“I don’t believe it. Think how much worse it would be for Nick and all of us if he did treat your mom and she died. I’m sure that’s why there is the rule about not working on family. The guilt and blame would be crushing.”
“But Mom wasn’t his family.”
He pursed his lips and gave me a disapproving look. “You and Eli seem to think you have some sort of exclusive rights to Nick. We’ve known him since he was a child. We looked out for him when his folks moved away, and he looks out for me. I suspect at your mother’s request, although I’ve never asked.” My father rose from his chair slowly but with intent, clearly perturbed at me and Eli. “Sometimes you and Eli are self-centered.”
The remark hit me right in the heart.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on with Eli.”
“Why don’t you ask him then instead of the two of you bickering all the time?” He carried his plate in a shaky hand to the sink. “Don’t you need to get to work?”
I looked at my watch. I’d be late if I didn’t leave now, but I hated going with my Dad upset at me. “Yes.” I stood and went to him. “I’m sorry, Dad.” I gave him a hug.
“Have a good day, pumpkin.”
When I arrived at work, I pulled my mother’s medical record to get a better sense of what happened after her accident. Initially, I’d decided I wouldn’t read it, as I didn’t want to know the details. But now with Eli’s insistence that Nick could have saved her or that something hadn’t been right, I wanted to see what happened.
I read through the report. My heart broke for my mother, seeing how battered and injured she was. This was why I hadn’t pulled the report sooner. I didn’t want to know just how much pain she’d had, or how scared she might have been. Nick had told me she knew things were bad. I sniffed as tears formed, thinking about how that must have been for her.
I was a lawyer by training, but I’d been in the medical field of law for long enough to know that the injuries she had were life threatening. By the time the rescue people had gotten her out of her car, the internal bleeding was too severe to save her. Still, they did all they could to keep her calm and pain-free. They arranged for surgery to do all they could. At least she was under anesthesia when she passed, so hopefully she didn’t feel any pain.
When I finally closed the report, I knew that no doctor, not even Nick, would have been able to save her. The only chance she had would have been to have gotten to the hospital sooner, but she’d been off the road, down a wooded embankment that took rescue workers a long time to reach and evacuate her. It took longer than she had time for.
“At least Nick was there for you,” I said as I wiped away my tears.
Pulling myself together, I read my email, curious as to whether or not there was messages from the hospital board or administration on Ms. Mason’s death and Nick. It wasn’t surprising that he’d gotten a few phone calls from residents. In a small town, everyone felt they knew you and had a right to let you know what they thought. But chances were that everything would die down when they learned the circumstances of her death. Like my mother, Ms. Mason got to the hospital a bit too late.
I wondered if I should venture down to the emergency room to check on Nick. It was good that he had a day off yesterday, but I wondered if getting back to work would be like getting on the proverbial horse after falling off. Would he be hesitant? I shook my head. Dealing with death was something doctors, especially emergency room doctors, had to accept and move on from.
Instead, I opened up the files to the contracts I was working on and got to work.
11
Nick
I parked out back and entered the hospital through a side door, not wanting to be noticed. I didn’t want the looks of pity or blame from anyone who might be lurking around the hospital or in the waiting area. I went to the locker room mostly to get my head in the game. I splashed water on my face from the sink and stared at myself in the mirror.
“You got this, Foster,” I said to my reflection. My reflection didn’t look so sure. I left the locker room and headed toward the emergency department. As I reached the triage area, my chest cramped and I felt like I couldn’t take in a breath. My heart started racing, and I had to stop. What the fuck? I resisted putting my hand over my chest, as I didn’t want anyone around me think I was having a heart attack, but holy fuck, that’s what it felt like.
“Dr. Foster? Are you okay?” one of the nurses asked. She was heading past me but had stopped and looked at me with concern.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure. Indigestion.”
“You ate hospital food?”
I smiled, hoping I looked jovial. “That must have been it.” I pushed down the anxiety and forced myself forward.
“We’ve got a full waiting area this morning,” Peggy said as she walked with me to my first patient. “First up, a six-year-old who sliced his arm falling at an old construction site.” I plastered on my smile as I introduced myself, and then gave my usual spiel to the child about gluing him back together as I used liquid stitching to treat the gash in his arm.
Next up, I set the arm of a hiker who fell while venturing off the trail. I began to note that often people ended up in the emergency
