The Blue Cotton Gown Read Online Free

health-care policy.
    There’s so much I’ve not had time to talk to the girl about. Carrying twins changes everything. There will be an increased need for nutrition, increased need for rest. I write on the checkout slip for Heather to return in two weeks so I can finish her new-OB exam and we can talk more. Then, as we stand in the reception area, I manage to whisper in the girl’s ear that she and T.J. shouldn’t have intercourse until after the bleeding has stopped for ten days.
    Heather gazes at me as if that’s the last thing in the world a teenager would do.

    holly

    Holly Knight, an attractive forty-five-year-old, is examining her man-icured nails. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” I say. The exam room is quiet. There are no clocks ticking, except in my mind. I’m already half an hour behind schedule.
    The prominent Torrington real estate agent is here for her an-nual exam. She’s taller than I am, almost six feet, with broad shoulders. Since I’m tall myself, I notice these things. Her angular jaw and long limbs speak of a former athlete, maybe a tennis player. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about this,” I repeat. I had asked her about her stress level.
    Finally, Holly clears her throat, straightens her blue exam gown, and adjusts the silver clip that holds back her shoulder-length, highlighted hair. “It’s my oldest daughter. She’s just a beautiful girl. She was beautiful. Now she’s in intensive care at a hospital in Charleston and looks like a skeleton. She has an eating disorder . . . I’ve never told anyone about this. If women ask at church or at the country club, I just say she has severe colitis.”
    I wait, imagining the young woman, a shadow of Holly, her translucent skin just covering the blue life pumping within her, propped up in a white hospital bed. There’s a tube in her nose, IVs in both arms, and a heart monitor beeping away at the bedside, all that connects her to life.
    The patient looks down, and the mask falls away. “Nora was so bright and lively and involved when she was in high school. She was in soccer, in debate club, in the school plays. I don’t know how this happened. It must be my fault. She never seemed to have any weight problems when she was a kid. She would eat a good dinner. We even drank whole milk then.” Holly looks up at me. Her green eyes are brimming. “I’ve thought about this a lot. Now I realize she was vomiting everything up. Now she can’t stop vomiting. It must be my fault, but I don’t know what I did.

    “Think about it.” She snorts a short laugh and with the tips of her fingers wipes her eyes. “Anyone who can drink that much whole milk and not gain weight has a problem, but I didn’t see it. Maybe you only see what you want to.”
    I listen spellbound as the patient tells her story. I’m seeing myself only a few years ago, so alone with my troubles, embarrassed to tell anyone, a seemingly successful woman, sturdy, competent . . . crumbling inside. Holly continues, “I’m just so worried. I’m terrified she’s going to die. Maybe this time or next time she’ll die. We’ve been to counselors and clinics.” She looks around as if she’s lost her place in the story, but she hasn’t. “This is the third time she’s been hospitalized this year.”
    I say nothing. It isn’t a therapeutic silence. I just can’t think what to say.
    There’s a scratch at the door. It’s my nurse Abby, alerting me patients are waiting. I glance at my watch and shake my head. I’m absorbed in this woman’s pain and I know why. Once, I, too, had had no one to confide in, no friend or colleague whose children had been busted for grass, or for scrawling graffiti on the un-dersides of bridges, or for driving with an open bottle of alcohol. I’m now an hour behind, but in the next five minutes I finish Holly’s exam, write her a script for her antidepressant, and give her a handout on calcium. Then I sit again on my