Blue Christmas

by Melissa Yi

  Blue Christmas

  A Hope Sze Medical Crime Story

  Melissa Yi

  Join Melissa’s mailing list at www.melissayuaninnes.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Melissa Yuan-Innes

  "Blue Christmas" originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Jan/Feb 2019

  Published by Olo Books in association with Windtree Press

  Cover photo by Alexey Kljatov © 2014⎮Shutterstock

  Yi, Melissa, author Blue Christmas / Melissa Yi.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927341-78-0

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names or events in this novel have been changed or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. This novel portrays medical crises and death and includes sexual references and frank language.

  To advise of typographical errors, please contact olobooks@gmail.com

  Blue Christmas

  I hate fake Christmas parties.

  By that, I mean the kind where drunken strangers inflict their "Merry Christmas, Baby" dance moves on my retinas when I'd rather hang out with the hummus. "There's a lot of acting fascinated," as Jerry Seinfeld pointed out.

  On the upside, I'd never done a house party with my new stem cell lab coworkers before. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

  Or maybe it would be worse.

  Dr. Samir Al-Sani lived a few blocks south of the Ottawa Health Sciences Centre, in one of the old, brick-faced bungalows ringing the hospitals. I couldn't help surveying the snow-covered garden and the trees neatly wrapped in burlap. Samir cared about his trees, just like his research. I scooped some snow off the railing, enjoying the cool crunch as I formed it into a ball with my free hand.

  Samir yanked the door open. Music and warm, fragrant air wafted over me. "Hey, Hope!”

  Yep, I'm Dr. Hope Sze, a resident family medicine doctor. Which meant I really shouldn't greet my host with a snowball to the kisser. I let it drop to the ground.

  Instead, I shoved a red poinsettia at him. Samir was only a few inches taller than me, maybe five foot six, but he was impeccably dressed in a black dress shirt, jeans, and a bright purple tie.

  Samir took the poinsettia in one hand and somehow managed to hang my mom’s red wool coat with the other. "I'm so glad you came to the party. Would you like me to introduce you to everyone?” He raised his voice to be heard above Michael Bublé crooning “Let It Snow.” To make room for my plant, he had to rearrange the hall table’s seasonal greenery, namely red and white poinsettias, ivy, and holly with bright red berries. Someone here had a green thumb.

  “Oh, I bet you have to get back to cooking,” I said, but Samir leaned toward me and whispered, “I'm not used to cooking for an entire lab. My mother and aunt and grandmother did most of the work.”

  He smelled like cologne, but not too overpowering. I smiled back at him. I totally got his family diving in to help; it’s an ethnic thing. I also got that he was still overwhelmed, especially around the holidays, although I have to admit that I’m pretty ignorant about Middle Eastern customs around Christmas. "What did they make?"

  “You'll have to taste it to believe it. We bought the lamb special last week. Do know what the trick is? Boiling the meat in salt water.”

  Uh oh. I've avoided eating meat for the past month, but Samir held his finger to his lips and said, “My mother would wring my neck if she knew I were telling you.”

  I nodded, trying to look grateful while picturing his mother strangling me instead of her precious son. Don’t mess with an ethnic mom. One of my med school friends didn’t know the price of milk because her parents bought a bag for her every week. “I won't tell her anything except praise you for winning the Banting and Best fellowship.”

  Samir grinned. “It is a tremendous honour.”

  And $140,000 over two years, which meant he could afford this small but airy, white-walled house. I’d throw a party, too. Straight ahead was the hallway leading to the kitchen. To the right, the living room where I spotted two other poinsettias balanced on the windowsill next to the flat screen TV. Our post-doc friends, Mitch and Chris, studied the hockey game. I was more interested in the tiny bonsai tree on the coffee table in front of them, surrounded by beer bottles and various snacks.

  Samir was still talking about the food. “My grandmother makes the meat so tender with that trick. And my friend had a whole bag of table salt going to waste.” He laughed. “I’m not so good about cooking. Mostly, I eat my mother's food. She hates when I buy it at the cafeteria.”

