What We Find (20 page)

“I’m sorry, Cal. Sorry you didn’t have a fifty-year marriage.”

“I have no regrets, that’s the only important thing now. Right?”

“You’ll never get over her,” she said.

“I’m not supposed to get over her, Maggie. I’m supposed to treasure what was good and move on. That’s a tall enough order.” He took a breath, doubting his own wisdom, yet knowing what he had to do. “There’s one more thing. It’ll be obvious to you why I’ve never talked about it before, why it’s a closely guarded piece of information. It’s hard to tell you, of all people. You might find it unforgivable, dedicated as you are to saving lives. See, I made the ultimate commitment to my wife. She was dying of a painful disease. She asked me to give my word I wouldn’t let her suffer, to promise that I would help her let go. She asked me to help her die. And I did.”

Time stood still. Not even the water moved. It was actual minutes before Maggie moved, turning around in the little boat and kneeling to face him. She had tears on her cheeks. She put the palms of her hands against his cheeks. “Of course you did,” she whispered. “Of course.”

* * *

One way to move on, Cal discovered, was to have a heart-to-heart talk about both personal and professional things, leaving nothing unsaid. He unburdened all of it. And then they made out like long-lost lovers reunited for an hour or so, rocking the little boat until they were wet and laughing. When they got to the point where they either had to try to find a way to make love or at least get satisfied somehow, they gave it up. Cal took her back to the dock at the crossing and motored across the lake to return the boat. Although he told her he’d be happy with a long walk home, she drove over to the camp and picked him up.

They didn’t have any more of those serious, deep conversations again, at least through the following week. In fact, Maggie grew very quiet. Cal suspected she was worried about the hearing.

There were questions he could taste on her tongue that she didn’t ask and it could only be because she was afraid of the answers. Questions like,
Can you ever love like that again?
And
How long will you stay here?
And
How do I fit into your life, your plans?

He hoped that was what was causing her silence and not anything else. He did have some answers stowed away in the privacy of his heart.
Yes, I can love again but like that? Maybe it will be a different kind of love but equal.
And he wanted to stay there as long as staying there worked for everyone, including Maggie. And how did Maggie fit? He wasn’t sure, except that he couldn’t imagine letting her go. The caveat was—could she truly accept him as he was? Because he already knew he wouldn’t be going back to that other life, a partner in a big firm in a big city.

He had no regrets about leaving all that, either.

It was almost the middle of July when Maggie’s court date came around. Cal was sitting out on the porch of the store in the morning having coffee with Tom Canaday and listening to his tales of the weekend with his family—he had a complicated list of activities from work to chores to commitments the kids had that required juggling schedules and transportation.

“At least with Jackson and Nikki driving now, I get a little help with chauffeuring,” he said. “Problem is, not enough cars.”

“How you manage all your jobs and still get those kids to everything they signed on for must take some interesting logistics.”

“I start with one workable solution—if I’m available to them from four to seven, we can manage almost anything else. They’re old enough to get themselves up in the morning and get their own breakfast—I start my jobs early most days. The bus comes for the younger three, Jackson can drive himself to school and jobs. But from after school through dinner if I’m not around homework doesn’t get done and games, plays, dances, all that goes missed. And that stuff is just about as important if they’re going to be balanced. Right?”

“I guess,” Cal said.

Campers were just beginning to come awake. The aroma of coffee and bacon around the campsites filled the air, as did the sounds of people getting ready for a day of fun. A couple of dogs barked.

“Whoa,” Tom said, looking over at the house.

Maggie stepped out onto the porch. She wore a slim-fitting sleeveless black dress, black hose, black pumps. She carried a jacket over one arm and had a briefcase in hand. She’d fussed with her hair, that was obvious. It was smoothly turned under at her collar but still had that life in it, moving with her. She was decked out somberly but classy.

“Wow,” Tom said again.

Cal got up and walked over to the house. He’d already kissed her good-morning, once in bed and once when she was in the shower. He’d already told her she’d be great today. He wasn’t about to let her leave for court without another boost to her confidence. He took the steps up to the porch and stood before her.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“This is my funeral suit,” she said. Then she winced.

“How do you feel?”

“Terrified, but as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“If you’ve changed your mind I can still go with you. I can be ready in five minutes.”

She shook her head. “I’m just going to do it.”

“My phone is charged and I’ll keep it on for you.”

