As Jeffrey drove north over the Tobin Bridge, exhaustion settled over him.
It seemed that he had to make a conscious effort to breathe. He began to wonder why he was bothering with all this rigmarole. It wasn't worth it.
Especially now that he was sure to lose his medical license. Other than medicine, in fact other than anesthesia, he didn't know much about anything. Except for a menial job like bagging at a grocery store, he couldn't think of anything else he was qualified to do. He was a convicted, worthless forty-two-year-old, an unemployable middle-aged nothing.
When Jeffrey arrived at the bank, he parked but didn't get
out of the car. He slumped forward and let his forehead rest on the steering wheel. Maybe he should just forget everything, go home, and sleep.
When the passenger-side door opened, Jeffrey didn't even bother to look up.
'Are you all right?' Carol asked.
'I'm a little depressed,' Jeffrey said.
'Well, that's understandable,' Carol said. 'But before you get too immobile, let's get this bank stuff out of the way.'
'You're so understanding,' Jeffrey said irritably.
'One of us has to be practical,' Carol said. 'And I don't want to see you going to jail. If you don't get that money in your checking account, that's where you'll end up.'
'I have a terrible premonition that that's where I'm going to end up no matter what I do.' With supreme effort, he got out of the car. He faced
Carol over the roof of the car. 'The one thing I find interesting,' he added, 'is that I'm going to prison and you're going to L.A., but I don't know who's worse off.'
'Very funny,' Carol said, relieved that he was at least making a joke, even if she failed to find it amusing.
Dudley Farnsworth was the manager of the Marblehead branch of Jeffrey's bank. Years before, he'd happened to be the junior bank officer in the
Boston branch of the bank that had handled Jeffrey's first real estate purchase. Jeffrey had been a resident in anesthesia at the time. Fourteen years previously, Jeffrey had bought a Cambridge three-decker and Dudley had arranged the financing.
Dudley saw them as soon as he could, taking them back to his private office and seating them in leather chairs facing his desk.
'What can I do for you?' Dudley said pleasantly. He was Jeffrey's age but looked older with his silver-white hair.
'We'd like to increase the mortgage on our house,' Jeffrey said.
'I'm sure that won't be a problem,' Dudley said. He went to a file drawer and pulled out a folder. 'What kind of money are you looking for?'
'Forty-five thousand dollars,' Jeffrey said.
Dudley sat down and opened the folder. 'No problem,' he said, looking at the figures. 'You could take even more if you wish.'
'Forty-five thousand will be enough,' Jeffrey said. 'But I need it by tomorrow.'
'Ouchl' Dudley said. 'That's going to be tough.'
'Perhaps you could arrange a home equity loan,' Carol suggested. 'Then when the mortgage comes through, you can use that to pay off the loan.'
Dudley nodded with eyebrows arched. 'That's an idea. But I tell you what, let's go ahead and fill out the forms for the mortgage. I'll see what I can do. If the mortgage doesn't come through, then I'll take Carol's suggestion. Can you come in tomorrow morning?'
'If I can get out of bed,' Jeffrey said with a sigh.
Dudley shot a glance at Jeffrey. He intuited that something was wrong, but he was too much of a gentleman to inquire.
After the bank business was concluded, Jeffrey and Carol walked out to their cars.
'Why don't I stop at the store and get something good for dinner?' Carol suggested. 'What would you like tonight? How about your favorite: grilled veal chops.'
'I'm not hungry,' Jeffrey said.
'Maybe you're not hungry now, but you will be later.' I doubt it,' Jeffrey said.
'I know you and you'll be hungry. I'm going to stop at the grocery for food for tonight. So what'll it be?'
'Get whatever you want,' Jeffrey said. He climbed into his car. 'With the way I feel, I can't imagine I'm going to want to eat.$'
When Jeffrey reached home, he pulled into the garage, then went directly to his room. He and Carol had been occupying separate rooms for the past year.
It had been Carol's idea, but Jeffrey. surprised himself by warming to the idea right away. That had been one of the first clear signs that their marriage was not all it should be.
Jeffrey closed the door behind him and locked it. His eyes wandered to his books and periodicals carefully shelved according to height. He wasn't going to need them for a while. He 'walked over to the bookcase and pulled out Bromage's Epidural Analgesia and threw it against the wall. It poked a small hole in the plaster, then crashed to the floor. The gesture didn't make him feel any better. In fact it made him feel guilty, and the effort exhausted him even more. He picked up the book, smoothed out a few of the bent pages, then slipped it back into its designated spot. By habit, he lined the spine up with the other volumes.
Sitting down heavily in the wing chair by the window, Jeffrey vacantly stared out at the dogwood, whose wilting spring blos-
soms were past their prime. He was gripped by overwhelming sadness. He knew he had to shake this self- pity if he was to accomplish anything. He heard
Carol's car pull up, then the door slam. A few minutes later there was a quiet knock at his door. He ignored it, thinking she'd guess he was asleep.
He wanted to be alone.
Jeffrey struggled with his deepening sense of guilt. Perhaps that was the worst part of having been convicted. By undermining his confidence, he again worried that maybe he had erred in administering the anesthesia that fateful day. Maybe he had used the wrong concentration. Maybe Patty Owen's death was his fault.
Hours slipped by as Jeffrey's preoccupied mind wrestled with a growing sense of his worthlessness. Everything that he'd ever done seemed stupid and pointless. He'd failed at everything from being an anesthesiologist to being a husband. He couldn't think of one thing that he'd succeeded at.
He'd even failed at making the basketball team in junior high school.
When the sun sagged down in the western sky and touched the horizon,
Jeffrey had the sense it was setting on his life. He thought that few people could realize the tremendous toll malpractice litigation took on a practicing physician's emotional and professional life, especially when there was no malpractice involved. Even if Jeffrey had won the case, he knew that his life would have been changed forever. The fact that he lost was that much more devastating. And it had nothing to do with money.
Jeffrey watched the sky change from warm reds to cold purple and silver, while the light ebbed and the day died. As he sat there in the gathering gloom, he suddenly had an idea. It wasn't entirely true that he was helpless. There was something he could do to affect his destiny. With the first sense of purpose in weeks, Jeffrey pushed himself out of the wing chair and went to the closet. From it he pulled his large black doctor's bag and put it on the bureau.
From the doctor's bag he retrieved two small bottles of Ringer's Lactate intravenous fluid as well as two infusion kits and one small scalp needle.
Then he took out two vials, one of succinyleholine, the other of morphine.
Using a syringe, he drew up 75 mg of the succinylcholine and squirted it into one of the Ringer's Lactate bottles. Then he drew up 75 mg of morphine, a walloping dose.
One of the benefits of being an anesthesiologist was that Jeffrey knew the most efficient way to commit suicide. Other doc-
tors didn't, though they tended to be more successful in their attempts than the general public. Some shot
