I turned my phone around.
I showed her the screen.
She read it.
She put her hand over her mouth.
“That idiot,” she whispered.
“That good, stupid idiot.”
“Tell me about that night,” I said.
“The night before Thanksgiving.”
“He told you?”
“He told me some of it.”
“He told me the on-call surgeon didn’t answer.”
Denise went very still.
“He told you that?”
“He didn’t tell me who.”
She looked out the window.
At the parking lot.
At nothing.
“Denise.”
“I paged him four times,” she said.
“Paged who?”
She didn’t answer.
“Denise, who was on call?”
She looked back at me.
“Ask Owen why he didn’t pick up.”
The diner noise went far away.
The coffee machine.
The cook yelling an order.
All of it.
“Owen,” I said.
“I’ve worked beside Nate for twelve years,” Denise said.
“I watched them walk him out in March.”
“I watched him come back every day and sit with that little girl.”
