Free The Orion Plan by Mark Alpert Page A

kept frowning. The problem was that she cared too much about this man. Because of a stupid coincidence—the fact that both of them were born in Bullock County, Alabama—she’d grown fond of him. What made it even stupider was that she knew very little else about him. He’d told her that he was forty-two years old and that he’d graduated from the University of Alabama, but he’d said nothing at all about the past twenty years of his life. She had no idea why he’d come to New York, what he did for a living after he got there, or how he became an alcoholic. And yet somehow she felt like she understood him.
    To hide her emotions, Dorothy reached into her bag and pulled out a can of peanuts. “Here, take this. I got you the unsalted kind.”
    â€œThank you … so much.” He took the can from her. “And how are you ? Are the chemo drugs … still making you dizzy?”
    She’d told him about her pancreatic cancer a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t a secret—the parishioners at Holy Trinity knew why she’d had to leave her job—and when Joe had politely asked how she was doing she’d told him the hard truth. Now, though, she felt awkward about it.
    She shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind the dizziness if the drugs were helping me some. But I don’t think they’re working. The pain is as bad as ever.”
    Joe stepped a little closer and looked at her eyes. Then he turned away. “Well, I hope … you feel better. Maybe you just need … to give it some more time.”
    There was something familiar about the look he’d just given her. Dorothy puzzled it over for a few seconds, wondering where she’d seen it before. Then she figured it out.
    She pointed at Joe. “I get it now. You’re a doctor, right?” She didn’t wait for him to confirm it. She knew she was right. “You were looking at the whites of my eyes, trying to see if the cancer is giving me jaundice. My doctor at Sloan Kettering does the same thing. He says you have to look at the eyes of African Americans because it’s hard to see the change in their skin color.”
    He seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” He took a step backward, avoiding her gaze. “Old habits … die hard, I guess.”
    â€œHey, I don’t mind.” She chuckled, not because anything was funny but just to make him feel better. “I could always use a second opinion.”
    â€œI’m not a doctor … anymore.” He shook his head. “I lost … that privilege. Along with everything else.”
    He fell silent. Dorothy gave him a few seconds, hoping he’d say more, but he just lowered his head and looked at the ground. She could guess, though, what he meant by “everything else.” He must’ve had a family. A wife, maybe children.
    She closed the distance between them and rested her hand on his shoulder. She knew this was a dangerous thing to do. Many homeless people were victims of abuse, and sometimes they’d been brutalized so badly they became violent if you touched them. But she sensed that Joe was different. He wasn’t so far gone. He could come back to life if given half a chance.
    She squeezed his shoulder. “Come to the church with me, Joe. We have so many good programs. We can help you.”
    He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either. He just kept staring at the ground. Dorothy waited beside him, exercising her patience, which was the most useful tool in the world when you were working with troubled people. Joe smelled awful, like a putrid mix of sweat and malt liquor, but she ignored it and tried to look him in the eye. He was one of God’s children. Although Dorothy had no children of her own—no living relatives at all, actually—she had a family nonetheless, and this sad, broken man was a part of it.
    â€œCome on, Joe. We’ll start with