Saving Elijah

anxious she made me, even now, look calm, Maria had been coming to see me the longest of any patient in my practice, almost eight years. The demon would say she was my cash cow, but so far it hadn't commented. Or maybe it had. As I said, I could no longer separate my own thoughts from the demon.
    "Hey, I think you owe me that cup of coffee, after all," Peter said.
    "Why's that?" Holding the phone in the crook of my neck, I slid open a drawer to deposit the yellow notepad in the file.
    "Well, it seems to me I get coffee for being inspiration."
    "Oh, that." I closed the drawer.
    "I liked the piece, Dinah."
    "Thanks."
    "So do I get coffee?"
    I sighed. "I really don't think it's a good idea, Peter."
    "My intentions are strictly honorable."
    Right. "I'm sure."
    There was a silence. "Okay, I'll leave you alone. I promise."
    Yes. Leave me alone, Peter. "There is one thing you could do for me," I said.
    "Sure. What's that?"
    "Who's the most respected neurologist in the country?"
    "Besides me?" He laughed.
    "You're a surgeon, aren't you? If a child of yours needed a neurological nonsurgical evaluation, a second opinion—"
    "Is it your child, Dinah?"
    I took a deep breath and sat down again. "My son Elijah was in a coma for three weeks, in January. Then he woke up."
    "Just four months ago. How is he now?"
    "He's fine. Great. He's doing better than ever, with his speech, play, everything." I, on the other hand, am a walking disaster.
    He hesitated. "That's wonderful. Incredible, really."
    "You mean because he should have awakened with brain damage."
    "I'm not sure I would have been so blunt. But more often than not there is something. But three weeks ... you're very lucky. He's very lucky."
    I sighed. "I don't feel lucky. I feel terrified."
    "Because you're still afraid you'll lose him?"
    "Something like that."
    "I can certainly understand."
    "No. You really can't."
    "Well, if Moore is his doctor, he's one of the most respected neurologists around."
    "I know. I'm still thinking about getting a second opinion."
    "May I ask why?"
    "Because I think it's prudent. Because I don't think he really knows what happened. Because truthfully, I can't stand the guy. He makes me nervous, and he's patronizing, and he lacks compassion."
    "He's one of the best."
    "I'm not complaining about his skills as a physician."
    He sighed. "Sometimes..." His voice dropped low, making me wonder where he was calling from. A phone outside the OR? "I'm not trying to make excuses for Moore, I don't even know him. To some degree, you do get used to death and horror. Certain people move you more than others. At least they do me."
    "Like?"
    "About what you'd expect, I guess. Kids. Maybe people I relate to better. Better educated people. That sounds pretty cold-blooded, doesn't it?"
    "Reptilian." At least he was honest. I wondered if he also dated some of his well-heeled successes.
    "And kids are the most difficult, of course."
    "I just think that when doctors are dealing with situations like ours, they ought to have at least a clue," I said. "Moore doesn't have a clue. I'm not complaining about his skill as a diagnostician, or as a doctor. Only his lack of compassion. And I'm not even complaining, really. My son survived. My son survived brilliantly."
    "Sometimes the same skill set isn't possible in the same person."
    "These things can be taught. In medical school, if nowhere else."
    I heard a little snort. "I think the plan in med school is that if you start out with compassion, you damn well won't finish with any. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be flip." I could hear voices in the background, and another sound. What was that? Wheels on linoleum? Rattling carts? Maybe he was outside the OR, after all. "The way medicine is nowadays, it's easy to forget the reasons we became physicians in the first place."
    "Why?"
    "Probably some of the same reasons you became a psychologist."
    "Let's not idealize our reasons. My reasons, like your reasons, I'm sure, were and are complicated."
    "Touche."
    "Anyway, Moore has him on phenobarbital. It seems like a judgment call to me, and I was thinking that we need to get a second opinion about that. So I'm asking. If Elijah were your child, and you already had Abner Moore's opinion, who would you go to for a second opinion?"
    "I'd go to David Selson, at Manhattan Medical Center. He's chair of the department down there. Many moons ago, he was a professor of mine."
    Well, that was two recommendations. Selson it was. I made an