“This is Dr. Jones,” he said, in the same clip voiced she remembered.

“Dr. Jones, my name is Kavita Gupta. My brother, Sunil, was one of your patients. Sunil Gupta.”

“Yes, of course. I was sorry to hear about him.”

For a few seconds, his words didn’t make sense. “You know about what happened to him?”

“Yes, the police notified us.”

The police. She forgot that they had requested the phone numbers of Sunil’s dentist and doctor.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

Why had she called?

“Miss Gupta?”

The reason flooded back to her, and she detached, floating above the current of the things that didn’t make sense—like Sunil’s death, and insurance forms, and his doctor knowing about his suicide but never calling to make sure they were okay. She spoke numbly about the forms.

“You can mail them or drop them off at my office, if you prefer. I’ll let my receptionist know to keep an eye out for them.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. The task she had agonized over for weeks was a matter of daily business for Dr. Jones.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

An entire unspoken conversation lay in the cradle of her partially-opened mouth, but she couldn’t find her courage, nor the dexterity to unloop the stubborn knot in her tongue. “Uh-uh,” she managed to grunt in reply.

“Well then, I apologize, but I have another patient waiting.”

The electric drone of the dial tone resonated in her eardrum, packing it with sound. She hung up the phone and lowered it to the desk.

It was possible that this was simply how things were done. She wouldn’t know. Even if that was the case, however, Kavita found herself asking whether it should be.

He didn’t ask if we were okay. He didn’t offer counselling. He didn’t ask us to come in to discuss where the failure in your treatment occurred. Your family doctor. Yet here we are, your family, in pieces, and he’s on to the next patient.

Blaze would have stirred then, but the chill of her shock was greater than even its fire. She crossed her arms over the cold balling in her stomach.

She had things to say to Dr. Jones. Things she had been working out over the past several weeks. Things she wanted to say on Sunil’s behalf. Like: “You wrote the note.” And, “You put it in his hands.” And, “You wrote completely debilitated on a piece of paper and put that paper in a suicidal man’s hand. He read your words, completely debilitated, and believed it. Yes, it’s true, Sunil took his life. But you should know that you may have taken the last of his hope.”