She walked in with a smile and with light and airy steps into the windowless den that was Conference Room D. It felt like a morgue, with its stale air and harsh lighting, along with the scrupulous eyes of those seated at the long oak conference table. If the room had any windows, if she could have just seen outside, then she would have perhaps felt less like she’d walked into the end of the world. Life would still be moving, going on outside. There would be a passenger jet streaking across the sky, gaining altitude from the nearby airport. There would be traffic below—maddening traffic, but life-affirming nonetheless.

But there were no windows, or escape hatches, nor was there anything life-affirming about Dr. Wahl and his ghoulish expression.

“Hi, Fiona,” he said with a sort of manufactured warmth. “Please have a seat.”

His head was shiningly bald, but still with two—perhaps three—long wispy strands of hair combed across. He seemed to savor them, clutching on to them as if they were relics in some important anthropological display, the last vestiges of youth. Of course he had other things to show for his lost youth. Mainly, a varying set of expensive luxury cars parked in a personalized, prime parking space right by the elevator doors. On nice days he’d roar in on an oversized Harley Davidson. And although it might have been a Harley in name, it certainly wasn’t in spirit. It was more of a sofa on wheels than something a Hell’s Angels member would be caught dead with.

“Fiona? I’m Deb Turvey.”

A hand came reaching over to shake hers. An unfamiliar hand and face. Even the name: Deb Turvey. Was she supposed to know a Deb Turvey?

“Hi,” Fiona said, midway through a quick and sloppy handshake.

“And you know Wendy of course,” said Dr. Wahl, motioning to Fiona’s supervisor across the table to round out the introductions.

“Of course,” said Fiona, staring at Wendy, trying to read her expression, her silence. She looked icy and distant. Not even concerned, just shut off completely.

“And you know why you’re here,” said Dr. Wahl.

“No. I actually don’t.”

Wendy’s chair scraped along the ground as she moved in her seat. “I didn’t have a chance to explain it to her.”

“That’s not a problem,” said the doctor as he pointed to one of the many empty chairs surrounding the table. “Please, Fiona, take a seat.”

Fiona found a chair that was sufficiently close to the three others, just close enough but not too close.

“Okay,” said the doctor. “Okay, great.”

“So, can you tell me what this is about?” Fiona said, trying not to cross her arms. She had nothing to be defensive or nervous about. She did nothing wrong. Aside from a little spilled blood today. And then there was that little bit of spilled coffee in the break room. Were they going to ask her about that too?

“It’s about last week,” said Dr. Wahl. “Last Thursday. An anomaly had been brought to our attention.”

“A what?”

“Deb?” he said. “Maybe you can explain it for us?”

“And who’s Deb again?” Fiona cut in. “Sorry. I just didn’t catch—”

“Deb’s from HR,” said Dr. Wahl.

“So is there a problem?” asked Fiona. “Did I do something?”

Dr. Wahl strummed a finger against his mustache. “Did you do something? Hmm.” More strumming. “Yes, you might have. Deb, could you?”

Deb Turvey cleared her throat. “First of all, this isn’t—”

“Wait,” Fiona interrupted again. “Shouldn’t I have the union here with me? Should I have a rep for this?”

“Well, fortunately,” said Deb. “Fortunately, and as I was trying to say . . . This isn’t an official disciplinary procedure.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re not getting written up. Okay?”

“Still, shouldn’t I—?”

“No,” said the doctor. “And we’re doing this for that very reason. So we can avoid all that. So we can avoid having, you know, the whole . . .”

“We want to avoid an official disciplinary action,” said Deb, jumping in to cover for the doctor, fumbling in place behind like a baseball outfielder. “We, uh, don’t think that needs to happen.”

“Okay,” said Fiona.

“Unless, of course, you’re really insistent on having representation from the union.” Deb cocked her head as if she’d said something supremely witty. Not a threat, of course.

“Well, no,” said Fiona. “No, I guess it’s okay.”

Dr. Wahl smiled. “We thought so.”

“Fiona, did you work 324D last Thursday?” asked Deb.

“I don’t know . . .”

“You don’t?”

“No. What’s the patient’s name?”

“Walter Hendricks,” said Deb.

“Oh, Wally.” Fiona pictured him immediately. A frail old man lying in bed, mouth agape. Eyes closed ninety percent of the time. “Wally Hendricks,” she said warmly.

“So you’re familiar?”

“Yes. Mostly catheter work. Right? Is that him, with the catheter?”

“Yes.”

“Right. I did the insertion, so, I don’t usually forget those ones.”

“Well,” said Deb. “You seemed to forget about this one.”

“No, I didn’t. I know Wally.”

“No.” Deb made a pained expression. “You forgot to go back and unclamp it after you took a sample.”

“Fiona,” said Dr. Wahl, straightening up in his seat. “You clamped the tube after getting a urine sample, walked it off to the lab, and then punched out and went home. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yeah,” she said hesitantly. Was it correct? Yeah, she thought it was. She remembered vividly that she had rushed out because her sister had another setback. “Yeah, it’s correct. So?”

“So you forgot to unclamp the guy.”

Jesus Christ . . .

“I bet you don’t remember that part, right?”

Of course not.

What the fuck?

“Poor Wally,” said the doctor, shaking his head. “Christ Almighty . . .”

Fiona felt the hot panic come on, surging in waves of shakiness. She tried to speak but it came out mostly as air, a crushing gasp. “I’m so . . .” Her throat felt swollen and shut. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe it.” She swallowed hard.

