Chapter 7: Until Duanwu

Qing held her phone beside Su's face. "The courier photographed a gray floor. Seattle contains several. Shall I search them all?"

"The corner appears to be concrete."

"Your gift for detail is wasted in medicine."

Su shifted her weight to her left foot. Heat needled the arch of her right, then spread toward the great toe. Lan's pain had entered there on Thursday night, a narrow share of the burning, enough to let Lan sleep through an examination.

It should have faded yesterday.

Su aligned three bottles in the open drawer, each label facing forward. Across King Street, rain glazed the roof of the bus shelter. The 7 arrived, opened its doors, and left with two passengers running after it.

The bell above White Pine's door rang.

The man who entered folded his umbrella before he crossed the threshold. He wore a plain dark coat over narrow shoulders. Rain had reached the worn hems of his trousers but not soaked them. His close-cropped hair and soft face belonged beside a hospice bed, where a calm expression could serve when medicine had nothing left to offer.

A badge at his chest read HOSPICE SERVICES.

His eyes passed over Qing and settled on Su.

"Suzhen Bai."

The name opened a locked room in her.

Su capped the bottle in her hand. "The pharmacy is open. If you require medicine, describe the complaint."

"Nathan Zhao."

He did not offer his hand.

Qing lowered her phone. "I know what he requires. The door."

Nathan faced her. "Your parcel is behind the recycling bin."

Her fingers closed around the phone. "How do you know?"

"I came through the alley."

"The delivery photograph showed only the floor."

"I know the floor of this alley."

Qing looked at Su.

The shoes beyond the basement vent had been black, worn across the creases. One heel had dragged when the watcher walked away. Nathan's left heel bore the same pale abrasion. His lace was knotted twice.

"Bring in the parcel," Su said.

"I would prefer to remain."

"I would prefer to speak without interruption."

Qing slipped the phone into her battered jacket. At Nathan's shoulder, she paused.

"If you have moved the box, I will find a use for the tape gun."

"I did not touch it."

"A prepared answer."

The bell struck twice behind her.

Nathan watched through the window until Qing turned into the alley. Then he faced the jars nearest the counter, reading their labels before he spoke.

"The man at the bus shelter was me."

March twentieth. A closed umbrella in rain. A small pen lowered after Leon entered White Pine for the second time.

"You remained after the 7 left."

"Yes."

"You watched Mr. Jackson."

"I watched both of you."

Su came from behind the counter. Her right arch burned harder with each step. She placed both feet evenly on the floor.

"How long?"

"Since he walked out without the pain he carried inside."

"You called the trust."

"I asked when the clinic would open."

"You stood over the basement vent."

Nathan's hands drew rigid at his sides. "I heard something fall against tile."

A scale, shed when cold had loosened her shape.

"And Thursday?" she asked.

"I came through the rear door during the outage. I left before the lights returned."

The damp shoe print on the mat. Evan had found the door ajar and tested the latch twice.

"You entered a clinic without consent."

"I did not enter the treatment room."

"You crossed the threshold."

"Yes."

Neither defense nor apology followed. Nathan glanced at her right foot. "Mrs. Pham left with less pain. You began limping before she reached her shop."

"The stocking is irritating."

"There is no swelling."

"You have not examined it."

"No."

His gaze lifted to her face.

"Pain often moves. It does not usually cross the space between two bodies."

Su drew her cuff over the scale beside her right pulse. Nathan's attention followed the motion. His fingers curled against his palms.

There. The first loss of control in him.

"Lan consented to relief," Su said.

"Did she consent to this?"

He faced her foot as he asked, as though the answer lived beneath the stocking.

"The burden is mine."

"She paid without being told the price."

"She slept. She permitted the treatment after I named its limits."

"You named the limits to her body. You concealed the cost to yours."

Su looked past him. In Lan's shop, a customer stood on the fitting platform while Lan knelt to pin a trouser hem. Red thread clung to the sleeve of her black cardigan.

"Tell her," Nathan said. "Tell every patient before you take anything into yourself. Then close the clinic."

"No."

"White Pine may continue as a pharmacy."

"The clinic will continue."

Nathan removed his wet coat and folded it over one arm. His shirt cuffs were worn clean along their edges.

"I encouraged someone to trust a remedy once," he said. "It eased what she could feel. What she could not feel killed her."

He gave Su no name. Grief had already worked the sentence smooth.

"Then her practitioner failed her."

"So did I."

A bus sighed at the curb. Nathan faced the front window until its reflection left the glass.

"Relief can hide deterioration," he said.

"It can also prevent suffering."

"Yes."

Su pressed the pad of her thumb against the counter. The varnish had bubbled beside the sink years ago. She had meant to repair it before winter. She intended to be here for the next winter, and the next.

Nathan put on his coat.

"Close the clinic. Settle your obligations. Leave the watershed."

"I will not be managed out of my home."

"I am giving you time."

"How much?"

"Duanwu. You have until the night before."

The Lake Union festival took the first Saturday in June, ahead of the lunar holiday. Dragon boats would cut the lake. Families would bring zongzi and five-color threads. Some elders would touch realgar wine to children's foreheads, an old protection against sickness, venom, and snakes.

Nathan had selected the date with care.

"June fifth," Su said.

"By nightfall."

"And if I remain?"

"I will prevent further treatment."

"With what authority?"

"With what my family has kept for dangers ordinary law cannot hold."

The pipes behind the wall gave a blunt knock.

Nathan's right hand moved toward his left cuff, then stopped short of it.

