THE POWER OF GOOD NEWS

Ladarat held that hope in her mind all the way to the hospital. And even as she walked down the still, dark basement hallway, she was imagining the market stalls piled with fresh strawberries and dragonfruit and the tiny bite-size apple bananas that were so sweet.

But that hope didn’t last long. She’d just arrived in her office and had barely put her bag in her desk drawer when the phone rang. Involuntarily she looked at her watch. Seven o’clock? Who thought she would be in her office at this hour on a Saturday?

The answer, apparently, was the ICU nurses. There’d been a “development” in the American’s case. That was all the nurse would tell her. There’d been a development and could she please come as soon as possible?

She could. Why not?

And, too, she was worried. Very worried. Any development in the American’s case was unlikely to be a good one. She ran through a list of possibilities as she made her way down the still-deserted basement hallway and pressed the elevator button. Too distracted even to wrestle over whether she should take the elevator or the stairs. So the elevator won by default. It was a relief, frankly, not to think about something for a change.

Unfortunately, choosing the quick way up six floors gave her less time to think about what might be waiting for her. Still, she knew it wasn’t that the American had died. The nurse would simply have said so. Perhaps his family was creating a disturbance? But again, she would have said that. What would be so strange—or so uncomfortable—that she wouldn’t have wanted to try to explain over the phone?

There really was only one explanation, and Ladarat had just reached that conclusion by the time she walked quickly through the waiting room. On the way, she noticed with some relief that the strange man was not there, but that was the only mental detour she had time for. A minute later, at the nurses’ station, she found the head nurse and three other nurses, clustered together with Suphit Jainukul.

They all looked up expectantly as she crossed the floor. It seemed as though they were waiting… for her. Why?

But she was pretty certain that she knew.

“The American is… awake?”

Their expressions convinced her that she was not wrong. Only the director nodded, though. The others seemed too confused to say anything. In their confusion they deferred to the director, who just smiled.

“Ah,” he said simply. “You heard.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was simple deduction. As Professor Dalrymple said, if you remove every explanation that is impossible, what remains—however unlikely—has to be the true explanation. Or words to that effect.

Then Khun Suphit beckoned to her and the two of them crossed the room to stand outside the glass door of the American’s room. His face was still very puffy, and his head was swathed in bandages, but…

“He woke up so suddenly early this morning that he pulled the breathing tube out of his trachea before anyone could react. We thought of replacing it, but he seemed to be awake and breathing on his own. We sedated him just a little so he wouldn’t struggle, but he’s starting to wake up now.” Indeed, they could see his eyes were open.

What was even more surprising was the presence of the hospital’s assistant nurse ethicist by his bedside. As they watched, Sisithorn laid a compress on his forehead and seemed to be talking to him. One could only imagine what she was saying. Whatever it was, though, seemed to calm the young American. His eyes closed and he fell asleep as they stood there. Sisithorn beckoned to another nurse who had materialized next to her and they traded places. Then she squirted some hand sanitizer from a dispenser by the door and offered a wai to both of them before rubbing the alcohol mixture into her skin.

“Ah, Khun, you have heard?”

Ladarat nodded, wondering with a small part of her brain how Sisithorn had learned about this before she did. It was not appropriate for her assistant to be called in first. Not appropriate at all.

She turned to the director, but before she could frame a question, he said that Sisithorn had been there already. She had been there, he said, just as the American began to show signs of waking up.

“So diligent,” he said, smiling. “You are fortunate indeed to have such an assistant.”

“Indeed,” was all she said.

The director smiled and nodded. “Your assistant has taken a very strong interest in this case, it seems.”

Well, there would be time to sort this out later. For now, there was only one question that needed to be asked.

“Have you told the family?”

Now the director looked sheepish. “Not yet… it’s still early. But of course we need to. It’s just that…”

“They will be surprised?”

“That, and they will think that we were stupid to be so… pessimistic just yesterday.” The director grinned in embarrassment. “Just yesterday, I said that he wouldn’t survive. And now here he is—awake.” He shook his head. “It makes us look foolish.”

What he didn’t say was potentially even worse—that he would look foolish in front of any inspectors who reviewed this case. The inspector would see what they told the family. And he would see that the doomed patient was alive now… That would be bad. That would be very bad.

But there was nothing to be done. And besides, what was important was that the American seemed like he might recover. So that was what she told the director.

“His family will be very pleased,” she suggested. “So pleased, that they will forget everything they’d been told.”

The good physician didn’t look convinced. Nor did Sisithorn. So Ladarat turned to her assistant. “Do you remember when you got this job?”

Sisithorn nodded respectfully, her eyes fixed on the linoleum tile beneath their feet. “Of course, Khun.”

“You said everyone had told you that you would never be hired. That there were hundreds of very strong applicants. That you wouldn’t stand a chance. Am I right?”

Sisithorn nodded. “You are right, Khun.”

“So when you found out you got the job, were you angry at the people who told you those things?”

Sisithorn shook her head.

“No, of course you weren’t. You were simply happy to have the job. That is the power of good news—it allows us to forget everything that came before.” She turned back to the director. “And that is what this family will feel. They will be so happy—and so grateful—that they will not dwell on what you’ve said in the past.”

The director smiled a genuine smile. “Well,” he said, “you know Americans. And how they think.”

The inspectors, of course, were another matter entirely. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it. In the meantime, they would need to tell the family. Ladarat was just thinking about how to do that when Sisithorn volunteered. She would go with Dr. Wattana, she said. They were here when the American woke up, so it was only right.

Dr. Wattana? It took Ladarat a moment. Ah, the ICU fellow who looked like a bespectacled stork.

Then one of the nurses was waving frantically at the director and pointing to the phone in her hand. He shrugged and thanked Sisithorn.

When they were alone, Ladarat asked Sisithorn what she would say to the Americans. “What are you going to tell them? You must make certain not to cast aspersions on his doctors, you understand? You must be very careful…”

She trailed off. She sounded, she knew, like an overprotective parent. Sisithorn was smart and capable. And she had a relationship with the American’s wife and his parents. That would count for a great deal. And… well… she shouldn’t worry so much.

Before Sisithorn could answer, Ladarat simply told her assistant to ignore what she’d just said. “Do you have any questions for me?” was all she asked.

Sisithorn shook her head. “No, Khun, I don’t think so. Dr. Wattana will be with me. And as you said, we are bringing good news. And… Khun?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think this will be a surprise to them. I think… they expected good news. Kate in particular. She was ready for bad news, but she still had very strong hopes, I think. It’s been as though she thought some miracle would happen.”

Ladarat nodded. “Exactly so. They won’t be distressed by this change because they never really believed what we told them before, any more than you believed the people who said you wouldn’t be able to get this job.”

Then Ladarat left Sisithorn in the ICU to go find Dr. Wattana. She hoped that they would go soon. It wouldn’t do for the family to come up to the ICU and discover on their own that the patient had woken up.

But there was no danger of that. Sisithorn knew that time was of the essence. More important, she knew what time meant, which was one of the main reasons Ladarat had hired her. She hadn’t been the best qualified applicant, it’s true. But she was the only one who had arrived early for her interview. That was why she got the job.