“You’ve been wonderful,” she said. “In case I didn’t say it or in case I forget to say it, you’ve been so wonderful. Helpful, encouraging, supportive.”

“How about a dynamic lover who’s taken you to heights never before experienced, taking your mind off your more cerebral legal affairs?” he asked.

“Satisfactory,” she said. Then she smiled her teasing smile. “Okay, above average.”

“The way you make me beg, it turns me on,” he said, returning the smile.

“I’ll call with updates, if there are any. I don’t know the process so if you don’t hear from me as soon as you...”

“It’s okay, honey. I know the process. And the rule is—unpredictable and leveraged on the mood of the judge and the paperwork involved.”

“Well, we’re ready. At least that’s what the lawyers say.”

“It’s going to be okay. Just remember, you did the right thing.”

“I did my best,” she said. “It’s been good enough so many times...”

“Maggie, you did the right thing. You’ll do the right thing today. All you have to do is listen and confer with your attorneys. You’re going to be fine. This will soon be behind you.”

“Only to happen again and again?”

He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, kissing her passionately. She couldn’t embrace him, coat in one hand and briefcase in the other. But she certainly gave full attention to his kiss.

“Did you smear my lipstick?” she asked.

“No. Now listen to me.
Everything
is going to happen again and again, Maggie. There will be accidents, there will be lawyers, there will be grieving family members. There will also be magnificent victories and lives saved. And there will be joyous occasions.”

“I’m remembering that book,
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
.”

“Good things also happen to good people. This isn’t the only outcome you’re going to have to live through, you know. Now, are you ready to go? Do you want to tell Sully you’re leaving?”

“I saw him for a moment before I got in the shower and he wished me luck. Will you tell him I’m on my way, please?”

“I’ll be glad to.”

He led her down the porch steps and helped her into her car. When she was getting in he gave her fanny a pat. “Break a leg,” he said. “Call when you can.”

“Thanks, California. I’ll return the favor if I can.”

Cal watched her leave and then walked back to the porch where Tom sat, waiting. When Cal sat down with his coffee cup again, he looked at Tom to see wide eyes and lots of teeth.

“Whoa,” Tom said. “You know what you should do? You should lock that down right away,” he said, giving a nod toward the house, toward Maggie. “Seriously. Right away.”

Cal laughed. “And what makes you think Maggie’s ready to get locked down?”

“Are you kidding me? You need my advice? You a novice?”

“Pretty much. What’s your best advice?”

“Well, at least you’re an adult. I fell for my girl when I was a kid...”

Tom launched into the story of his marriage, family and divorce. It was both complicated and predictable. He fell in love at sixteen, knocked up his girlfriend at seventeen, married her, went to work before finishing high school, had four kids. Then the girl grew up and wanted more of a life, but she felt suffocated by a husband and four kids, so...

Cal was only half listening. He was thinking about how beautiful Maggie looked and how brave she was. Not for facing a lawsuit in court, although that took guts. Every time she clocked in to her role as a neurosurgeon she was facing the unknown and laying her reputation and indeed, her future, on the line. Making those life-and-death decisions in seconds took great skill and incredible confidence. She amazed him.

Amazing women, it seemed, were his lot in life. For this he pushed aside his trepidation and said a little prayer of thanks. Complaining of finding not only one but two of these remarkable females should not be condoned. Time to give thanks.

* * *

As Maggie drove, something Cal had said came slinking into her mind.
Good things happen to good people, too.

Had she been properly mindful of the good things? Every time she held that cranial bone flap in her hand she was performing a small miracle. There were surgeries she’d come to think of as routine and yet she was conscious of the fact that whenever she was near the brain or spinal cord, it was a matter of life and death.

There were some procedures and surgeries that were more memorable than others. There’d been that inoperable brain tumor in a seven-year-old that Maggie dared to remove. No one would touch that little girl, it was just too complicated and dangerous. And no surgeon liked performing an operation that was 99 percent likely to fail. Yet the child was headed to certain death with a very minimal chance of prolonging her life—and suffering—through radiation and chemotherapy. But Maggie was willing to risk it for the child’s sake. She’d once scrubbed in with a neurosurgeon who had excised a similar lesion. She had a very impressive team backing her up.

They had several pre-surgical conferences to discuss it before taking it on. There was doubt all around her but it had worked. That little girl not only survived, she was now perfectly healthy. It was a total success. The surgeon who had scrubbed in to assist was an older man and he said, “You have the most beautiful hands I’ve ever encountered.”