Su had not called the water. Rain lay against the windows, in the gutters, under the street. Fresh water touched the whole city, and her body had recognized a threat before she chose an answer.

Condensation climbed the front glass in branching lines.

Nathan looked at it. His shoulders rose inside the coat.

"You have watched me for fifteen days," Su said. "You have found no patient I harmed."

"I found a patient who did not know what happened to her pain. I found a healer whose body is failing under the exchange."

"My body is not your jurisdiction."

"The people around it are my concern."

The pipes knocked again, hard enough to rattle the jars.

Water in the saucer under the potted mint rose from the glazed clay. It gathered without spilling, drawing upward into a clear dome. The mint's roots showed through it, black threads suspended above the counter.

Nathan closed his eyes as if pain had entered behind them.

"You are afraid of me," Su said.

"Yes."

He opened his eyes.

"I am afraid of you."

"Yes."

"Fear does not make me wrong about the risk."

"It makes you dangerous when you mistake it for certainty."

The dome climbed another inch. Its surface trembled toward Nathan.

His thumb slipped beneath his left cuff.

An iron cord circled his wrist.

The instant he touched it, the water dropped flat.

No splash. No gradual collapse. The dome ceased as if a string had been cut. Su felt the break inside her right arm, a blank line from wrist to shoulder where the water had been.

Her hand struck the counter.

Nathan released the cord. The connection returned with a cold rush. Water shivered in the saucer, ordinary again.

He knew iron. He had come wearing an answer.

Su straightened her fingers one by one.

"Leave," she said.

Nathan reached inside his coat. Her body braced, and the pipes answered with a third knock.

He brought out a plain white card.

Nathan Zhao. Hospice chaplain. A telephone number. Nothing else.

He placed it beside the register.

"If you choose to leave, I can prevent pursuit. I will help your patients find other care."

"You assume they become yours when I go."

"They belong to themselves."

He turned toward the door.

"You came here to threaten me."

Nathan rested one hand on the latch. "I came before acting. That is more warning than danger often gives."

The bell rang once behind him.

Outside, he opened his umbrella and joined the people moving beneath the awnings. Nobody made room for him. He adjusted without touching anyone and disappeared beyond the bus shelter.

A thin crack ran across the mint saucer.

It widened with a dry snap. Water escaped beneath the pot and spread toward Nathan's card. Su caught it with a cloth before it reached the appointment book.

Qing returned through the rear hall carrying a dented cardboard box. "It was behind the recycling bin, a location known in several cultures as not the door."

She set down the courier parcel. The joke left her face when she saw Su gripping the counter.

Her attention dropped to the cracked saucer, then to the white card beneath Su's damp cloth.

"Who was he?"

"Nathan Zhao."

Qing did not touch the card. "Zhao."

"Yes."

"Did he show you iron?"

"He wore it against his wrist."

Qing went to the window. Nathan was gone from the street.

"The Zhao keep a place under the old Immigration Station. Iron, running water and a very polite door. Things that go in come out quiet, if they come out."

"He gave me until June fifth to leave the watershed."

Qing turned. "We can be gone tonight."

Her gaze reached Su's face. The rest of the argument died before she gave it breath.

"I am staying," Su said.

Qing picked up the parcel again. The cardboard creased under her fingers.

The front bell rang.

Evan entered sideways with his navy umbrella tucked beneath one arm, a canvas bag over his shoulder, and the missing rubber foot from the privacy screen pinched between two fingers.

"Found this under the rear table. The screen has been listing to port."

Qing took the rubber foot. "It has survived worse than poor balance."

Evan looked from her to Su. His attention dropped at once to Su's right foot.

"You're limping."

"The clinic was tiring."

"That was Thursday."

"It remains true on Saturday."

He set down his bag but did not move closer.

"Do you want me to examine it?"

"No."

"All right. If that changes, call me."

He did not argue, and he did not reach for her after she refused. He had seen the limp and left her ownership of it.

Qing stared at Su over the dented box.

Evan opened his canvas bag. "I brought the intake sheet. One page, both sides. I cut the repeated questions."

He placed the revised sheet on the counter. Su read the first section. Medication history had moved above treatment preferences. He had removed four instances of whenever possible.

"Your grammar has improved," she said.

"Harborview offers continuing education."

His eyes found the wet cloth in her hand. "What happened?"

Su folded the cloth over Nathan's card.

"A hospice chaplain asked about the clinic."

"Nathan Zhao. Marisol says he's been asking about my shifts."

The card seemed to gain weight beneath her palm.

"He came here?"

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"He questioned the clinic's methods."

True. Small enough to hide behind.

Evan waited. When she offered nothing else, he tapped the revised intake sheet.

"Then we should make the methods harder to question."

Qing drew breath. Su met her eyes, and Qing said nothing.

Evan reached into his bag for a pencil. "May also thinks I should have a rear key for clinic nights. I told her it was your call."

The brass key waited in the cup beside the register. Su had planned to give it to him after another week, once she knew how much space he would claim and how often she would permit it.

Nathan had entered through that door two nights ago.

Su took out the key.

She placed it in Evan's palm. His fingers closed around the brass, warm and callused, while the water beneath the city remembered iron.

"Tuesday at five thirty," she said.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

He added the key to his ring. "I'll see you Tuesday."

After he left, Su opened the appointment book. The Tuesday clinics ended in April, written lightly enough to erase.

She penciled them through May.

At June 9, three days after the festival, she pressed until the date imprinted itself on the page below.