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"They say that you've had a seizure," Susanna said as she peeled a satsuma in the seat beside his bed. She dropped the skin onto a tissue spread atop her lap, fingers working quickly with the experience of a mother doing it for the hundredth time.
Jamie picked at the hospital sheets, they were cool against his bare legs and never seemed to warm no matter how long he lay in the bed. The gown he wore was loose and draped about him, hanging low when he stood and spreading largely around him when he rested.
"The MRI revealed no anomalies," Susanna continued, breaking the flesh of the fruit into sections.
I know, Jamie wanted to say. I know because they've told me, stop trying to fill the silence. He took the satsuma gratefully, cradling it in his palm. When he ate he held it on his tongue, tasting the sweet flesh and the bitter pulp and was grateful for the flavour. He had been kept in the hospital for two days, listening to the doctors and nurses explain that there was no cause for his episode. No clots or tumours on his brain; immune system fine if not a bit dehydrated and no cancers or growths killing his organs. His blood pressure was high but that came with the job and was of no immediate concern.
They saw nothing but a fit and healthy man laying in a hospital bed and they were stumped for it. The only words of contempt came from the junior doctor who flicked through his notes one day, "Smoking will kill you, it's not doing your lungs any good."
'Wow', Jamie wanted to say, 'they should put that on the packs'. He knew that there was nothing wrong with him, he had only been too stubborn to admit that his mind had festered too long. The day at the dock was triggered by a monster, he knew that now. The thing that he hunted was beyond human, he had denied it as long as he had denied his brain needed help, and he had almost payed with his life. But now it was truth he was willing to face. "They'll discharge you soon," came the hard voice to his left.
Jamie hummed, brushing his hand of leftover pulp and looking at the blank tv mounted to the wall. "I think that you should go back to Portland."
"Yes," Jamie agreed in a placid voice. "It would be better for me to continue building the profile away from the field."
"No," Susanna said tightly. "I think you should take a break from this case, from work."
He looked at her and she looked unabashedly back, eyes as hard a flint. Here it is, he thought and resigned himself to it like he was being carried by a stream. "You don't sleep, you barely eat. Spacing out in interviews, late to meetings and your reports are all over the place. Jamie, you need to rest, this one has been too much, let it go."
