Free Healer by Carol Cassella

toward her down the hallway. Lit from behind he looks Ichabod-ish, tall and slightly stooped with lanky limbs and a long torso. But as he crosses the threshold of light she sees his face and her mood abruptly changes. It’s the doctor from the hospital—the old cowboy. God, she didn’t even realize she’d filed him under such a nickname, but there it is, presenting itself so spontaneously she breaks into a smile.
    There is an angularity about Dan Zelaya that begs a question of heritage—Native American, maybe, or Middle Eastern—his name obviously Hispanic; white hair that defies classification except as elderly human being, aging along a final common pathway. A mixture, surely, judging by his skin tone and the blue cast in his dark eyes, and his name. He straightens up some when he sees her, bringing his heels together as if he might make a small bow. He has on that same string tie he was wearing at the hospital. She starts to introduce herself to him again, but he gets there first, introducing her to Anita, the receptionist, who stands up to shake her hand. Now Claire sees that she is well into a pregnancy.
    Dan opens the gate and starts back down the hallway as if it is understood she will follow him. He has a long stride and she has to skip a step to catch up. He leads her back to a large room with two exam tables covered in crisp white paper. A couple of stainless steel Mayo stands are pushed against the wall, there are a red crash cart and an EKG machine that clearly predates the digital age, a cast cart, a plastic case of sutures. It must be their urgent care room. “How’d you find me?” Dan asks her.
    “I got a bit lost,” she answers. He breaks into a wry smile at this and Claire shakes her head. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! I’ve been visiting all the clinics in the area.”
    He waves his hand in front of his face, brushing aside manners. “I like it better the first way. Everybody who comes in here is either lost or getting close. Anybody hire you yet?”
    Claire is about to give him the optimistic spin she’s been rehearsing for Jory, but shrugs, worn out on selling herself. “Nope. Nothing. Want a copy of my résumé? I have plenty left.”
    He presses his lips into an uninspiring taut line and shakes his head. “Wish I could even think about it.” They talk for only a few minutes before Anita raps on the open doorjamb and calls Dan into the hall with a spatter of scolding Spanish. A flash of color moving behind Anita’s shoulder catches Claire’s attention, a red and cream plaid so familiar she starts toward the door. It’s Addison’s jacket, the one she had handed through the window of her car a few nights ago. The woman wearing it—it must be her—is swallowed by the bulky coat, could be a child it dwarfs her so, a ruff of black curls rolling just above the collar line like fur trim. Claire starts to call out to her, wondering if she is ill, was possibly ill that night, but she has already moved out of sight.
    Dan sees the startled look on her face and smiles. “Anita is happiest when she’s boxing me into line. Running late again.” He offers Claire his hand. “Keep at it. There’re a lot of sick people here who don’t have a doctor. Trust me on that one.” He points out the rear exit that leads to the parking lot and follows Addison’s jacket into the exam room.
    Claire takes a minute to look around the urgent care room, wishing she had the funds and the business sense to set up her own clinic, be her own boss, who could scoff at her half-page résumé and give herself a big fat raise. She considers leaving a résumé on the counter for Dan to discover after she’s gone, but decides it would, at best, cause pointless guilt in someone she already likes.
    It looks like he has set it up on a shoestring, this place. But sufficient, she decides. Probably sufficient to take care of most people’s needs. There is something inspiring about recognizing that Dan must make most