Chapter Eighteen
The next morning, promptly at the beginning of business hours, Willa phoned Dr. Mergendoller, her internist. She’d been with him twenty-three years, and she felt he owed her a frank and forthright answer.
“I’m reasonably sure you’re not dying,” he told her when she finally got him on the line after sidestepping an appointment clerk and two nurses. “At least, not any more than the rest of us,” he added with his scientist’s sense of humor. “You were in last month, and I don’t even have to pull your chart. Nothing to be concerned about. Live your life.” And that was all he would say until he could examine her again by appointment, if she really felt she needed one, the third week in January.
She was almost reassured, but she got hung up on the possible implications of his
