had been doubled up.
The overnight schedule rarely worked exactly as planned because each patient had different needs. Take Davis and Martino, for example. Kiel Davis, a homosexual from Indiana who had relocated in New York ten years ago, had spent almost two-thirds of the last eighteen months in the clinic, while over the same period of time, Martino, an intravenous drug user from the Bronx, had slept over less than six months total.
Harvey scanned their charts, listening to the gentle, deep breathing of their slumber. He closed the door behind him, headed toward the staircase, and jogged up one flight of stairs to the third floor his way of getting exercise. He heard himself wheezing from the effort.
Out of shape, he thought. 7 should stop using the elevator all together and always take the stairs.
But Harvey knew that the hitching in his chest was due to something beyond poor physical conditioning. The muscles in his forehead seemed to swell now, bunching up against the sensitive nerve endings. A fluttery sensation flitted sc ross his stomach.
He was scared.
Harvey stopped in front of the door that led to room 317, the only room on the floor that held a patient. He pushed open the door and leaned his head through the frame. The patient was at long last asleep, which had been no easy task in this case. Drugs had been necessary. Strong ones. Harvey had finally convinced Michael to take a couple of potent sleeping pills. They worked.
Actually, they were potent enough to work on a charging rhino.
Long shadows came in through the windows and reached across the room like giant fingers readying to close. Sara sat in a wooden chair at the side of Michael's bed, her hand clutching his. Even in the poor lighting Harvey could see anguish tightening the skin around Sara's cheekbones. Her lips quivered as though from cold, her eyes were moist. She had not yet acknowledged his presence, though she surely must have heard him open the door. Instead, Sara continued to look down at her sleeping husband. Harvey wondered if she was lost in her own thoughts or if she had simply chosen to ignore him.
Probably a little of both.
He looked again at the figure hunched over the bed. They were confident, at least, that Sara's HFV test would come back negative. She had already taken the test less than a month ago as part of her research for a story on AIDS testing at the New York Herald and it had been negative. While the virus was known to remain dormant for many years, it was still encouraging news for Michael and Sara and the unborn infant.
Harvey turned away from the pitiful sight and let the door close. He knew Sara was going through hell right now, worse even than Michael.
Standing aside and watching helplessly while a loved one suffered was often more difficult than the simpler task of suffering through the physical trauma. Harvey wished he could help. He wished that he could take Michael's place, that it was he rather then Michael who had to bear this great burden.
I But of course that was impossible.
| Cruel as it seemed, Michael and Sara would have to go through this ordeal alone. Crueler still, Harvey knew, was that he saw the possible benefits from Michael's situation. When Harvey considered the positive implications for AIDS patients generally and the clinic specifically the hope, the finances, the!j publicity he could not help but hope Michael would go public with his illness. Awful as it might seem, he realized that Michael's diagnosis could in the long run save thousands of lives. Michael could do for AIDS what no one since Rock Hudson or Ryan White I had done bring it home to the public, make it real, change the perspective of thousands, perhaps millions of people.
And that was why Sara was angry with him. Harvey had really not said very much, but his feelings on the matter were clear. Michael had been handed a responsibility that was bigger than all of them. A rare opportunity to do good had been thrust upon him. He could not just toss it away. And Sara saw that.
1, In her heart she knew what would have to be. But right now Sara's 4 mind was too clouded by her pain for her to see what was so clear. That was certainly understandable. Right now the rest of the world did not matter to her. Only Michael mattered. Protecting him.
So steam