  I walked toward the bonsai, a handsome little tree shorter than my humerus. "What kind of tree is that?"

  Samir glanced down at the edge of the soil. "I believe it's a yew."

  Following his eyes, I spied the edge of a piece of paper, nearly buried under the soil. Why would someone bury paper in a pot? It would break down every time you watered it. I stretched my hand to pull it out, but Samir caught my arm. "I should introduce you to people.”

  "I already know everyone from the lab." I spotted the department head, literally. Dr. Thomas Zinser’s white hair gleamed in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

  "Yes, but there are more people. You should meet Praneeta—”

  "Hope!" someone yelled in my ear, and when I jerked in surprise, Mitch grinned at me before he straightened up. His Ottawa Senators shirt had chip crumbs on the mascot’s face. "You finally made it! Want a beer?"

  I hate beer. “Maybe some water.”

  “You’re one of those,” he said, but he grabbed a glass off the side table. “Ice?"

  "No, thanks."

  “You should hang out with Weijia. He’s a party animal like you. Hey, Weijia!” He led me to the kitchen, where three ladies wearing Muslim head scarves were working hard. One of them was taking a roast out of the oven. Another one had to stop doing the dishes because the third tugged a big, white bag out from under the sink. The bag lady was the oldest and tiniest woman, presumably the grandmother, so I hastily grabbed the bag of salt, which was labeled in English, French, and Arabic—gotta love the trilingual Canadian groceries—and set it on the counter for her. It wasn’t that heavy, but she smiled her thanks at me. Her teeth were greyish and slightly crooked, which meant they were probably her own.

  Meanwhile, Mitch gestured at a Chinese scientist who was sitting at the small kitchen table, eating a cracker and carefully catching the crumbs on a green napkin so they didn’t fall on his grey rayon suit or blue tie. His glasses reflected the light, blocking his eyes, but his greying Friar Tuck hair showed he was no spring chicken. More like a late autumn chicken.

  I'd always called him by his title. "Hello, Dr. Wen."

  Dr. Wen shook my hand. "Today, I had a paper accepted in Cell, regarding my work on the Nogo-66 receptor.”

  “I look forward to reading your paper.” I smiled.

  “I’ll drink to that. Cheers!” Mitch finished off his bottle and clunked it on the table.

  “What was that?” Dr. Wen leaned an ear toward me. The small tuft of white hair in the external ear canal made me a little sad.

  I raised my voice. “Your paper sounds wonderful. Congratulations!”

  He smiled slightly. “If you give me your e-mail, I will send you the pdf. This could be a breakthrough in the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Wen.” I couldn’t call him by his first name. He had dignity. He was like my grandfather. I glanced around the room, at th
e much-younger faces. I’d guess Tom was under fifty, but Dr. Wen was even older. He should have his own lab, and maybe he would’ve, if he’d stayed in China.

  My grandparents on my father’s side were both Ph.D.’s in biochemistry. They emigrated from Taiwan to Canada and couldn’t get good work, only lab technician stuff. They kept moving every year, trying their luck in the U.S., but never getting anywhere.

  Dr. Wen pulled a card out of his pocket. “Ah. Here it is. That’s the QR code with a direct link to my paper.”

  I pulled out my phone and scanned the QR code. While my phone laboriously brought up the site, Dr. Wen began to explain the paper to me, which was hard enough to follow before someone in the living room started blasting “Uptown Funk.”

  Mitch yelled at a woman with black hair, “That’s you!”

  She shouted back, “I’m not Michelle Pfeiffer! Only half of me is white gold!”

  “Doesn’t matter!” Mitch started to do the chicken dance, which was spellbinding in its deliberate awfulness.

  The half white gold girl turned toward me, and it was Summer, the lab research assistant. She was half-white, half Asian, with eyes like mine, but she had pale skin and a prominent nose.

  I hugged her. “The rest of you is pure gold.”

  “Yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!” She pulled away and gave me a fist bump. “You dancing or eating? Samir made the most unbelievable food.”

