Miracle Cure by Michael Palmer Page A

pointed out, were more powerful than loss of trust. Phoebe had her fears surrounding his dishonesty and her feelings about drug addiction, and there was nothing that would alter them except time—time and the changes in Brian that only continued recovery could bring.
    Caitlin answered his call on the first ring. She was nine—bookish and intense like her mother and so similar to her in appearance that Brian sometimes thought it was Phoebe sitting curled up in the chair, reading. Even two years after he left the house, Caitlin was still unwilling to accept the situation and seldom spoke about it. Tonight she was anxious to talk about her French class at school,
Heidi
, which she had just finished reading, and her latest piano piece. She reacted mildly to Brian’s news about coming to spend the day with him and Jack. Apparently, Phoebe had yet to explain that because their father’s medical license had been restored, Caitlin and Becky were free to go wherever they and their father wished. The supervised visitations were over.
    “Je t’aime, Papa,”
Caitlin said before turning the phone over to her younger sister.
    “I love you, too, babe,” Brian said, swallowing against the baseball that had suddenly materialized in his throat.
    “Knock knock,” Becky chirped without bothering with a greeting.
    Nearly seven, she was radiant, high-energy, athletic, and as down-to-earth as Caitlin was ethereal. Brian had once asked the girls if they ever agreed on anything. Not surprisingly, one replied yes, and the other, no.
    “Who’s there?” he responded.
    “Ivan.”
    “Ivan who?
    “Ivan workin’ on the railroad. Here’s Mommy. Bye.”
    “Becky!” Phoebe called out. “Come back here and talk some more with your father.… Gone.”
    “That’s okay. I got a knock-knock joke out of her that was actually a knock-knock joke. I’ll settle for that.”
    “She’s doing great.”
    “I know. They both are.… So, I’m officially on board.”
    “Congratulations. You should be very proud of yourself.”
    “I get paid next week. Postdocs don’t earn too much more than fellows, but the check I’ll be able to send you will be increased by almost fifty percent.”
    “Good for all of us,” Phoebe said, out front as always. “My bank account echoes when I deposit money in it. If what you say is true, pretty soon I might be able to cut back a couple of hours a week at work—maybe get involved in Brownies.”
    “Good idea,” he replied, carefully avoiding any reaction to her not-so-subtle reminder of his years of broken promises.
    There was silence, during which Brian knew she was waiting for his retort.
    “You know,” she said finally, “as angry and frustrated as I was with you, I always sensed you could make it through this thing.”
    It’s still a day at a time
, Brian wanted to warn her. Instead, he thanked her. The sentiment was one she had never expressed before.
    The ER was in a rainstorm-induced lull. Brian crossed the muddied reception area and caught up with Gianatasio in the hallway just outside room 4. Phil was hunched over a man in a wheelchair, listening with hisstethoscope inside the man’s unbuttoned shirt. His patient, who looked every bit of seventy-four years, had his left wrist in a cast and his arm in a sling. His unruly hair was a pile of silver straw. His thick-featured, deeply etched face had a pleasing quality to it, although at the moment he appeared anxious. A man who had endured hard times and prevailed, Brian thought.
    Phil worked the stethoscope from his ears and straightened up.
    “Wilhelm Elovitz, meet Dr. Brian Holbrook.”
    “Bill. Everyone calls me Bill,” Elovitz replied with a totally engaging smile and a modest Jewish accent. He gestured to the middle-aged woman pushing his chair. “This is my neighbor, Mrs. Levine. She’s here to take me home.”
    “Bill is going to be on the ten o’clock news,” Phil said. “Maybe even on CNN, and possibly in
Ripley’s Believe It or