دانلود رمان انگلیسی “مزرعه توت فرنگی”

The early evening traffic is locked in a stranglehold, cars honking their horns in a steady cacophony of outrage that won’t change how fast we get there. An early March snow had made the streets slushy and slowmoving. I should have left the hospital earlier. But one more patient turned into five, and then there was the woman with the persistent cough, an escalating fever, and a look of panic in her eyes I couldn’t ignore. Lately, there have been more patients like her. Odd respiratory distress symptoms that hit suddenly and aren’t testing positive for flu. An intensity to them that is alarming. An unusual number of pneumonia cases. As a doctor, I’ve never been afraid of catching illnesses from my patients. It’s just not something you let yourself think about once you’re committed to the field of medicine. I can’t say that any longer. I’m worried. Everyone’s worried. But Michael won’t be surprised I’m late. He’s used to me staying too long, doing too much, never knowing when to walk away. He calls it my gift and his curse. I check my reflection in the compact mirror. My mascara is long gone. My eyes are hollow. The freckles across my cheeks, once something I tried to cover up because they made me insecure, don’t bother me tonight. It seems silly that something so inconsequential once bothered me. That was the world I lived in a few short weeks ago. One where there wasn’t something potentially terrifying looming over all of humanity, and we had time to worry about silly things like freckles. I wipe my face clean and reapply enough makeup to look as if I tried. The black Suburban eases into a line of cars, inciting another immediate string of irritated honking. “Sorry about the delay, ma’am,” the driver says. “And the horns. New York City.”