As Isobel met with patients and wrote up case histories the next day, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had completely mishandled the meeting with Alexander De la Grip. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t escape the fact she had blown it with the foundation. Big time.

How was that even possible, she asked herself as she took blood pressures and wrote out prescriptions for stomach ulcers. She, who was known for her adaptability and her cool-headedness. She, the doctor whom the most hysterical and demanding patients were sent to. The one who calmed down agitated nurses and frantic field workers. Who gave lectures on the importance of social skills to medical students. She had marched up to Alexander De la Grip and acted like an overwrought teenager. In his office. In the exclusive headquarters of the foundation Medpax relied on for its survival.

What was the word she was looking for?

Right. Stupid.

But she had become unexpectedly nervous. Alexander was so striking it was virtually impossible to take in. No man had the right to look that good; it was verging on unnatural. Despite the messy blond hair, scruffy stubble, and crumpled clothes, he had been so attractive that she’d had trouble looking at him without blushing. In addition to that, Alexander De la Grip was both aristocratic and rich. And not just ordinary rich, but rich rich. Not that she had ever believed life was fair, but come on. How could it be that unfair? The final straw had been his bloodshot eyes and the fact that he reeked of alcohol. He’d had the nerve to stand there in his office, people swarming around him, and look as though he hadn’t done anything but party this past week—all while she was fighting for Medpax’s survival. It was just too much. And so she had allowed herself to be affected by things she shouldn’t have cared about, let petty feelings shape her reaction, and it had been a disaster. Isobel closed the door, picked up the phone, and called Leila.

“Has Alexander De la Grip called you?” she asked when Leila answered.

“No. Should he have?”

Isobel leaned back and put her feet up on the desk. She had at least eight, maybe more, patients still to see, but she decided she had time for one quick call. “I had a go at him yesterday. I probably insulted him. Again. So no, I don’t think so.”

“I see. How are you today, then?”

“I’m a nutcase. What’s wrong with me? Feel free to analyze me.”

Leila snorted. “I don’t need to analyze you, because it’s not hard to figure you out. You were probably an overachiever while you were still in the womb. You’re always worried about being a fake. Everyone you meet admires you, but you don’t realize that yourself because you’re constantly trying to work out how to get your self-centered mother and dead father to be proud of you. Did I forget anything?”

Isobel closed her eyes, unsure of whether it had been a really good or a really bad idea to call Leila. “Nope, that was pretty … exhaustive,” she replied meekly.

“You’re the one everyone wants on their team, Isobel.” Leila’s voice was kind.

“But I made a fool of myself.”

“Yes. Welcome to the real world, where people sometimes make fools of themselves. Let it go.”

“What kind of psychobabble is that? It’s not that freaking easy to just let it go.”

“No, but you don’t want things to be easy. There you go, that one’s on me.”

Isobel brought in her next patient, a PR consultant she saw regularly for insomnia and a slipped disk. She refrained from telling him that he might sleep better if he stopped cheating on his wife, just gave him a prescription for painkillers and a follow-up appointment as far in the future as she could. After that, she listened to a stressed journalist who complained about a “kinda sore throat,” but who also had a sky-high temperature. Isobel knew it was scarlet fever even before the lab results came back and confirmed it. When she finally looked up at the clock, it was already three, and she decided to skip the staff coffee break and shut herself in her room instead. She ate crackers with orange marmalade in front of her computer, Googling “Alexander De la Grip + images.” He had seemed more muscular now than when she had last seen him, this past summer, and he had been big even then. Tall, much taller than she, and she was used to looking down at most men she met; during her youth, she always had to fight the urge to stoop.

“Stand up straight, Isobel.”

“You’re so tall. Do you play basketball?”

“Why are your pants always too short, Isobel?”

What did it matter if he was tall? But it mattered. Big, tall men were attractive. She was used to judging a person’s measurements without asking any direct questions; with a glance she could determine what they weighed and how tall they were. Alexander had to be at least six foot five and weigh somewhere between two hundred thirty and two hundred forty pounds—wide shoulders, a muscular neck, tight abs. She scrolled through the pictures, spotted the famous one in which he was half-naked and covered in oil, with two naked women at his feet, and compared it with the most recent one she could find, as well as with her own memory. He must have done something. Joined a gym, maybe? She brushed the crumbs into the trash basket, closed the browser, and called her next patient in.

Once Isobel had dealt with the last of her patients, she put on her helmet and cycled home. A group of field workers were meeting for a beer in Södermalm that evening, but she had mixed feelings about going. She should probably join them. It wasn’t good for her to isolate herself, she knew that. Tomorrow, she told herself. I’ll deal with things tomorrow.

She ate a microwaved meal in front of the TV, read an article on malaria in a medical journal, and drank red tea.

Tomorrow, she thought again as she lay in bed, exhausted but still sleepless. Tomorrow I’ll fix it all, become a better person. She closed her eyes, but it was no use. Sleep would not come, no matter how tired she felt. She stared into the darkness. That small, hungry face came to her again, as it so often did. Marius. She missed him. A street urchin who had no one. A starving, lonely child, trying to survive on his own in one of the poorest countries in the world. When he had arrived at the hospital last fall he had been lifeless. Hovering between life and death for a week. Weighing too little, coughing too much. Was he still alive? Well?

Ah, but this dithering was madness; she knew what she should do. What she wanted. She glanced at the clock, picked up her cell, and sent a message to Leila.

Made up my mind. Going to Chad.

The psychologist didn’t reply.

Probably because she had a life.

Isobel lay on her side, looking out the window. Several hours passed before she fell into a restless sleep.