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mind. I was looking up at Alex and he was looking down at me. He licked the buttercream frosting from his fingertips after smashing cake into my mouth. We laughed with wedding cake smeared on our lips.
    A simple setting. Nothing fancy. A small wedding on a small budget. My mother’s house. Reception in the backyard. Family and a few college friends. No gazebo.
    The sudden recollection of my wedding to Alex rattled me.
    Someone’s voice shook me back to the present. “Mrs. Cristobal? Are you all right?” The nurse examined me with concern-filled eyes.
    “Yes,” I whispered.
    “The doctor will see you now.” She continued to observe me. My color must have been pale to invoke such an inspection. I followed her to the nether reaches of the office suite. It was a short hike, not long enough for me to slow Jennifer’s accelerated heartbeat.
    “Mrs. Cristobal,” the doctor greeted as the nurse ushered me into his private office. “Please, sit down.” He looked at some notes while I adjusted myself into his comfortable consultation chair. “So…you need a second opinion?”
    “I need another doctor.”
    He cleared his throat. “Suppose we go over your history and then you can decide if you want to change doctors.”
    “Did Dr. Whitaker send you my records?”
    He nodded, all sorts of questions dancing in his brown eyes. “From what I can see, you had surgery…what…three years ago?”
    “Okay.” That agreed with what Sairs said.
    “The surgery was performed by Crane in California.” There was a question in his voice. When I didn’t respond, he frowned. “Whitaker has you on a maintenance dose of cyclosporine?”
    “Cyclosporine?”
    “You might know it as Sandimmune. It prevents your body from rejecting your heart. All transplant patients take cyclosporine. It’s standard practice.”
    “Okay.” I hadn’t yet seen the bottles from which Sudha dispensed Jennifer’s medications. They appeared on my breakfast tray in the morning or on the bedside table at night. I had no idea what Sudha was giving me and didn’t trust her, so I’d been flushing the pills.
    “Your blood work looks all right,” he commented and looked up from the medical records in front of him. “Before you leave, we’ll draw blood and recheck your levels.” I nodded. “Are you experiencing any difficulty? Chest pain? Trouble breathing? Headaches? Nausea?”
    I shook my head. Then I made a correction. “Well, I have had some headaches, but I think those are tension.”
    “Hmmm…maybe.” He leaned back in his leather chair. “So…”
    “I no longer wish to see Dr. Whitaker. Can you take over for him? You have all my records, right?”
    “Well, I see no reason why I can’t,” he said. “But Whitaker is a board-certified cardiologist.”
    “I’m planning a trip to California and I want to know if I’m healthy enough to fly. My husband…Anson, has some concerns. I had a spell last week. But I think I fainted because I hadn’t eaten all day.”
    “Diet is an important part of maintaining your health—”
    “Yes, I know. We had a party that night. I probably didn’t take time to eat. I won’t let it happen again.”
    He tented his fingers, elbows propped on his desk. “When do you plan to leave for California?”
    “As soon as you clear me for takeoff.” I grinned at him.
    His face didn’t crack. Didn’t even twitch. “Unless your blood work says otherwise, I see no reason why you can’t travel.” He rose from his chair and stood before me. “Suppose we take your blood pressure and listen to your heart.”
    ****
    The walls of Jennifer’s walk-in closet bore down upon me. I dumped some of her clothing into her luggage and slipped out of the shoes I wore to Dr. Patton’s office. I shoved my tired feet into something more suitable for travel.
    “Missus?”
    I whirled to face Sudha.
    She eyed the overnight bag and the toilet case on the bench in the middle of the closet. “I thought we agreed—”
    “I