Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
The green carpet in Karen’s waiting room had the same low pile as the classrooms where I used to teach. At nine on Thursday morning, the traffic on Main Street was just a low hum through the double-pane glass. The receptionist, a young woman with a neat ponytail, was typing a letter, the rapid click-clack of her keyboard the only sound in the small room.
When the heavy oak door to the inner office clicked open, Karen stood there in her navy blazer. Her dark hair was pinned back with a simple tortoiseshell clip, just as she had worn it during our college years. She did not smile, but she held the door wide for me with a steady, quiet look that told me she was ready.
“Come in, Rachel,” she said.
I walked into her office and sat in one of the two leather chairs facing her cherry desk. The room was small, crowded with high steel bookshelves that held thick brown legal volumes. The window behind her desk looked out onto the brick wall of the hardware store next door. I reached into my leather bag and pulled out the three months of bank statements I had printed at the National Bank.
