On the first floor, Laurie appreciated being surrounded by the surging crowds coming and going in the busy hospital. The anonymity provided an unexpected solace from her mental turmoil. There was a bench opposite the information booth, and Laurie took a moment to sit down. She took a deep breath. She was calming down. What she needed to do was decide what to do next. She'd promised Sue she'd come over to the clinic ASAP to set up an appointment with the oncologist, but as Laurie sat there, she felt the need for a more personal interaction. She thought of Roger and wondered if he'd be available.

The administrative area was close, and as the connecting door closed behind her, Laurie realized that she now preferred the calmness to the hospital lobby's chaos. Her shoes didn't make a sound on the carpet. Trying not to think about the reality of a genetic time bomb ticking away in every one of her cells, she walked down to the area of Roger's office. One of the secretaries recognized her from earlier.

"Dr. Rousseau is in his office now," the secretary said, looking at Laurie from behind her monitor.

Laurie nodded an acknowledgment and walked to Roger's doorway. His door was ajar. He was sitting at his desk, going over paperwork. Laurie knocked on the jamb, and Roger looked up. He was dressed as he usually was at the hospital, in a freshly laundered, crisp white shirt. He had on a golden silk tie, the texture and color of which contrasted nicely with his craggy, permanently tanned face.

"My word!" he said, catching sight of Laurie and leaping to his feet. "I just left a message on your voicemail two seconds ago. What a coincidence." He came around from behind his desk, and closed his door. Turning back to her, he gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead. He didn't notice that her arms stayed limp at her sides. "I'm so glad you are here. I have so much to talk with you about." He turned his two straight-backed chairs around to face each other. He motioned for Laurie to sit, and he did the same.

"You can't believe the morning I've had," Roger gushed. "There were two more postoperative deaths last night, just like the previous four: both of them young and healthy."

"I know," Laurie said in a subdued voice. "I've already autopsied both of them. It was what I was called you about earlier."

"And what did you find?"

"There was nothing: no pathology," Laurie said in the same quiet manner. "They were like the previous four."

"I knew it! I knew it!" Roger said, punching the air with a fist. He stood up and paced back and forth in his tiny office. "I called an emergency meeting of the morbidity/mortality committee this morning, despite our having just met two days ago. I presented the two cases as evidence that these past five weeks have been no more than a pause. I argued vainly that we have to do something. But, oh, no, we're not to rock the boat, since the media might get wind of it. I have half the mind to make an anonymous call to the media so it wouldn't be an issue, but of course I won't. I even went into the president's office after the meeting to try to convince him to change his stance, but it was like talking to the wall. I even managed to get him angry at me by what he called my 'damned dogged determination.' "

Laurie watched Roger pace but couldn't make eye contact. At the moment, the series of suspicious deaths at the Manhattan General was not what was on her mind, but she didn't have the emotional strength to counter Roger's current vehemence about them.

"And then, to make matters worse," Roger added, "we had a homicidal mugging in our parking garage this morning. I mean, I'm starting to get a complex about all this. None of this happened before I came on board."

Roger finally stopped moving and made eye contact with Laurie. His expression suggested that he was looking for sympathy, but it changed when he noticed hers. "Why the long face?" he asked. He bent over to look more closely, then quickly sat down. "I'm sorry. Here I've been ranting and raging and ignoring you, and you're upset. What's wrong?"

Laurie shut her eyes tightly and looked away. Roger's sudden solicitousness reawakened the emotions she'd felt the moment Anne Dickson had given her the definitive news. She felt Roger's hand on her shoulder.

"What is it, Laurie? What's wrong?"

At first, Laurie could only shake her head, for fear that talking would release a flood of tears. She hated her emotionalism. It was such a damn handicap. She straightened up and took a deep breath, letting it out in a sustained huff. "I'm sorry," she managed.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about. I was the one carrying on like a selfish, insensitive brute. What's happened?"

Laurie cleared her throat and began her BRCA1 saga, and once she started talking, she ironically got progressively less emotional, as if her professional persona was able to take over. She talked about her mother and her recent surgery and the fact that she was also positive for the mutated gene. She also mentioned her father's advice to get the test. Leaving out Jack's role, she described how she'd come over to the Manhattan General and had the blood drawn the day she and Roger had met. She then explained how she had successfully forgotten all about it until the call she had gotten that morning from Anne Dickson. She concluded by saying that she'd just come from an interview where she'd been told that she was positive for the BRCA1 marker and for the mutated gene itself, so there was no chance for laboratory error. She admitted she'd blamed the messenger, despite trying to avoid not doing so, and joked that she'd denied the poor woman the opportunity to ask her the quintessential therapist's question: how Laurie felt about the news. Laurie ended by chuckling.

"I'm amazed you can find humor in this," Roger said.

"I feel better after talking to you."

"I'm so sorry about all this," Roger said with a voice that suggested utter sincerity. "What are you going to do? What's the next step?"

"As soon as I leave here, I'm supposed to head over to the clinic to see Sue Passero. She's offered to help arrange an appointment in the near future with an oncologist."

She gave Roger a pat on the thigh and started to stand up.

"Hold on," Roger said, reaching out and pressing down on her shoulder to keep her in her seat. "Not so fast! Since the social worker didn't have a chance, let me ask you how you feel. I imagine it's something like finding out your best friend is your mortal enemy."

Laurie peered into the depths of Roger's dark brown eyes. She found herself wondering if he was asking the question as a close friend or as a doctor. If it was the former, was his interest truly sincere? He seemed to have a knack for saying the right thing, but what was his motivation? Then she chided herself for questioning, but after the marriage and children flap, she wasn't sure of anything.

"I guess I haven't had time to feel much of anything," Laurie said after a pause. She was tempted to say something about her newly recognized ability to compartmentalize her thoughts to the point of just not thinking about anything she didn't want to. But then she decided it was too long a story, since she wanted to get over to the Kaufman Clinic building to see Sue. In the long run, it was the oncologist who was going to be key, and the sooner the appointment was scheduled, the better she would feel.

"There must be something you can share with me," Roger persisted. He still had his hand resting on her shoulder. "You can't learn something as disturbing as this without having some specific fears."

"I suppose you are right," Laurie admitted reluctantly. "For me, some of the suggested prophylactic measures and their side effects are the scariest. For instance, the idea of electively losing my fertility by having my ovaries removed is…"