though each heave of wind stirs up a snowy ghost before the car. It’s a little disorienting, with the clouds so low they hide the mountains and the diffuse light of late afternoon washed evenly across the sky.
She comes around a low hill and a distant line of trees marks the river to give her some bearing, but the only visible buildings are a few scattered ranch houses and barns. She must still be four or five miles outside of town; it is an area well beyond the usual tourist loop. Farther on, a cluster of concrete blocks squats between this road and the highway—a metal fabricator, a lumber yard, a tractor repair barn—the working industry that churns gritty and resolute behind the ski shops and gift galleries.
At the entrance to the driveways she sees a white sign with a bright red cross painted above two words: CLINIC and CLINICA . The building itself looks identical to its industrial neighbors, coldly functional, cheerless but for the yellow light brightening a row of high windows. She would wonder if she’d truly arrived at a medical facility—one for humans—but for the sign above the glass door. She puts the car into reverse and starts to back out of the lot, then brakes again, scans theempty yard and parks beside the wheelchair ramp leading up to the entrance. What harm is there in talking to them? Maybe they could give her a lead? And then there is the harsher truth she’s just starting to face: she has been turned down by every other clinic in this town.
The waiting room is less bleak than the building. The mint green walls are lined with molded plastic chairs stamped out in sun-faded primary colors. Seven are occupied. A couple of teenaged girls, one wearing a skimpy tank top, are huddled over a Hollywood gossip magazine. The rest of the patients are Hispanic, and Claire feels their eyes on her as she walks up to the reception desk in her knee-length down coat carrying her leather briefcase. There is a swinging gate that separates the waiting area from what must be exam rooms and offices; it looks deserted, with only a single light at the far end of the hallway and all the doors shut.
The woman behind the front desk is also Hispanic, young and round faced with smooth hair parted in a perfect line down the middle of her scalp and pulled into a tight black ponytail. She is typing data into an ancient computer—a bulky CRT box that blocks Claire’s view of her body. Claire starts to introduce herself but the woman holds her hand up as a stop sign without even glancing up, then jumps into a stream of animated Spanish. Claire is about to stop her when she notices the telephone headset. She puts her briefcase on a chair and waits, studying the posters thumbtacked to the walls: YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT, DIABETES CAN HURT YOU WITHOUT HURTING, ARE YOU SAFE IN YOUR OWN HOME ? Most are in Spanish.
A children’s area is set up in one corner, miniature plastic chairs tucked under a wooden table holding a wire maze dotted with sliding colored beads. When Jory was three she had caught her foot on just such a toy and bitten down so hard on her tongue they had rushed her to the local emergency room with blood spilling from her lips. Claire had been too panicked to think of any first aid at home, not even ice.
“Can I help you?” The first English words she’s heard in this room make her turn back to the desk, but the woman is still focused on the computer screen. After a minute, though, she says it again, now taking off the headset and fixing Claire with a mildly impatient look.
By now Claire has changed her mind about coming in the door at all, feels, in fact, an overwhelming desire to be soaking in a hot bathtub—and not the pitted tank waiting for her at the house. She wants her old tub. The capacious, milky-white oval with the sloping back and the brass waterfall spout that somebody else is now paying a mortgage on. She shakes her head at the receptionist, ready to duck out and leave when someone starts
She comes around a low hill and a distant line of trees marks the river to give her some bearing, but the only visible buildings are a few scattered ranch houses and barns. She must still be four or five miles outside of town; it is an area well beyond the usual tourist loop. Farther on, a cluster of concrete blocks squats between this road and the highway—a metal fabricator, a lumber yard, a tractor repair barn—the working industry that churns gritty and resolute behind the ski shops and gift galleries.
At the entrance to the driveways she sees a white sign with a bright red cross painted above two words: CLINIC and CLINICA . The building itself looks identical to its industrial neighbors, coldly functional, cheerless but for the yellow light brightening a row of high windows. She would wonder if she’d truly arrived at a medical facility—one for humans—but for the sign above the glass door. She puts the car into reverse and starts to back out of the lot, then brakes again, scans theempty yard and parks beside the wheelchair ramp leading up to the entrance. What harm is there in talking to them? Maybe they could give her a lead? And then there is the harsher truth she’s just starting to face: she has been turned down by every other clinic in this town.
The waiting room is less bleak than the building. The mint green walls are lined with molded plastic chairs stamped out in sun-faded primary colors. Seven are occupied. A couple of teenaged girls, one wearing a skimpy tank top, are huddled over a Hollywood gossip magazine. The rest of the patients are Hispanic, and Claire feels their eyes on her as she walks up to the reception desk in her knee-length down coat carrying her leather briefcase. There is a swinging gate that separates the waiting area from what must be exam rooms and offices; it looks deserted, with only a single light at the far end of the hallway and all the doors shut.
The woman behind the front desk is also Hispanic, young and round faced with smooth hair parted in a perfect line down the middle of her scalp and pulled into a tight black ponytail. She is typing data into an ancient computer—a bulky CRT box that blocks Claire’s view of her body. Claire starts to introduce herself but the woman holds her hand up as a stop sign without even glancing up, then jumps into a stream of animated Spanish. Claire is about to stop her when she notices the telephone headset. She puts her briefcase on a chair and waits, studying the posters thumbtacked to the walls: YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT, DIABETES CAN HURT YOU WITHOUT HURTING, ARE YOU SAFE IN YOUR OWN HOME ? Most are in Spanish.
A children’s area is set up in one corner, miniature plastic chairs tucked under a wooden table holding a wire maze dotted with sliding colored beads. When Jory was three she had caught her foot on just such a toy and bitten down so hard on her tongue they had rushed her to the local emergency room with blood spilling from her lips. Claire had been too panicked to think of any first aid at home, not even ice.
“Can I help you?” The first English words she’s heard in this room make her turn back to the desk, but the woman is still focused on the computer screen. After a minute, though, she says it again, now taking off the headset and fixing Claire with a mildly impatient look.
By now Claire has changed her mind about coming in the door at all, feels, in fact, an overwhelming desire to be soaking in a hot bathtub—and not the pitted tank waiting for her at the house. She wants her old tub. The capacious, milky-white oval with the sloping back and the brass waterfall spout that somebody else is now paying a mortgage on. She shakes her head at the receptionist, ready to duck out and leave when someone starts
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