Best Medicine

14 June 6:48 a.m.

Weight progressing as expected. Headache two days in a row, but not unmanageable. Not a concern yet. Have the strangest craving for Twinkies. I haven't eaten one of those vile things since my residency. How do I even recognize what I'm craving ?

Christine kept her routine fastidiously. Carefully built, she squeezed every imaginable health benefit from every single second. Sunlight broke through the window every morning in between the heavy curtains she kept open, a warm, bright alarm clock. Then she began her exercises. Stretching, running, yoga, a bit of weights. For breakfast she whipped three egg whites with milk and pepper, and cooked them with onions and peppers in butter. For a long time she abstained from butter, but only a few years ago the New England Journal of Medicine printed an exciting report about how butter is filled with nutrition for brain matter. Christine needed her brain food. She used it sparingly, of course. Every day she drank liters of water and ate whole fruit. After breakfast, she opened her collection of pills, vitamins, folic acid, and practically swallowed the periodic table.

Later there would be more: more exercise, more pills. But for the moment, it was time to get to work. Christine had a new patient.

Christine welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Bristin into her office, observing them as she did. The shoes, the watch, the hem of the suit. Lawyers. She didn't want to judge her patients. She certainly had no room to throw stones. But she always struggled with affluent clients. For the tremendous sacrifice she made, she wanted it to go to those with the least resources. She swallowed her selfishness. It wasn't the child's fault he had been born rich.

They were career minded, ambitious, focused. Christine mused over why they bothered to have a baby in the first place, especially so young. Well, so young for lawyers. However they had felt about the pregnancy when it happened was far in the past.

Mrs. Bristin, Jacqueline, appeared to take the brunt of the struggle. Large dark circles lined under her eyes, hair slightly disheveled. Every few minutes, she broke into sobs. When she wasn't crying, one shaking hand held a tissue near her face while the other clutched her middle as if keeping herself together. She spoke in labored breaths. When the sobs started again, her husband, Jonathan, dutifully put his arm around her. His face stoic, his back straight, he wasn't ashamed of her outbursts, but relieved that she had done so. She was crying for them both.

"We took him to a specialist," Jacqueline breathed. "He said-"

"You don't need to tell me," Christine interrupted. "He said there was no cure, nothing to be done, that it was time to consider making your son comfortable.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you, the medicine I provide is not on the books. You've come to me because you've heard that I can save children like yours. This is... delicate."

"We'll sign a waiver," Jonathan said. Where his wife's voice cracked and heaved like the wind in a storm, he spoke with clean, crisp sounds.

Christine smiled, sweetly, trying very hard to not appear condescending, to remember these people were in pain. Afraid. Desperate. "I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly certain a legal contract regarding illegal activities is not actually legal."

He made to protest, but with a slight raise of her hand, she silenced him. "I do what I do because I don't want children to die. I choose to believe that parents will not punish my choice, even when it is unethical."

"What's your rate of success?" the mother mewled.

"I can only take a few patients every year. That being said, so far I have a recovery rate of 100%."