I listened to Nathan describe the patients he was turning over to me as I came on to work the afternoon shift. “In Room 3 is Mr. Stevens. He had a brief episode of chest pain this morning, which is new for him. His EKG and chest x-ray are fine, and he's had no arrhythmias. The only thing pending on him is cardiac enzymes. In Bed 6 is Molly Adams, who works here in administration. She attempted suicide by taking . . .”

Beads of sweat popped onto my forehead and lip. He was turning Molly over to me? Shit! Suicide?

“. . . Valium and Elavil. She had no response to Narcan . . . hey Pez, are you OK?”

“Ah, yeah, I'm fine.”

“You're sweating and you're as white as a sheet. You're not coming down with the flu, are you?”

“No, I'm not sick.”

“All right. Anyway, that guy with her is her boyfriend . . .”

I wondered, her boyfriend?

“ . . . but he doesn't know why she did it. She's still stuporous (see definition below), so when her labs are back call Barney—he's on-call for ICU today. Well, that's it. I'm outta here! I hope you have a quiet shift.”

Her boyfriend? The last time I saw Molly, which was two weeks ago, I was her boyfriend. I wondered what impelled her to replace me so quickly. Oh yeah, I recalled, the recording. Suddenly, everything came into focus.

Molly had called me a few months before and left a message on my answering machine. I knew her from work and we had flirted occasionally over the past year, but I'd never gone out with her. Yet. Molly's message said that she was recently divorced and lonely and “I really need a friend right now.”

She left her number and I dialed it before my answering machine tape had rewound. Molly was home, and was happy that I called back so soon. She wanted to get together tonight, if possible.

As I hugged her an hour later in my foyer, I realized how wonderful it felt to hug a woman with a great body. Molly wasn't the only one who needed a friend.

So that's how it began. The ending was even more abrupt. No, it wasn't in the ER. In fact, Molly was not even around the second I realized our relationship was over. I was in the hospital cafeteria when I noticed a poster on the wall listing all employee birthdays for January. Oh no, January 21st, three days ago. Her birthday. I'd missed it, and I'd known that it was coming up. The second I realized that, I recalled what Molly told me about how upset she was over the fact that her husband always forgot her birthday when they were married. She would never again marry such a thoughtless man, she said. Oops.

I suppose I should have concocted an excuse and called her even though my birthday greetings would have been three days late, but I'm so opposed to lying I would not do it even to save my own skin. I hoped that she would call me and either forget about my oversight or excuse it because we'd been dating for such a short time, but no such luck. Her call never came.

Given that our separation was tacit, approaching her under any circumstance would have been uncomfortable. But in an ER, where I was the doctor, and she was the patient who'd just attempted suicide, who was now accompanied by her new boyfriend? This was more than an everyday awkward circumstance. My mind writhed as it conjured up all sorts of unpleasant scenarios. If I went over to her and she became lucid enough to recognize me, would she create a scene? Perhaps in her mind I was the callous, insensitive boyfriend who had suddenly stopped calling for no reason. Sometimes a woman who thinks she has been scorned will lash out at the man who snubbed her. Would Molly scream at me, or worse? If so, how would I document this in her medical record? I wanted that to be accurate, but I sure the heck did not want to be personally part of it.

My thoughts wondered back to her answering machine message. Lonely. Needed a friend, now. No wonder she'd been in a hurry to find a replacement for me. But why did she try killing herself? Since she'd found a new boyfriend so soon, I knew she was not lamenting the loss of me. Had something happened between them? I was curious, but I certainly didn't intend to ask her. My game plan was to hide behind the nursing desk and hope that she didn't spot me.

Molly's nurse asked me if she were stable enough to transport to the ICU. How the heck did I know? Ordinarily, I would check her myself, but not now.

“I don't know, Sharon, what do you think?”

“Her vital signs have been fine, and she is more awake now. What do her labs show?”

“They just came back. They're fine.”

“OK, can I call report up to ICU?”

“Let me call Barney first.”

“Oh, OK. Let me know when we can transfer her.”

Three hours later, when I thought Molly was safely tucked away in the ICU, one of the ICU nurses called and asked to speak with me.

“Dr. Pezzi, Molly wanted to know if you're working in the ER today. Didn't she see you there?”

“No, Nathan was working when she first came in. She was really out of it when I began my shift.”

“Oh. Anyway, did you read her note?”

“What note?”

“Her suicide note.”

More beads of sweat. “I didn't know there was a note.”

“Yeah, she said she left it on her bedside table. I guess the paramedics didn't see it.”

What a miracle, I thought. If a paramedic sees a suicide note, he will invariably bring it to the ER. “Apparently they didn't.”

“Well, I gotta go. Keep it quiet down there. We don't want any more admissions.”

I'd heard that phrase thousands of times from hundreds of people, and I thought to myself, as if I have anything to do with bringing patients into the ER who might need admission! Well, on second thought, in this case I probably did.

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