  “Neither,” I said.

  She gave me a look. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, let’s dance!”

  I wasn’t about to shake it in the living room, with a bunch of Ph.D.’s I didn’t know, so I grabbed my water. While Summer shimmied, I bobbed my head like a guy at a sixth grade dance.

  Samir’s friend Praneeta joined us for a quick boogie. She was of East Indian extraction, an extremely pretty and petite woman with long, smooth black hair and lots of eyeliner, rocking a tie-dye T-shirt and jeans. Everyone here was on the short side, but she must’ve been under five feet tall, so even I loomed over her. She grinned and saluted me with her wine glass, pointing above me. “Watch out for the mistletoe! My ex hung it up, and he’s so tall that none of us could take it down easily.” She pointed to the white berries hung on the ceiling fan.

  I already had two boyfriends. I didn’t need another one. Plus, mistletoe is toxic, even though the American variety is less poisonous than its European cousin. Most holiday decorative plants aren’t meant for consumption. I moved to the sidelines and said, “Thanks for the warning.”

  Tom waved at me from the kitchen. A pretty Asian woman with classy red lipstick, matching nails, and a smashing, sparkly black cocktail dress, smiled as she topped up Tom’s wine glass. They kissed. She must be his wife, Tina.

  “Time to eat!” said Samir, who’d already rounded up the rest of the crew to the kitchen table, where Dr. Wen was eyeballing the roast. Tom and Tina joined him; Tom set two plates down and pulled the chair out for her. Samir ushered his three relatives. The grandma limped a little, so she held on to his arm while Praneeta carried her plate.

  I could hear Mitch, Summer, and Chris laughing as they grabbed their food in the kitchen. A few minutes later, Mitch handed me a pre-laden plate with a crooked grin. “Here you go, superstar.”

  I took it, confused. I’ve never had a guy get me food at a party before. I’ve heard of guys ordering for you at a restaurant, although that’s never happened to me.

  “Summer thought you should eat.”

  Summer winked at me. “You’re getting too skinny.”

  “I wish.” I’d lost a few pounds in the past month, but she’d only met me a week ago. I joined the table, and Samir thanked us for coming. “We are very fortunate to have our friends and family here. Bismallah.”

  I’d heard of Inshallah, which is basically an Arabic way of saying “God willing and the creek don’t rise,” but not Bismallah. However, the allah made it sound like a blessing. I smiled while everyone else murmured, and Samir added, “Bon appétit.”

  Should I try the meat? They’d made a big effort, and I do like homemade food. I decided to compromise and start with a carrot stick. After crunching a few of those, I glanced at everyone around me, noshing on the meat and rice, and speared a piece with my fork. Here goes nothing.

  It caught in my throat.

  Discreetly, I brought a napkin up to my mouth and hid the chunk of meat in its folds like I was a kid. I’ve never been a huge lamb fan. It has a gamy taste to me, even if I didn’t feel bad about slaughtering baby animals.

  I tried the rice, which was cooked beautifully, all separate grains, but could hardly choke a few of those down, either.

  I drank a bunch of water and listened to Dr. Wen talk about the Nogo-66 receptor, single chain antibodies, and Multiple Sclerosis at the head of the table. I didn’t really understand it, but I didn’t need to.

  One of the women, Samir’s mom or aunt, brought more food to the table. I smiled and nodded my thanks at her, because I wasn’t sure she spoke English, but she said, “You’re welcome” and gestured at me to take more. So I felt obligated to scoop more curry, or whatever it was, on to my plate. At least Dr. Wen was happy to polish off another serving.

  Samir beamed. “My grandmother refused to share this recipe for many years, and then only to her two daughters, on their wedding days. Her older daughter got married first but was not allowed to share the recipe with her sister.”

  “It’s an honour,” I said. My mouth felt dry. I finished the glass of water.

  Tom held up his wine goblet. “To Samir!”

  Oops. I had to raise my empty glass.

  “To his Banting and Best scholarship!” shouted Mitch, and we all laughed and guzzled. I touched my tongue to the last drops of water at the bottom of the glass.

