BooksBarbecue
Back The Family Doctor
Chapters (29)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. PRAISE
  3. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  4. DEDICATION
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

That was a lesson she’d had to learn as a young doctor—learning to sit with your inability to fix some patients. But Rochelle Ferguson didn’t belong on the unfixable list. The follow-up appointment on Monday would be another chance to talk to her without arousing her husband’s suspicion. This time, Paula would be equipped with information and viable options, even if she had no protective magic spells to offer.

SIX

ANITA REALISED SHE HAD UNCONSCIOUSLY STARTED TO car-dance, bum bouncing on the driver’s seat, shoulders twitching and hands drumming the steering wheel to the rhythm of the dance music on Fernanda’s playlist—a string of cumbia numbers, mostly Colombian, pulsing with percussive energy.

Anita loved all her Chilean cousins but Fernanda had always been her favourite. After the news about Anita’s dead friend spread to the relatives back in Chile, there were many loving messages and boxes of sweet treats posted to her. Fernanda sent a short, beautiful text and a link to a Spotify playlist she’d put together for Anita.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, Anita’s mother was cooking on an industrial scale. In emergency mode. The woman already had a full schedule, ferrying Anita’s dad to his many medical appointments, as well as wrangling her own health issues, but she was staying up past midnight preparing batches of pastel de choclo and cazuela to deliver to her daughter in this time of sadness.

Anita’s freezer was now jammed with containers of Chilean comfort food. She must take some around to Paula’s next time.

Anita glanced out the side window of the car to see a truckie looking down at her as she danced in the driver’s seat. Anyone cruising past would assume this was a happy woman in high spirits. But it was only the music, the irresistible beat and effervescence of it, making her move like this, in defiance of her true mood. Maybe it was inappropriate, fake, wrong. Still, it felt beneficial, as if she was keeping circulation going to dead limbs and maintaining muscle tone ready for a future when genuine good feelings might return. That was why she’d been playing that cumbia playlist on a constant loop in the car, on walks, in her apartment.