The Apple Orchard

“The other half will be left to your sister.”

She nearly fell over in her chair. She couldn’t speak for a moment, could only stare at her visitor, aghast. “Whoa,” she said softly. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me a minute here. I have a sister?”

“Yes,” said Dominic. “Look, I know I’ve thrown a lot at you....”

“You think?” Tess struggled to assimilate the information, but she felt flooded by all the revelations. Her heart jolted into overdrive. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning, and she’d learned her estranged grandfather was in a coma he’d probably never come out of, and she had a...sister. The word—the concept—was completely foreign to her.

“What sister?” she managed to ask, although she couldn’t hear her own voice over a rampant pounding in her ears. “Where is she? Who is this...oh, my God...this sister?”

“She’s at Bella Vista, and she— Hey, are you okay?” he asked, again with that oddly penetrating look.

“Just peachy,” she said. Her hands clamped the edge of the desk in a death grip. How could this be happening to her? In the middle of her perfectly normal life, this person had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to tell her about a legacy she didn’t realize she had coming to her.

And a sister she’d never even known about.

Feeling trapped, Tess looked wildly around the office. Her pulse went crazy, hammering away at her chest with a vengeance. It was even worse than it had been the night before. Was she dying? Maybe she was dying. Inanimate objects started to blur and pulsate as though coming to life. Her throat constricted, and she felt her heart thudding against her breastbone. She made an involuntary sound, a gasp of distress and confusion.

“Miss Delaney...Tess?” asked Dominic.

“I...” Her throat felt swollen and clogged. Sweat broke out on her forehead, her upper lip. “Not feeling so hot,” she managed to mutter.

“You look terrible, like you’re going to pass out or something.”

His voice sounded very far away, as if he was shouting down a long tube.

She pressed her hands against her chest. Her fingers felt as cold as ice. Breathe, Tess told herself, but her throat kept closing up.

“I need to...sit down,” she managed to force out.

“Uh, you are sitting down.”

She pressed her hands against the chair. Dear God, what’s happening to me?

Dominic went to the doorway and stuck his head out into the hall. “Hey, we could use some help in here. I think she’s getting sick.”

Tess tried to protest. I’m not sick. Her voice was lost somewhere inside her, and besides, she couldn’t swear the guy was wrong.

People gathered in the small space outside the office. Her blurred vision pulsed harder. A couple of faces pressed close.

Jude: “Jesus, Tess, you look like death on a cracker.”

Oksana: “Maybe it’s a heart attack. Tess! Can you hear me?”

Brooks: “Or a panic attack. Give her a paper bag to breathe into.”

Jude: “I’m calling 911.”

No, said Tess, but no sound came out.

“Where’s the nearest emergency room?” asked Dominic. He took her wrist, and she felt his fingers, delicately feeling for her pulse. Of them all, the stranger was the only one who touched her. She trembled as though stepping into a freezer.

Emergency room? Was she having an emergency? No ER, she thought. That was where people went to have their chests cracked and ended up in the morgue with a tag tied to their big toe.

“Mercy Heights is just across Comstock,” said Jude.

“Then that’s where we need to go.”

“Should I call—”

“No, that takes too long.” Arms that felt as strong and solid as a forklift hoisted her up out of the chair. Dominic Rossi held her as if she weighed nothing.

“Grab her purse, will you?” he said. “And someone get the door.”

* * *

Tess lay on a gurney covered with a crackly, disposable fabric. A thin hospital gown lay over her, and someone had given her a pair of bright yellow socks with nonskid dots on the soles. Little sticky things attached to wires led from her chest to a beeping monitor. More wires led to the tips of her fingers, attached by clear plastic clothespins. Flexible plastic tubing snaked behind her ears and blew chilly, strangely scented oxygen into her nostrils. Someone had left an aluminum chart lying across her thighs.

Bells and announcements went off. Hurried footsteps squeaked across polished floors. There were sounds of conversation, weeping, praying in at least three languages. Someone was moaning. Someone else was cursing fluently at the top of his lungs, and somewhere a patient—or inmate, perhaps—was barking like a dog.

A group of people in lab coats clustered around Tess. Mercy was a teaching hospital, and most of the coat wearers were young and appeared to be incredibly interested in her.

Tess felt limp and defeated, battered by the events of the past two hours. Dominic Rossi had brought her in, carrying her in his arms like a drowning victim. She’d been questioned, monitored, questioned some more, tested and scanned. They’d asked her if she’d ever considered or attempted suicide, who the president was and to describe her state of mind. The screening questions came at her in a barrage, melding together—Did she worry excessively? Had she experienced symptoms for six months or more? Was she unable to control her worry?

She felt numb, defeated, as she replied with dull affirmatives to far too many of the questions.

One of the med students, a pudgy, earnest guy no older than Tess, reported her case. He stood nervously at the end of the bed, reading notes from a rolling monitor station. “Miss Delaney is a twenty-nine-year-old female, height, sixty-seven inches, weight, one-hundred-nineteen pounds, with no previous history of health issues. She was brought in by...” He consulted the monitor. “A friend or coworker who became worried about her when she exhibited a variety of symptoms, including shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, disorientation, blurred vision....”

She felt like a different person, lying there, or maybe an inanimate item about to be put up for auction. Anyone within earshot could hear her story. The med student reported the replies to her “lifestyle choices” and results of the labs done in the ER. In flat tones, mercifully free of judgment, he told the attending physician that she was underweight and smoked. Her blood pressure and pulse were elevated. A chem panel revealed that she was not on drugs nor was she the victim of poison. The patient reported that she had experienced these symptoms before but never with this intensity.

When the student finished, the attending, an older man, stepped forward. “Your labs are in,” he informed her.

“That’s a relief,” Tess said. Her voice was thin and strained, but at least she was beginning to sound like herself again. “I’m ready to get out of here.”

“I’m sure you are. However, we do need to discuss the differential diagnosis—”

“The what?”

“Your condition.”

“Condition? I have a condition? I do not have a condition. I have a meeting with—” Her heart sped up, and two of the monitors betrayed her.

A student adjusted her oxygen flow. The doctor wheeled a monitor into view. “I’ll show you the results. There’s nothing physically wrong with you.” He went over her EKG and ultrasound, her blood tests and urinalysis. “However, your symptoms are real, and the good news is, very treatable. Have you ever heard of generalized anxiety disorder? Sometimes referred to as GAD.”

“Anxiety disorder?” She hated the sound of that. “Disorder” applied to her housekeeping habits, not her health. “You mean, I had an anxiety attack?”

“You’ll want to follow up with your primary care physician.”

“I don’t have a doctor,” she said. “Doctors are for sick people.”