Paula had seen Judy and her family through the normal run of illnesses and some personal tangles in recent years. There’d been Judy’s own gynaecological woes and the bout of depression after her marriage broke down. There’d been the teenage daughter’s bad scoliosis, but spinal surgery had gone well and the girl was now studying physiotherapy and playing high-level basketball. There’d been the substance-abusing son who veered close to self-destruction. Paula had helped Judy coax him into detox, residential programs and whatever threads might hold him in life during the most precarious phases. That son was now in his mid-twenties, sober for over a year and doing a TAFE course. Then Judy’s mother had suddenly showed up, dying from lung cancer secondaries. Paula had helped organise home nursing until the mother went to hospital for her final days.

Judy flashed her fabulous earthy smile as she walked into the consulting room and plonked herself on the chair. ‘Hi, Paula.’

‘Good to see you, Judy.’

Judy always made Paula feel like a person in her own right and not just a doctor fixing problems. She’d sent Paula a thoughtful, tender note when Remy died and another one when Stacey and the children were killed. She was a good woman, stoic, a warrior for her kids.

‘Work’s slowed down a bit,’ Judy said, ‘and no one in my family is currently in crisis, so I’ve got a window of time to do some body maintenance. I’m thinking mammogram, check cholesterol, get skin cancers burned off, grease and oil change, all that palaver.’

‘Good idea.’

Paula took her blood pressure, organised the referrals Judy wanted, wrote repeat prescriptions for her regular meds. Judy chattered on, updating Paula on how the kids were doing—both pretty well, even the errant son.

When they were finished and Judy was clutching her fistful of paperwork, she hesitated a second too long in the chair.

‘Ah,’ said Paula. ‘Looks like there’s something else, Judy.’ She could always tell when a patient presented with a few straightforward problems but was really there to talk about some more delicate or embarrassing matter.

Judy laughed. ‘Oh, Paula, you do know me!’

She reached into her large handbag and pulled out an object wrapped in a couple of tea towels.

‘Remember when I was looking after Mum at home and the palliative people prescribed her this liquid painkiller stuff?’ Judy unwrapped the tea towels carefully to reveal a brown glass bottle of Dilaudid. ‘I remember thinking at the time—that’s a bloody big flagon of a powerful narcotic they handed to me.’

‘Looks like it’s almost full.’

‘Yeah, because Mum ended up in the hospital two days after I got it. Anyway, it’s been in my wardrobe for months. And now that I’ve got my son back living with me, I don’t want to leave temptation lying around the house.’