Bridge

The consultation room was scarcely more than a pause in the corridor. Two chairs, a metal desk, and a strip light. No room for anything more. 

Dr Bridge sat at the desk, angled toward a laptop. His fingers moved quickly, decisively, pausing only when his thoughts required them to. He did not look startled when Daphne spoke. 

“Dr Bridge?”

“Mrs Orpheus,” he said warmly, as if continuing a conversation they had already been having. “Please, sit. Standing will not improve what I’m about to say, and you’ll want your balance.”

His voice was smooth, but carried tempo — words rolling from his tongue with a speed that suggested speech was merely a paintbrush, and he was an artist.

A leather doctor’s bag sat on the spare chair, not arranged, not displayed, simply abandoned, as though its owner had already moved on mentally and the bag had failed to keep up. Dr Bridge caught her hesitation, then acknowledged the bag. 

“My apologies.”

He leaned over the desk, removing it before gesturing for Daphne to sit with an open hand.

“I wear a variety of hats, in a variety of different rooms. Always moving, always changing hats. I had not long walked into this particular room when you arrived. However, this is no excuse for my poor housekeeping. And please, call me Gary. ‘Dr Bridge’ is useful in theatres and emergencies. This is neither.”

She sat. Her body complied before her mind caught up.

Dr Bridge leaned forward, forearms resting lightly on the steel table, hands loosely clasped. He did not smile.

“I prefer these conversations behind doors,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the number of staff here, who think a hospital corridor is the perfect place to talk about rashes.”

His focus dropped back to the laptop in front of him. He scanned it once more, then looked directly at her. He had the unsettling habit of giving someone his full attention.

“We ran a comprehensive set of tests on Magnus. Bloods, cardiac monitoring, toxicology. We cast a very wide net, not because we were panicking, but because experience teaches you that certainty is kinder than hope.”

He spun the laptop around and tapped the screen, indicating a line of text. One word seemed to stand out more than the others.

Diphenhydramine.

Daphne’s mouth started to form a word, but before she could speak, Bridge raised a hand. Not to stop her. To slow the moment.

“Let me frame this properly before your thoughts begin sprinting ahead of you. Diphenhydramine is quite ordinary. Ubiquitous. It lives in bathroom cabinets, bedside drawers and glove compartments. It is sold with pastel labels and reassuring fonts. In small doses, it helps people sleep. In larger doses, particularly in children, it causes confusion, cardiac stress, and very poor evenings in a hospital bed.”

She swallowed. “I don’t understand how it could . . .”

“Good,” he said quietly. “That response tells me you’re honest.”

He leaned back slightly.

“There are only a few plausible routes by which it enters a child’s system. One, deliberate administration by an adult. Two, unsupervised access. Three, imitation. Children are excellent mimics. They learn far more from observation than instruction, which is inconvenient but consistent. A trait which in one moment of history passed down valuable life lessons. What berries are edible? What mushrooms are poisonous? A time when a parent's actions spoke more than words.”

Daphne’s fingers tightened in her lap.

“Do you keep any at home?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re mine.”

Bridge nodded once. A small, economical motion.

“And Magnus has seen you take them.”

The words were not a question. They were an observation.

“Yes. But, he wouldn’t . . . I mean, he’s not like other kids . . . he’s smart, a good boy. He wouldn’t . . .”

Bridge exhaled slowly through his nose, the way a man does when a pattern completes itself. He didn’t wait for Daphne to finish. He already knew the defensive mother story too well.

“A smart, overactive mind is often cursed with the inability to switch off,” said Bridge. The conversation then took another track, like a railroad points lever had been pulled. “Does Magnus suffer much during bedtime with an inability to power down? Maybe a fear of the dark? The universe's original blank canvas where creative minds place . . . things. Things that cast fear and deprive a mind of sleep.”

Daphne stared, things behind her eyes visibly joining together to form shape. “He thinks the house is haunted,” she whispered.

“Then we have our likely explanation,” he said. “Not malice. Not recklessness. Pattern recognition. Tiredness does not discriminate. The same poor choices can be made by both grown-ups and children when insomnia comes knocking.”

The light above them flickered.

Bridge glanced up briefly, unimpressed.

“Pay it no attention. This hospital is full of dramatic lighting.”

Daphne tensed. The small room felt colder now. An emotion she could not place began to eat away at her. A physical cramp growing in her gut.

“He wouldn’t,” she said again, weaker now.

Bridge closed the laptop as though finalising an explanation. He leaned forward, his voice lowering, not in volume but in gravity.

“Now. Here is the part you need to hear, and I want you to hear it clearly. Magnus is stable. He is recovering well. There is no permanent damage. This was frightening, not fatal.”

Her shoulders sagged, but guilt rushed in to fill the space relief had briefly occupied.

“And,” he continued, watching her carefully, “this does not warrant social services involvement. Accidents are not crimes. Patterns are what concern us, and this appears to be an isolated incident.”

Daphne nodded, though her face had gone pale.

Bridge stood, already moving toward the door, the conversation neatly folded, but he paused with his hand on the handle.

“One more thing,” he said. “You will blame yourself. That is inevitable. Parents always do. It serves no medical purpose, but it does confirm that you care deeply, which is not nothing.”

He opened the door.

“Lock the medication away. Talk to Magnus about sleep, not fear. And forgive yourself sooner than you think you deserve to. Guilt has a way of overstaying its welcome.”

Daphne stepped past him, her thoughts unravelling, tightening, catching on one unbearable sentence. The knot in her stomach drew tighter until it ached in a place she couldn’t point to.

I did this.

How am I going to tell Max that I nearly killed our Moonbeam?

Behind her, Bridge watched her go, his expression unreadable.