  Samir poured more wine. It belatedly occurred to me that although his family was Muslim, they didn’t seem to object to alcohol in his house.

  Samir sat down abruptly, thunking the bottle of wine on the table.

  “Is it empty?” said Mitch.

  Samir wasn’t smiling anymore. A peculiar expression crossed his face, but before I opened my mouth, Dr. Wen knocked his wine glass, splashing red drops on Tina’s arm.

  She screamed in the second before the glass hit the ground, smashing on the hardwood floor.

  I darted to Dr. Wen’s side.

  His eyes were wide and frightened. His sterno-cleido-mastoid muscles tented the skin as he struggled to breathe.

  “What is it? Do you have asthma?” I said.

  He shook his head. He pushed on the edge of the table as if he could make more room for his lungs.

  “Look at his lips! They’re blue!” someone yelled.

  Not quite blue, but dusky and purplish, which was close enough. That’s not typical of asthma. He also wasn’t wheezing, although sometimes asthmatics are moving so little air that they can’t even wheeze.

  “Call 911,” I said, but Tom, Tina, and others had already yanked out their cell phones, so I concentrated on Dr. Wen.

  Even if asthma wasn’t the cause here, bronchodilation—opening up the small airways so that he could get more oxygen—could only help. “Does anyone here have a blue puffer? Salbultamol?”

  Samir’s grandmother passed me one. Good. She probably didn’t have oral herpes. I took the mouth piece off and started to coach Dr. Wen. “One puff at a time. You’re supposed to exhale all the way.” No chance, he was gasping. “Okay, press the top. Suck the medicine all the way into your lungs. Hold it as long as you can. You’re supposed to hold it for ten seconds.”

  He tried. His core muscles trembled with the effort. He had tears in his eyes.

  Every particle of him concentrated on not dying.

  My cheeks flushed. I did not want this grandfatherly man to die right after getting an article accepted to Cell. He needed oxygen. “The ambulance will be here any minute, Dr. Wen. Take another puff.” Eight puffs are cons
idered equivalent to a face mask treatment of salbutamol, but only if the patient can inhale it into their lungs. Dr. Wen was breathing so fast, he was hardly getting anything in.

  “When’s that ambulance coming? Do we have an ETA?” I tried to sound calm. Anxiety doubles a breathing problem. Ne paniquez pas, as they say on the Montreal métro system.

  “They’ll be here in five minutes,” said Tom.

  I thought Dr. Wen could hold out for five minutes. Samir lived five minutes from the Ottawa Health Sciences Centre, which would make a ten minute trip total. Ten minutes was doable.

  I got him to take another shot of Ventolin and thought, Why did he turn blue?

  Usually, we talk about cyanosis in newborns. But this was a sudden attack of central, or facial, cyanosis in an adult who claimed not to have asthma. I’d never seen him go out for a smoke, either.

  Was it his heart, his lungs, or his hemoglobin? Before I could ask any more questions, like if he had any medical history, Dr. Wen clutched his chest.

  I said, dread lacing my every work, “Dr. Wen. Are. You. Having. Chest. Pain?”

  His chin tipped forward in assent. His forehead gleamed under the pot lights of the dining room.

  Oh, no. Nonononono.

  He could die of a heart attack in the next five minutes, if the lack of oxygen didn’t kill him first.

  “Aspirin. Who has uncoated aspirin?” I snapped.

  “Not me. My cousin has G6PD deficiency, so we never keep any in the house.” said Samir, from behind me.

  “I have some!” Praneeta ran down the hall past the kitchen, presumably to the bathroom.

  My head whipped back toward Dr. Wen. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency is more common in Asians. It can cause cyanosis if triggered off by a variety of things, including aspirin, although the only one I really remembered was fava beans, because everyone in med school made a joke about Hannibal Lector. “Dr. Wen. Do you have G6PD deficiency?”

  He wasn’t listening to me anymore. He was staring into space, sucking breath into his lungs, and turning more blue by the second.