Chapter 1

For three years, because I checked the neighborhood seniors' blood sugar and blood pressure for free, the neighbors decided I owed them a standing clinic.

Some of them even named the hours. Saturday afternoon into the evening. And I was supposed to fill their prescriptions too.

So I explained it in the group chat, plainly.

"Everyone, I'm a resident-in-training. I'm not licensed to run appointments, and I definitely can't hand out prescriptions off the books. I hope you'll understand."

The next thing I knew, my neighbor Robert Whitney was at my door with a stack of bills.

"Because you wouldn't do the free clinic, my dad's condition got missed. Late-stage liver cancer. You're going to pay us two hundred thousand dollars in medical costs."

After I called the police, they got bolder. They smashed up my car and wrote across it in red paint,

"Quack with no conscience. Selfish gold-digger. Drop dead."

Then they brought a crowd to the hospital, unrolled a banner accusing me of practicing medicine illegally, of killing for profit, demanding two hundred thousand in medical fees.

Watching them strut around like they owned the place, I made one phone call, right there.

Three days later, Robert was on his knees at my door, shaking, begging.

"Dr. Mason, please, have mercy. Don't let my boss fire me. I know I was wrong. I'll never try to shake you down again, I swear."

1

My name is April Mason. I'm a resident-in-training at a top-tier hospital.

Three years ago, when I started at First General Hospital, I rented a place in Fairview Court, the closest complex to work.

The first free checkup happened after a late shift, when I found my neighbor Old Mrs. Barnett collapsed from low blood sugar.

I went straight to her, checked her pressure, got some sugar into her.

When she came around, she held onto my hand and thanked me over and over, and the neighbors crowding around all praised me for being a good doctor.

Old Mrs. Barnett even pressed a few apples on me, a little embarrassed as she said,

"Dr. Mason, my blood sugar and pressure are always jumping all over the place. I'll be leaning on you a lot. Don't get sick of an old woman, all right?"

After that, she started calling regularly, asking me to come check her sugar and pressure.

And that was the day my reputation as the free doctor spread through the complex.

At first it was just a few of the older folks in my own building. Then it was the whole building. Then the entire complex knew I did checkups for free.

"Dr. Mason, my dad just said his chest feels tight, come take a look, quick."

"Dr. Mason, my dad's cholesterol is high. Didn't you say there was a new drug? Come test him and let him try the new one while you're at it."

By the time I got off work, I was busier than I'd been at the hospital.

Three hundred and eighty units, every one of them.

If it wasn't a headache, it was a tight chest, and if it wasn't that, it was diarrhea.

For three years, I didn't get a single quiet evening.

I kept telling myself they were neighbors, that a doctor's whole job is to help the sick, that I was just seeing a few more patients on top of the hospital.

What I never imagined was that the free service would turn into something they thought they were owed.

Especially after they heard that a doctor over at Sunhaven Residences supposedly ran free checkups for the whole place. That set off the group chat.

"Dr. Mason, the doctor at Sunhaven does free checkups for the neighbors. We have to call you every single time, which wastes our phone minutes. From now on just hold a clinic Saturdays in the courtyard, it'd be easier."

"Right, and sometimes your line's busy anyway. Set up a table in the courtyard and we'll just come to you."

"Dr. Mason, make it six in the evening. Mornings I rest, afternoons the kids are at tutoring, and six is right when we go for our walk."

Just like that, the chat started drawing up a shift schedule for me, complete with instructions on which medications to bring.

"Dr. Mason, your hospital's huge. Just grab some from the pharmacy there, then we don't have to pay for it at the drugstore."

"Exactly, drugstores are such a rip-off these days, dozens of dollars a box. Your hospital won't miss a little of that."

Watching every one of them treat it like a given, I let out a bitter laugh and typed back without hesitating,

"Everyone, I'm a resident-in-training. I'm not licensed to run appointments, and I definitely can't hand out prescriptions off the books. I hope you'll understand."

The chat blew up on the spot.

"You've been a doctor for years, how are you not licensed? Are you just afraid we won't pay you?"

"I already asked around. The doctor at the next complex does free checkups and hands out free medicine, so why can't you? Dr. Mason, don't be so selfish."

"Last month you checked my dad's pressure and sugar, charged him ten bucks, and took our imported fruit too. Funny you didn't mention not being licensed then. Aren't you just scared there's nothing in it for you this time?"

One accusation after another, and my hands and feet went cold.

The ten dollars was for the blood pressure medication Robert asked me to get his dad. I'd covered another dollar twenty out of my own pocket.

The fruit was one wrinkled little apple he'd forced on me as he was leaving.

I only took it so he wouldn't read too much into refusing, and I tucked it into my bag.

Everyone in the chat was piling on, righteous as anything, this one saying I took a bottle of iced green tea, that one saying I took three bananas.

For three years I gave up my off-hours, came whenever they called, checked their pressure and sugar and diagnosed their illnesses for nothing, and all I'd earned for it was the name of a selfish woman out for what she could get.

Something cold moved through me, wave after wave.

Fine. If you're this greedy, then starting today I'm done being your free doctor.

I posted a notice in the group chat, right then.

"As of today, I won't be doing checkups for anyone. If you're sick, go to the hospital and register like everyone else."

Since the kindness counted for nothing, I was taking the convenience back.