There was a cyclist thrown over the hood of a fast-moving truck, paralyzed from the neck down. Maggie took him into surgery and performed a partial cervical laminectomy and repair and when he woke up he could wiggle his toes. A month later he walked out of the hospital.

She was not by any means a religious person; she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been inside a church in the past four years. She did have a deep spiritual core and every time she went into the operating room she had a mantra:
God, still my hand and clear my head.
And when she came out she said,
Thank you, God.

She had always scheduled her surgical cases for Tuesday and Thursday. She saw patients on Monday and Wednesday. She tried to take a couple of three or four-day weekends a month just to fill the well, catch up on her reading, organize her office and her head, but she was on call a couple nights a week. Blessedly she wasn’t always called in to the hospital and the occasions of being called to a major catastrophe like the MVA that had taken the lives of three youths were rare.

They had tried to prepare her in residency for the toll her specialty would take, yet it was more devastating than she had imagined. She had to fight the disappointment when things went poorly. Sometimes the emotion had driven her to the stairwell. And yet she met each new case with renewed vigor and enthusiasm—how?

She hoped the lawyer was going to talk about her good results, for she had them. Fantastic results, really. She was one of the best spinal surgeons in the area; many of her patients who were experiencing chronic pain realized complete relief and full mobility after surgery.

It was not in her nature to be negative. Why had she failed to remember all the victories?

Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.
Be honest and transparent anyway.

—Mother Teresa

Chapter 13

Maggie had an early lunch with her primary lawyer, Steve Rubin. For once
it was just the two of them, not the whole legal team plus a rep from the insurance carrier. They’d be before the judge at one o’clock and he warned her it might be a long afternoon. Both attorneys had already submitted all their paperwork, motions, witness lists, anything pertinent to this hearing. The judge would use all this information to determine the approximate length of the trial.

“Could the judge just throw it out today?” she asked hopefully.

“Very unlikely,” he said. “We’ve been in this process for a year and a half and if he were so inclined, that might’ve happened already.”

“Will you at least be able to bring up my exemplary record as a neurosurgeon?”

“Not until or if we get to closing arguments. Then, certainly. But I want to stay away from statistics if possible. I have expert testimony ready if necessary, but once we start talking about your saves we open the door to discuss your failures.”

She grimaced.

“I’m sorry to put it that way, Maggie. That’s not a very accurate conclusion, it’s just that the numbers in this specialty are bleak. Especially when it comes to emergency neurosurgery.

“Try very hard not to take this personally,” he said, and then launched into a short speech about motives and strategies and presentation, saying almost the same things Cal had said, that we mustn’t blame the plaintiffs for doing what they have to do. “We might suggest there is no blame here while there is access to considerable financial gain. But we’ll treat that with care—judges and juries don’t like the implication that we intend to hammer the grieving plaintiffs.

“On the other hand,” he said, “your malpractice carrier has not offered or agreed to a settlement, so without saying a word we imply we’re in for a fight. And I want you to be prepared, the judge we drew is not known to be sympathetic toward doctors. His record shows he decides most of these suits in favor of the plaintiffs.”

“Swell,” she muttered.

He didn’t speak quite as eloquently as Cal had. Oh, how she wished he were here! Just the soothing sound of his voice brought her such a serene feeling even when talking about this debacle. But she’d been afraid. She hadn’t wanted him to see her fail.

She listened to Steve Rubin talk, picking at her food. She was not on his witness list, he thought that ill-advised. They went from the restaurant to a small meeting room next to the courtroom. The courthouse seemed to be so busy, people everywhere. When they went into the courtroom via a side door, she saw that it was full.

“Who are all these people?” she asked Steve.

“There are always spectators. Or perhaps witnesses are—”

“Oh my God,” she said, momentarily frozen in place. “I know some of them! I know a lot of them!”

A woman separated herself from the crowd and came to the rail that divided the gallery from the attorney’s tables. “Jaycee!” Maggie exclaimed, reaching over the rail to hug her. “What are you doing here?”

“I can’t really do anything except show support. I just want you to know I’m here. I might not be able to get here more often—babies, you know. They’re relentlessly being born. But I wanted to make sure I was here for this evidentiary hearing. I’ve been in your shoes and it’s so difficult. Think positive, the outcome has to be good!”

