IT WAS my first middle-of-the-night crisis call in three years.
A thousand days out of practice, and there I was, bolted, upright in the darkness, clutching the receiver with sleep-slowed fingers, queasy and drowsy but ready for action -my voice soothingly professional even as my brain struggled for a toehold in its climb toward consciousness.
Slipping into the old role with autonomic ease.
There was a stirring from the other side of the bed. The phone had wrenched Robin from sleep, too. A blade of lace-filtered starlight striped her face, the perfect features restfully blank.
‘I’m not sure. Go back to sleep, hon, I’ll take it in the library.’
She looked at me questioningly, then rolled away in a swaddle of covers. I threw on a robe and left the bedroom.
After switching on the lights and wincing at the glare, I found paper and pencil and picked up the receiver.
‘This one sounds like a real emergency, Doctor. He’s breathing real hard and not making much sense. I had to ask him several times for his name before he caught on, and then he screamed it at me. I’m not sure, but it sounded like Jimmy Catmus or Cadmus.’
‘Jamey Cadmus.’ Uttering the name brought me completely awake, as if by incantation. Memories that had been buried for half a decade surged forth with the clarity of yesterday. Jamey was someone you didn’t forget.