“Well,” said Dr. Wahl. “That’s what happened.” He was staring right into her, so strongly that she had to look away.

“So we just wanted to go over that with you,” said Deb.

Rather, they just wanted to rake her over the coals. A group effort, each of them grabbing a limb from across the wide conference table. Fiona could feel her body and whatever bit of ego she had left being torn apart.

“Fiona?” asked Deb. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just . . .” She just couldn’t believe it. And she was getting so sick of the mistakes. So fucking sick of it. “Was he okay? Wally?” She imaged the nice old man again, but this time he was drowning in his own urine. A big horrible vat of urine. What a horrible mess . . . “Was he . . . like . . .? Did it take long for someone to see the clamp?”

“They caught it in the morning,” said Dr. Wahl.

“Oh, God . . .”

“Yep.”

“I’m so sorry,” Fiona said quietly. She felt herself starting to sweat, her armpits warm and sticky. She probably smelled horribly. Stress sweat.

“His wife asked why he hadn’t urinated all night,” said the doctor with a sigh.

“God . . .”

“Yeah. It was a mess. Got about 900ccs out of the poor guy.”

Fiona’s head had bowed down lower and lower throughout the revelations, her chin practically attached to her chest now. She was looking down at her hands, each one holding the other. It seemed to stabilize her, to keep her whole body from shaking. She at least had control of her hands. The rest of it, like her standing with her seniors, and her reputation at the hospital, the rest of it was strewn to the wind. Probably damaged forever. Fiona, the constant fuckup.

“Let’s just get this straight and out of the way,” said Deb. “You’re not on any drugs or substances or anything, right?”

“No. Of course not.”

“How about any kind of medications?”

“I just said no.”

“How about stress?”

“What about it?”

“Are you, um—”

“Yes,” said Fiona. “You’re making me feel quite stressed right now. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“Stress can be worse than a drug addiction,” said Dr. Wahl, in his infinite fucking wisdom, with his hands resting on the table, fingers bridged together like some old sage. “It’s acceptable that some members of our staff experience some level of stress. We are working in a hospital. But a kind of long-term, uh, imbalance, can be distracting. Almost debilitating, and uh . . . well, deadly.”

“Are you saying I’m imbalanced?”

The doctor glanced at Deb, the human resources specialist, the people person.

“No,” Deb said, looking back and forth from the doctor to Fiona. “No, he’s not saying that. No one’s insinuating . . . I think what he’s trying to say is that, it’s encouraged for staff who are feeling stressed out to come forward and talk with us. We have resources for that . . . Time off, maybe. Counseling.”

“We want to give you a drug screening,” said Dr. Wahl. “Just to rule it out.”

Fiona knew it. She’d known the minute she’d walked in that this wasn’t a friendly chat.

“Would that be okay?” asked Deb softly. “Could you provide a urine sample?”

“Fine,” Fiona said. It would be clean, that much she knew. “But I’d like to speak to my rep first.”

“That’s fine,” said Deb. “Excellent.”

“Is that all you need?”

“There’s just one more matter.”

“Yes?”

Fiona had suspected that she needed union representation from the start. But it was growing more apparent with each question, with each quiet insinuation.

“Fiona,” said Dr. Wahl. “You wouldn’t have asked someone to cover for you, right?”

“What do you mean, ‘cover’?”

“To cover it up. We went back and looked at the records for Walter. The night nurse recorded 600cc output for urine. Which is an impossibly, unless she drained his catheter and then reapplied the clamp. Which, of course, makes absolutely zero sense.”

So what the hell was going on? She didn’t remember unclamping the tube, not specifically, but she’d done the procedure a thousand times—she practically performed it by rote by now. Had someone else screwed up and thought Fiona looked like an easy foil, or was she losing it worse than she thought?

“You’re right” said Fiona. “If they were covering up for me, then why wouldn’t they just undo the clamp and leave it off and not tell anyone? Why reapply it? Who cares about the reading.”

“So you’re saying that they just lied about the reading?” asked Dr. Wahl.

“I’m not saying that. I’m not saying anything because I don’t know anything about this night nurse or what they did or didn’t do.” She looked over at Wendy, who had been silent the whole time. “Wendy,” she said, trying to break her out of her silent complacency. She needed someone on her side.

Wendy shrugged and shook her head.

Was that the best she could do to help her friend?

“Wendy, what’s going on?” Fiona asked, urging her with her eyes. Pleading.

“It’s just a drug test,” said Wendy in an utterly bored tone. “Just get on with it and we can all move on. Right?”

“That’s right,” said the doctor.

Fiona had no intentions of backing out of the drug test. But what about her dignity? Would a passed drug test ever repair that?

“So you’ll agree, then? To the test?” asked Dr. Wahl.

“It’s just something we have to do for insurance reasons,” said Deb. “Due diligence. We don’t really think you’re on drugs.”

The doctor smiled with a certain grimness, saying, “No, of course we don’t.”

“It’s just for insurance,” Deb said again, trying to smile along with the doctor. “So can we do this now?”

Dr. Wahl had already begun packing some of his papers, stuffing them into a large briefcase. The meeting, evidently, was about to wrap up. “Wendy?” he said without looking at the supervisor. “Would you mind?”

“Would I mind?” asked Wendy.

“Preparing a cup,” he said, closing his briefcase. “And, you know, meeting with her. You know . . .”

“Sure,” Wendy said curtly.

It gave Fiona a little hope, even just seeing the slightest iota of displeasure from Wendy. It was the least she could do, not jumping for joy and jumping up and fetching a cup for her to pee into. What a fucking miserable day.