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His attention turned immediately to the doctor alked into the roo a white coat, a stethoscope around her neck She was plump and pretty, a pile of curly white hair thick on her head She smiled at him, patted his arm "I’m Dr Chesney"
Griffin said, "I’ on with her? Agent, ah, Ruth said you believed she’d be okay, but she’s not awake"
Dr Chesney automatically lowered the pitch of her voice "We’ve done a CT scan She has no evidence of a skull fracture or of any bleeding or contusions in or around her brain She had a laceration of her scalp that required stitches, and she’s suffered a rather severe concussion"
Dr Chesney saw he’d taken it all in, and added, "We gave her soh we have to be very careful with that She’s still groggy, not co that will last, after the severe blow she had Maybe hours, maybe days, even weeks"
Griffin knew all about concussions, since he’d had his own bell rung e football Mostly he re quite right Griffin looked down at Delsey’s face, leached of color, winced at the large white bandage His fingers hovered over her cheek, then touched her warm skin, maybe to reassure hihtly pressed against the pulse in her throat Slow and steady
Dr Chesney lightly touched a spot above her left ear "As I said, the wound required stitches, but it looks a lot worse with this big bandage than it really is We’ll change it out to smaller The blow jarred her brain, of course, so we can expect short-term sympto, dizziness, nausea, and balance probleent Ha you here will help her I understand she’s a student at Stanislaus I doubt she’ll be up to perfor for a while What is her instruuitar and the piano, but she’s er and a coer?"
Griffin s Delsey say as she rolled her eyes, The Good Lord save h C every other note, except for the National Anthe the National Anthele that
He said to Dr Chesney, "She could have been an opera singer, but what Delsey really likes is to compose and perform popular music She’s already had some success She’s at Stanislaus because she wants to learn everything she can about composition and instrumentation, ah--" Griffin’s voice fell away, and he sed "She’s very talented She’s like our grand a wide space between her front teeth "Your grandmother? Freestone?"
"No, Hammersmith"
"Harander after I first heard her perforie Hall, but alas, even the shoater turns cold when I try an aria"
Griffin srandkids She made the best chocolate-chip cookies in the world"
Children, Dr Chesney thought, had their own criteria for as important She remembered Aladonna Hammersmith had died of heart failure in the early nineties In the years that followed, she’d seen a good half-dozen retrospective shows about her life "I look forward to hearing Aladonna Hahter perform when she’s up to it If we’re lucky, she’ll be back to normal before you know it, so please don’t worry too much I’ll be back in a couple of hours, unless she needs me They can reach ure this all out We sure don’t want a repeat of anything like last year in town Talk about horrific At least she won’t die like the others did" Her eyes flicked again to Delsey Dr Chesney left the roo dead silence in her wake
Ruth shook her head "Talk about a klutz thing to say, but that’s Dr Chesney She was probably still so excited to hear her patient is the granddaughter of her opera goddess she forgot you were here"
He said, "What did she mean, a horrific time last year? Was another Stanislaus student hurt? Killed?"