ellie pats her forearm. Her cheeks are colored with excitement, and not because of her third trimester pregnancy. “My younger brother runs a clinic here and he needs a physiotherapist. Just so happens the last one quit on him to get married, and he has been running the clinic with only two for the past two months. It has been hell on his staff. He is an orthopedic surgeon affiliated with the hospital. Would you like to meet him?”
It is as though fortune has fallen on her lap.
“Yes,” Shannon says, smiling. This is a streak of good luck. Her gloomy spirits lift despite the pall of the morning.
“OK, I’ll make a few calls. Give me a moment.”
Ellie picks up her cellphone and punches in a quick dial. After a few rings, someone on the other side picks up.
“Kirk? Yes, honey, it’s me.” She rolls her eyes and winks at Shannon. “Yes, honey, I know you’re busy and I must never call you at this time of day unless it’s an emergency, but I’ve got your new physiotherapist for you. You don’t have to request one from upstate now.”
Pause.
“Uh huh, uh huh. She’s right here. That’s right. She just happened to move into town yesterday and I rented her the Pullnam place.” She scrunches her nose. “Oh, come on, don’t say that. Send her to meet you? Super.”
Ellie rings off and claps her hands delightedly.
“I have a feeling we are all going to see a lot more of one another.”
THE CLINIC
It’s Shannon’s turn to take the Toyota out while Jared goes to hunt for another car. That would keep him busy and happy for the whole day, provided he doesn’t burn a hole in their pocket right away. But he usually is quite careful with money, so she isn’t too worried about it.
With her GPS, she soon finds the clinic, which is called, perhaps uncreatively: ‘DOLPHIN’S BAY ORTHOPEDIC AND REHABILITATION CENTER’. To her surprise, it is quite a huge place with plenty of bay windows proffering light to the interiors.
The clinic is quite busy with plenty of patients either walking in and out on crutches and splints or being wheeled by relatives and medical attendants. She parks and goes to the reception.
“I have an appointment with Dr. Kirk Fitzpatrick,” she tells the receptionist, a black lady with dyed blond hair.
“He’s busy right now. Emergency case came up. He had to schedule an urgent operation in the minor surgery theater.”
“Oh.”
“It’s OK,” the lady says crisply. “You can wait over there with the patients.”
There are plenty of patients seated in the waiting area outside the clinics. Shannon notes the other doctors working there – four names altogether. Dr. Kirk Fitzpatrick is listed outside one of the rooms. Although he is the departmental chief, his embossed sign does not appear to be bigger than the others.
A girl in her early teens with gnarled fingers and bent legs is seated at a corner, and Shannon takes the empty seat beside hers.
“You all alone?” she asks the girl.
“My Mom had to go to school. She’s a teacher there. She will come and fetch me during her lunch hour.”
Shannon observes the girl’s finger joints. They are extremely deformed and her knuckle joints are very swollen.
“That hurt?”
The girl grimaces. “Yes.”
“I’m Shannon.”
“Martha.” The girl waves her index finger. “Sorry if I can’t shake your hand.”
“How long have you had it? It’s JRA, right?”
JRA is juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
“Since I was eight. I started early. Guess I’m one of the unlucky ones. It’s pretty bad today. I’m on so many painkillers I’m practically a junkie.”
“Let me have a look at that. I’m a physiotherapist. I came here to apply for a job.”
Martha slowly stretches out her left arm, her face wincing. Her fingers remain curled and painfully immobile.
“They’ve tried everything,” she says. “Anti-rheumatics. Penicillamine. Steroids. But the joint destruction goes on. I can’t write anymore. The principal is trying to let me sit for my SATs with a tester.”
“SATs? I didn’t think you were that old.”
“I’m eighteen.” When Shannon reacts with surprise, Martha nods. “Steroids since I was nine. It retards my growth. I don’t even have my periods like normal kids.”
With newfound sympathy, Shannon takes the girl’s left hand.