“Steve, this is my best friend, Dr. Jaycee Kent, ob-gyn.”

“Pleasure,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Thank you,” Maggie murmured to Jaycee. Next to neurosurgeons, OBs were very vulnerable to civil suits. “You told me to take a week or two off and I haven’t been back yet.”

“Then you needed the time to regroup. Maggie, you’re not unique. A lot of doctors who are under enormous pressure have to schedule downtime just to recover. Now think positive. We’re here for you.”

Over Jaycee’s shoulder Maggie saw Terry Jordan, an RN from the operating room, a round and stern fifty-five-year-old woman who ran that OR with an iron fist and had saved Maggie’s ass more than once by knowing almost as much as Maggie did. And next to her Rob Hollis touched two fingers to his brow in a salute. She spied her old office manager, Susan, a smile on her usually tight and grim face. And there was Kevin from radiology, Kevin who could read those emergency CTs better and faster and more accurately than anyone she knew. There were three OR techs, a couple of nurses, a couple of paramedics she ran into in emergency quite a lot. An audience. They were here for her. She prayed she wouldn’t just draw their pity.

She hadn’t even told her mother and Walter about this preliminary hearing! Now she remembered, she had told Jaycee and Terry in emails when they asked for updates on the lawsuit. Word must have spread like wildfire.

Maggie turned around. She was faced with the plaintiffs for the first time in over a year and it was shattering to see them. They were young, not that much older than Maggie at right around forty, yet they looked so devastatingly old. Mr. and Mrs. Markiff; she remembered telling them their son had expired. She’d held Mrs. Markiff in her arms for several minutes as she sobbed. Mrs. Markiff appeared to be losing her hair and was painfully thin, sallow, her face so deeply lined. She looked so weak. Mr. Markiff, on the other hand, looked so much bigger than she remembered. He had a fierce look on his face and a huge belly that strained the buttons on his white dress shirt. Both of them looked at her with loathing.

She had tried. She had tried so hard. Losing those kids was horrible. And yet it was her work and she didn’t have time to second-guess split-second decisions or pause to reconsider.

“All rise! The Honorable John Bestover White presiding.”

The judge entered, the entire courtroom rose and Maggie studied him. He looked very big in his robes but she thought, given the perspective of him passing the bailiff, he was actually a small, chunky man with a large, intimidating mustache and a ring of white hair around his otherwise bald head. And he was scowling.

He was efficient. They began going through the paperwork, first the complaint of wrongful death, then the motions—each one was read and had Maggie’s attorney not explained them all, she would be lost. There was the complaint, which was the plaintiff’s case. There was the counterclaim, which was essentially her side of the story and as close as she’d ever get to testifying, which she probably would never get to do. With the help of her lawyer and depositions, they had reconstructed the emergency in a timeline with supporting facts. There was the reply to the counterclaim in which the plaintiff alleged it should be obvious to any certified and experienced neurosurgeon that the patient to take to surgery was their son and not the unconscious boy—they alleged she had mismanaged triage. Then there was the statute of limitations, forcing the trial in a timely manner. She found that laughable a year and a half after the event. There were several more motions as well as evidence in discovery. All of these motions, each one read and explained and denied, took almost two hours. Denied to the defense team was the district attorney’s report in which he declined to prosecute any malpractice. A blow to the defense.

Then, finally, the plaintiff’s attorney offered a motion of summary judgment. Steve whispered to her that meant they’d go with the judge’s decision rather than a jury. They had no doubt heard Judge White wasn’t crazy about doctors.

“Your Honor, we make a motion to dismiss,” Steve said.

“Sit down, Mr. Rubin.”

The courtroom sank into dark quiet. The judge took a deep breath before he spoke.

“My heart is very heavy today,” he said. “I’ve read the claim, the counterclaim, all the motions and pleas. Inclusive in those materials was the accident report. In the plaintiff’s claim the focus is on two sixteen-year-old boys but in fact there were five—it was a catastrophic event, all arriving in the emergency room critical, one of them beyond help upon arrival. I preside over many civil malpractice and wrongful death suits. Many of them emerge from emergency rooms and emergency operating rooms. There is not only a reconstructed timeline provided by the defendant but notes from paramedics, RNs, attending physicians and ER physicians, not to mention the OR staff. From the time the first of the injured arrived in the emergency room until the fifth patient arrived, only six minutes had elapsed. From the time triage was complete until the first patient was anesthetized and the surgeon at the ready, four more minutes. From the time patient Markiff was assessed and sent to radiology for his head CT—two and a half minutes. There were also other decisions and designations made within this time frame—one boy sent to surgery for splenectomy while yet another was put into the care of an orthopedic surgeon and on to surgery to deal with two life-threatening broken femurs and yet another put on life support for possible organ harvest.

