Startled, Michael looked up as Fortuna rapped on his open door. His nurse had usually gone home by this hour.
“What is it, Fortuna?”
“The patient—the man with the stab wound. I checked on him for you. Esma is still with him, and she sent me to get you.”
Michael swung his legs off the desk. “Is his condition deteriorating?”
“Yes, but it is the story that concerns Esma.”
“His story? She understands him?”
“Enough. He is talking, she is picking up a few things, but she says he talks like a man out of his head.”
“That’s not surprising, really. I would expect some sort of delirium in his condition. What I find surprising is the fact he’s able to talk at all.”
Michael glanced at his watch—long past time for dinner, and nearly sunset. He ought to go home himself. He snorted at the thought. What on earth for?
Nodding, he looked up at his nurse. “Thank you. I’ll go tell Esma she can go home. We can’t expect her to conduct a bedside vigil for every native who wanders out of the jungle.”
Fortuna’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “She does not mind, el doctor. But please, she wishes to speak to you.”
Blowing out his cheeks, Michael pushed back from his desk. The day would never end unless he locked his office and went back to his flat. Sooner or later, he would.
Yet nothing waited for him there but impersonal furnishings and a television spewing out Spanish-language programs that only muddled his thoughts . . . and made him long for home.