InSight

prejudice.”
    Abby noticed his brusque attitude on the phone had softened. He’d interview Luke and Mack Tollison, then present the facts to the board.
    “They’ll inform you of their decision. If your case necessitates a hearing, you’ll receive a letter stating the time and place.”
    She asked what he thought, but he remained noncommittal. She didn’t expect otherwise.
    After their interview, Jackson spent private time with Cleo and Ellie, who’d come in specifically for the conference. Ellie left right after, and Abby didn’t discuss the interview with Cleo, although her gentle squeeze of Abby’s shoulder offered commiseration.
    The complaint eliminated a patient as her tormentor. How could they know about her involvement with Luke? She’d eliminated Cleo and Ellie immediately, and no one she knew would heartlessly hurt Daisy. The question remained: who wanted to hurt her, and why?
    * * * * *
    I f Abby couldn’t solve her own problems, maybe she could solve someone else’s. Unfortunately, her next patient’s story tore her insides apart. She sat back in her chair and listened to the electronic voice read the information Cleo had scanned into her computer.
    Kenya Grimes, a six-foot-six-inch high school basketball star, in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victim of a drive-by bullet to the C-2 vertebra. Paralyzed from the neck down, ventilator dependent, he’d begged everyone and anyone to put him out of his misery.
    Abby honestly didn’t know what to do to change his mind. His was a valid request; one that should be addressed.
    When did we lose control over our lives? Or our deaths? Who is to say he’s better off living a life he detests than to pass on to another, perhaps better one?
    The troubling thoughts cycled through Abby’s mind on her taxi ride to the Grimes’s home. Though Mrs. Grimes welcomed Abby , Kenya did not.
    “You’re wasting your time, Doctor Gallant,” he said between intermittent puffs of air forced into his lungs through a tube inserted in his throat. “I don’t go out much. People stare at me like I’m some…” PUFF “…kind of freak. A visitor from another planet.” PUFF “Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do…” PUFF “…but if whoever sent you thought I’d change my…” PUFF “…mind because you’re blind, they were wrong.” PUFF
    The constant whoosh of the machine and the boy’s synchronized speech had Abby gulping breaths, as if breathing had ceased to be involuntary. Kenya ’s mother made sure he had enough water and checked his blood pressure. Abby settled her breathing rhythm. She judged this one of those rare times she was glad she couldn’t see. What she heard wrenched her heart.
    When they were alone again, she gave it her best shot. “You can’t give up, Kenya . I know you won’t believe this, but there’s so much you can still do. I—”
    “Stop, Doctor. Please,” he interrupted. “You can still…” PUFF “…function without assistance, do things alone.” PUFF “I’m at the mercy of my family or an attendant for everything.” PUFF “I can’t control my bodily functions or wipe my own nose.” PUFF. “Nothing you say will change my mind. I want…” PUFF “… this to stop. I need them to let me go in peace. I’m not at peace like this.”
    Abby felt pitifully inept. He hadn’t related to her at all. How could he? Her arguments were half-hearted. Would she feel differently in his place, with an alien body, unable to breathe on her own or to feel the touch of a hand on her skin or to touch another’s? Never to make love. Before the end of the hour, Kenya asked her to leave and not to come back. Kenya Grimes was a graphic reminder of life’s fragility, resurrecting that moment eight years before when everything in her world changed. She didn’t realize she was crying until the cool, wet path of a tear trickled down her cheek.
    Though Abby spoke to his mother before leaving, she found no words to alleviate the woman’s pain. None existed. She returned to the office spent, drained of spirit, and passed the rest of the day mechanically, without her usual immersion. She couldn’t concentrate. Everyone else’s problems, including her own, seemed insignificant.
    She listened to a voice message from Luke, his first contact in days. He apologized for his disappearance and would explain when he saw her. He had to work a crime scene, and instead of picking her up after work, he’d be over