My day all started calmly enough with a cup of fresh shredded, ginger-green tea, and the New England Journal of Medicine. I never thought I could have my life so altered ever again. The rain began to pour down, and come through my newly tiled roof. The window flew open, and a puddle of water began to form on the white oak floor. I rushed to my feet, and closed the window with a thud. The wind had picked up quickly, making it difficult to close it without a brief struggle. After latching the window, I dashed the ten feet from my sitting room to my kitchen, and grabbed a pan to put under a leaky spot on the roof. I also grabbed Bounty Extra-Strength paper towels to wipe up the puddle under the paneless window. The crazy interferences had finally been resolved, and I settled back down to read the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. My tea was in my hand, and I continued sipping as I read an article about a woman who had survived a severe case of Long QT Syndrome, when the heart skips beats Q and T of the heart, causing a person’s heart to stop beating without any warning. After the doctors defibrillated her and then froze her, they gradually cooled down  her body. Her heart was able to regain its natural rhythm. There was a detailed account of how the process is done. I was about to read an article about Dr. Paul Webster and his last performed open heart surgery when I heard a loud, constant knock at my front door. Throwing my magazine down, I mumbled in frustration all the way to the door. “No peace, if nature is frisky, humanity is crazy right along with it. I just wanted rest.”

I opened the door, and saw a woman with a complexion as pale as a patient sick in bed. Her hair was matted, and her clothes were covered in mud, and grass stains. The pink converse on her feet looked like the mud-bathed trout I fish for in the lake on my property. The mascara and eye shadow were running down her cheeks. Her long blonde hair was dripping, forming little puddles on the floor around  her. The dripping was causing ripples in the already forming puddles. She stared at me, and just waited at the door frame of my house. She looked lost, and confused. Her expression of sorrow haunted me. 

I could not speak anything to this stranger; no matter how hard I forced myself I could not get words out of my mouth. I was flabbergasted. I opened the door wider, and motioned for her to enter into the large hallway with a wave of my hand. My voice was found at last.

“Yes…” I asked skeptically

“I need a place to stay for the night.”

“You are?” 

“Sylvia. Please leave it at that, no more questions.”

“Take off your shoes, wipe your feet. Let me grab you a towel. Wait here.”

I dashed through the hallway and up the winding stairs, and grabbed a few old towels from the linen closet at the top of the hall. I dashed back down the stairs, and handed her the towels. 

“Dry your clothes and self off a bit, then follow me. I‘ll show you to the restroom so you can clean yourself up. I will also give you some dry clothes. Why are you here?”

She followed me through my hallway, and up the winding steps lined in floor-length glass windows, exposing the vast mountains. She placed her feet so delicately and quietly as she walked that not even my doctor’s tuned ears could hear could detect her with my stethoscope. Halfway up the steps, I asked  her again, “How did you come to this part of the Cascade Mountains?” 

“If you must know,” she barely spoke audibly “my car broke down, and I was trying to find someone.” 

Once up the steps I took her to the guest bathroom, and gave her more towels from the bathroom linen closet, and some dry clothes. 

“These are men’s clothes, not like your dress, as you can imagine. But I haven’t had a woman in this house for some years. So I do not have any clothes of your kind. And by the way, are you alright? You look very sick.”

“I am fine.” Her tone was harsh and dismissive, no longer quiet. 

I left the woman alone in my bathroom and heard her turn on the shower. I proceeded down the hall locking all the doors to the upstairs rooms: my bedroom, the entertainment room, and guest room. I didn’t trust her, something was odd about her. I was not sure what it was yet, but I needed to find out. 

I walked back down the stairs, and went to the front hall to clean the rain puddle left from the dripping woman. I opened the front hall closet, and grabbed a mop, and bucket. I began to wipe up the water, and squeeze it into the bucket. Why does this person look so familiar to me; I feel as though I have seen her before. What was her name again? Where have I seen her? On TV? Was she a patient of mine? She did look a little sickly. A co-worker? I have seen her somewhere, unless she looks like someone I know. Dominant and recessive genes reoccur in all human beings; thus, people look like others who they have no relation to. 

I went back to the sitting room to try to read the article, and I sat in my leather easy-chair. I tried to distract myself from the woman that was in my house. Her face is so familiar. Where have I seen it before? I found myself lost in thought as I stared off through the window, rain still pouring outside. 

I just sat in my chair staring out the window, memorized by the rain. 

“Excuse me,” the woman was standing behind my chair, I was startled. I did not even know I had fallen asleep. She came around my chair to face me. “I did not mean to startle you. I wanted to apologize for my messy entrance and shortness with you. I was terribly rude.”

“Come here, Sylvia is your name, right?”

“Yes, it is. I would like to know who’s helping me.” hesitantly she came closer to me.  

“Paul Webster, Dr. Paul Webster.”

The woman’s eyes grew really big as she looked at me now. “It is you!”She looked like she was about to faint. 

“What? You need something to eat. Tell me why you are her as I prepare you some food. Follow me into the kitchen.”