“If anyone had trouble following that—the time from the very first of five injured arriving in the emergency room until Dr. Sullivan entered the OR suite—ten minutes. If you could break it down, she probably had less than thirty seconds to make a decision. Her notes are written by the attending physician and verbally recorded. I not only looked at the accident reports—police, paramedic, fire and rescue—but the postmortem reports. And I must tell you, the entire scene must have been horrific, and yet the record is not only flawless, it is flawlessly consistent. The only report lacking in this vast collection of documentation is a blood test done on the emergency room and operating room staff to measure drug or alcohol use. It was not done because there was no indication. Fifteen emergency room and operating room employees were deposed and under oath stated that the physicians in question appeared rested, sober and efficient.

“I pored over all of this detailed information and yet the most telling and crucial fact came down to a single number—the time of death. Rory Busch in the operating room and Carl Markiff in radiology for a CT both expired ten minutes after arriving in the emergency room at the exact same time. Well, resuscitation began on both patients at exactly the same time and continued for several minutes. Their injuries and cause of death were nearly identical as well—both died of head injuries that led to massive brain hemorrhage. This fact alone made it physically impossible for Dr. Sullivan to make either choice work, although the testimony of the staff establishes that her decision to take the unconscious lad to surgery first is indeed protocol.

“But let me say this—I believe it needs to be said. For any doctor to enter a melee such as that emergency room, filled with critical teenagers, make a sound decision, move to intervention in the midst of chaos and try to save a patient under such dismal circumstances and against such overpowering odds is nothing short of heroic.

“Because we have access to the many reports and depositions, I don’t feel anything further can be gained by reading or reciting them aloud in this courtroom. I’m dismissing this case with prejudice. I find no case here. Mr. and Mrs. Markiff, my deepest sympathy for your tragic loss. We are adjourned.” His gavel struck and the courtroom began to stir, first with voices, then cries of happiness, cries of devastation from the Markiffs.

“With prejudice?” Maggie asked, though she thought she knew what it meant.

Steve Rubin was looking at her, smiling somewhat sadly as he wiped the tears off her cheeks with his thumb. Maggie didn’t even realize that when the judge started going through the events of that night it took her back and the tears were automatic, rolling down her cheeks. “That means the case is closed forever,” he said. “Of course, in the event of new and previously undisclosed evidence, the plaintiffs can petition the court, but it would have to be stunning and they’d have to find a lawyer willing to do that when the odds of winning are so remote. This is it, Maggie. You’re through here. You did nothing wrong. There was no mistake.”

“Oh God,” she whispered weakly.

“I think some people are waiting for you,” he said.

She looked up to see Rob Hollis leaning over the rail, grinning like a fool. “We’re going to O’Malley’s down the street, Maggie. Terry sent a posse ahead to hold tables. We’re taking you out to celebrate.”

“Jaycee?” she asked, looking around.

“She’ll be there. She just had to call her service first. You coming? Of course you’re coming!”

“Of course, yes,” she said. “Go ahead. I’ll meet you. I’m going to get out of the courthouse parking garage and drive down. And thanks,” she said.

She turned to Steve. “Will you join us?” she asked.

“I’m going to pass,” he said, laughing. “I wish I could, but there’s always work to finish. Not for you, though. Your work here is done.”

She hugged him. “We were lucky, weren’t we?”

“You were in the right all along, but there’s no such thing as a slam dunk in this business. Now go enjoy your friends. And get a good night’s sleep.”

“Thank you, Steve.” She smiled. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Hardly anyone is actually pleased when they have to do business with me...”

“Then we have that in common,” she said. She grabbed her purse and briefcase and headed out the door.

She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be away from people. She saw a ladies’-room sign at the end of a long deserted hallway far away from the courtroom, in the opposite direction from where the crowd seemed to be heading. She walked that way and ducked in. There was only one occupied stall so she washed her hands and checked her appearance. A little blotchy, but not bad. The toilet flushed and a uniformed female security officer came out, smiled hello, busied herself at the sink for a moment and departed.