Peter got up and followed the gurney. He found himself looking through a window in a pair of double doors at a row of treatment tables, some of them occupied by patients. Behind the treatment tables was a row of cubicles, most with patients on tables, some with curtains drawn. As he watched, a man on an examining table sat up, and an orderly brought over a wheelchair. The patient got into the chair, and the orderly took his chart from the foot of the table and put it in the man’s lap. Peter stood back to let them pass through the double doors. Apparently, the man was being discharged.

He pushed open the door and walked briskly into the room, wanting to appear as if he knew where he was going. He walked along the row of cubicles and, four or five down, found Hattie, lying on a table, half sitting up. She looked relieved when she saw him.

He went and stood next to her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was bleeding, but it stopped over an hour ago.

The doctor said he would discharge me in a few minutes, and that was half an hour ago.”

Peter pulled up a chair. “I was scared,” he said. “I came back from the movie, and they said you were in the emergency room.”

“I wanted to call you, but they took my bag away when they put me in the ambulance, and when I got here they wouldn’t let me use my cell phone.”

A very young man in scrubs and a white coat walked into the cubicle. “How are you feeling?” he asked Hattie.

“Just fine, thank you. I’d like to go home.”

He picked up her chart, made some notations, and signed it. “I’ll find an orderly and have you wheeled out.”

“I can do that,” Peter said.

“Okay.” He left and came back with a wheelchair. Hattie got into it, and the doctor handed Peter her chart. “Stop at the discharge window and check out with them, then take her all the way to the street in the chair. You can leave it there. You, young lady, are to go home and rest. If there’s any recurrence of the bleeding, you’re to call an ambulance and return here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“You should be okay to go to school tomorrow,” he said. “Good night.”

Peter pushed the chair into the waiting room and got her checked out. Hattie wrote a check for her bill. “I didn’t want to use my parents’ insurance card,” she said, as Peter pushed her toward the exit.

The rain had let up a lot. “I’ll get us a cab,” Peter said.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” Hattie said. “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”

“Are you sure?”