Sylvia now cleaned up, seemed more willing to talk, especially since she knew I was the person she was looking for apparently. I could not believe how this woman could change so drastically, from the dirt covered, haunted-faced woman I saw had seen at my door only a hour or two ago. She must have a medical condition in her head. She sat on the stainless steel bar stool with her arms folded on the raised countertop.  I went throughout my kitchen, and opened up the refrigerator to get the leftover potatoes, and lemon marinated chicken from last night’s dinner. I placed it the microwave over my stove, and then went back to the refrigerator to get some spinach, and vegetables for a salad.  As I was reheating the leftover food for Silvia to eat, I was amazed at her story. She was driving from Beaver, to meet Doctor Webster, who was very well known in his field of medicine. She lived in a small town in the mountains that did not have a physician that was able to help her mother, who was suffering from Mitral Valve Prolapse. She was told to find this doctor who was believed to live on the outskirts of Seattle. Beep, beep, beep, beep. The potatoes and chicken were finished in the microwave. Her story still left holes in the reasoning for her appearance, and rudeness when she came to my door. I placed the food in front of Sylvia with a fork and knife as well. 

“May I ask something? How did you happen to come to my door, if you did not know exactly where I live?”

“I said that someone in my town had an idea of where I could find you, and I googled you on my iphone.”

Still suspicious, I asked more, “Why were you covered in mud, and dripping as if you had been walking for miles in the pouring rain?” 

I finished chopping the vegetables, and put them with the spinach into a bowl. I then put them next to her other dish. 

“Do you always interrogate people that come to see you?” 

“Only suspicious strangers who I have never met, and haven’t the slightest clue if what they are saying matches any of the evidence of what they’ve told me or shown me.” 

“My car broke down, I had said that long before anything ever happened.”

“So you did, but how do I know if you are truly telling the truth. Who is your mother? She may have been one of my patients, if she has heart conditions.”

“Haven’t you heard of the Hippocratic oath? You are Dr. Paul Webster, you should not ask such a personal question; I do not need to tell you private information.”

“The Hippocratic oath does deal with the confidentiality of my patients. That is something entirely different. At this point I need to find out who you are, and if you are really telling me the truth. I do not understand your story. I am human; I wish you would stop treating me like a legend.”

“I didn’t know Dr. Webster was so obnoxious,” she mumbled under her breath.

“What did you just say?” my ears picked up something that did not sound like something that should be missed, “I thought I heard you say, ‘I am obnoxious.’ Who are you woman, what are you doing in my house?”

I was angry at this woman for what I thought I heard her say. I was angry at the thoughts that this Sylvia had invoked inside of me. She had interrupted my time of peace and quiet for her nonsense. I suddenly realized that this woman reminded me of the last picture I saw of my daughter. My crazed wife, Marian was decent enough to send me a picture of her eleventh grade recital. 

She had left me, taking my daughter with her about ten years ago. In this very kitchen, she held her duffel bag in one hand and another duffel bag for my daughter, Amelia, in the other hand. Amelia was coming down the stairs with her favorite outfit, singing to Grandmother’s House We Go.  Marian yelled, claimed I loved practicing medicine more than her. In med school, I would be ready to give up, and at one point wanted to quit. But she was be willing to stop by my apartment at all hours of the night with the simplest words of encouragement. These little things gave me my degree, I always say. Had medicine become my mistress as she so gruesomely once phrased?

“You did hear me correctly. Forgive me. I really need your help.”

Sylvia finished her food.

“Would you like me to help you or not?” I asked with a huff. I picked up her dishes and took them to the sink, washing and scrubbing, in constant motion, repeatedly. I forgot that I had a dishwasher. 

“I am not a very good messenger,” Sylvia said as she looked down at the counter.

“This is what I have gathered. You were trying to fine Dr. Webster, me, because your mother has an extreme case of Mitral Valve Prolapse. You were told by someone in your small town that I lived in the outskirts of Seattle; however, unsure of exactly where I lived you googled my name on your iphone.” I began to pace and back and forth, with my arms clasped behind my back, and my left hand wrist over my right arm. 

‘You claimed that your car had broken down, and so you were dripping wet from the rain. 

‘People are rarely in a state of near death from MVP, it is a common aliment. In my opinion it is something more serious. People that that die from it, usually drop dead suddenly.

‘However, despite what I think, I may be able to figure this out, I am confused by two things. You are still a stranger I have never seen before. And it appears you knew where you were going. What can I do with this mixed up diagnosis? ”

I walked over to the stool where she still sat, and prodded her to continue with a glance of my eyes, “My mother told me to come here, and fetch Dr. Paul Webster. She knew exactly where you lived because she is your sister.” 

I must have been the person who looked sick now. Is that why this woman, looked so pale when she came to my house only an hour or two before; was it only an hour before? I could not think. I felt as if all the training of being a doctor would never prepare me for this. Of all the comatose reactions I had gotten from people, this perfectly awake person was more confusing.  I walked over to my easy-chair, and just sat down starring at this woman. This was my niece, and I didn’t know I had one? Looking out at the mountains, it had begun to sprinkle, and the glass in the window panes was no longer distorted by giant drops of rain. 

Sylvia got up from the bar stool, and walked the ten feet from the kitchen to sitting room. I watched her as each step came closer to me. She did remind resemble my sister, now that I knew who she was. 

“Why were you acting so well? You told me your name is Sylvia, you were short-tempered, then lost, then confused, on and on it goes. I don’t know how you could have—I’m flabbergasted.” 

“Your sister Marian Clark asked me to come see if you would help her see a cardiologist. She knows you are the best, but also that you would not be able to have any equipment to help her. You know connections with doctors…Uncle.”

I looked at this woman…She called me Uncle. I looked at Sylvia she was in my house by order of my sister, Marian. I hadn’t seen my sister in years.

“I will help her find a doctor, or help her myself. Can your mother wait until morning?”

“Yes, she can; that’s what she expected. Please be nice to her. She doesn’t remember very much about you.”

“Well then. We will go in the morning, and call a tow for your car.”