It was startling to realize that Julian and Colin had helped me resolve a self-esteem
issue I wasn’t even aware I had.
Warm hands landed on my shoulders and thumbs dug into my stiff trapezius muscles,
massaging gently. “You look exhausted. Would you rather skip dinner tonight?”
I groaned as chills of ecstasy slid down my back and arms. There were definite advantages
to dating another doctor. “No, of course not, Adam. I’ll never toughen up if I keep
babying myself.”
“Come home with me and I’ll baby you all night,” he murmured against my ear.
A rueful chuckle escaped me. “That’s a lovely offer but I think we’d better stick
to dinner for now.”
Without letting up on my sore muscles, he sighed. “When are you going to tell me about
him so I know what I’m up against?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said without opening my eyes.
“Try me.”
This time I was the one who sighed. “Ply me with enough decent wine and maybe I’ll
give you a hint. Maybe.”
“You’re on.” He slapped me on the butt. “Let’s go.”
Startled, I spun around and he reddened a bit. “Sorry, a leftover habit from football.
And my ex-wife,” he added with a grimace. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
I eyed him suspiciously. Surely Julian wouldn’t have the nerve to interfere in my
love life again?
“See that it doesn’t,” I told him sternly.
He grinned. “Yes, Ma’am.” Then he held up my coat. “Shall we?”
All the way to the restaurant, I watched the all-American-looking Dr. Adam Bigley
unobtrusively. He was tall, dark, confident and aggressive, both in the ER and in
his personal life, but he’d never once set off my Domdar. He just didn’t seem that…complex.
Adam had told me that he was divorced when he first asked me out last month, that
he and his ex-wife had married young and his medical education had taken too big a
toll on his time for the marriage to last. It wasn’t an uncommon tale in our line
of work, and I’d accepted it without thinking twice.
“I truly am sorry, Rachel,” he said, glancing over at me. “I did that without even
thinking about it. Probably because I’m so comfortable with you already.”
“I’m comfortable with you, too,” I replied thoughtfully. I still believed he was exactly
what he appeared to be, an uncomplicated guy who liked to swat someone on the fanny
once in a while.
Why did I have a feeling that rang the death knell for any kind of romantic relationship
between us? Not that I was looking for romance, per se—I’d started dating him with
some vague idea of becoming friends with benefits, but so far the only benes I’d allowed
myself with him, beyond a friendly cheek kiss at the door, were meals and good conversation.
It sucked. My body craved sex now—rough, passionate, uninhibited sex—and it wanted
badly to move on with another man. A more average man, maybe one with just a few mild
kinks. Adam appeared to fit that description to a tee.
But my heart just wouldn’t let me take that next step. It needed…more.
As we were settled at our table with drinks, he said, “So tell me about this guy you’re
not over yet.”
“Did I say that?”
“No. You didn’t have to.”
“Hmm.” I sipped my wine, wondering what how he’d react if I told him there was more
than one guy. Deciding not to test the limits of his social tolerance yet, I said,
“We worked together for a while.”
“Another doctor?” When I hummed in confirmation, he rolled his eyes. “Great.”
“Don’t worry. You’re nothing like him otherwise.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Probably both.”
“You’re not giving me much to work with here, Rachel,” he complained, popping the
olive from his martini into his mouth.
After deliberating for a moment, I said simply, “He played God.”
Adam sipped his drink. “Don’t we all do a certain amount of that every day?”
“Not like this. His patient was a family member in the late stages of a terminal disease,
and he devised a radical experimental procedure that might give the patient a chance
at life. When the patient refused to consent, he performed it anyway.”
“How close a family member?”
“Sibling. Young, in his twenties.”
Adam leaned back, nodding. “That would be a tough call. What was the outcome, if you
don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m not sure. The patient survived the procedure, against what most would consider
impossible odds, but he was still comatose when I left. He may remain that way forever,
or be trapped in a body that he has absolutely no control over.”
“And so you left because…?”
Surprised, I asked, “Isn’t that enough?”
He frowned. “I don’t know if it would be for me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because I have a kid brother, and if it came down to a choice between his life
and my career, I hope I’d make the same choice.” When I just stared at him, he said,
“You have a little sister, don’t you? What if it were her?”
“I’d respect her right to decide her own treatment,” I said in a tone more defensive
than I’d like.
“What if your parents disagreed? What if they’d blame you for letting her die when
you might have saved her?”
I scowled at him. “Whose side are you on here?”
“I’m not on any side,” he said mildly. “Just playing devil’s advocate. I’m kind of
famous for that. It might be why I don’t have a girlfriend,” he added with a grin.
Our server arrived with yeasty rolls and dinner salads. Once she’d gone, I leaned
forward, determined to make him see reason. “The thing is, Adam, it wasn’t just
his
career at stake. He deceived and manipulated a whole team of medical professionals,
including me. Most of us had no idea the patient hadn’t consented.”
Picking up his fork, he shrugged again. “In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.”
I sat there and watched him butter a roll and take a few bits of his salad, hardly
believing the entire conversation.
“Let me tell you about something that happened to a friend of mine,” he said abruptly.
“A pediatric oncologist. He had a patient with Ewing’s sarcoma, a large femoral tumor
with lymph node involvement. The girl, a bright, energetic cheerleader and dancer,
refused to have her leg amputated. Her father was in favor of the amputation but her
mother wanted her to have a chance at a normal life, so they finally agreed to honor
the girl’s wishes. My friend excised the tumor and treated with a long course of chemo
followed by radiation. Less than a year later, the cancer returned and once again,
she refused the amputation, saying she’d rather be dead. Her parents let her make
that call, even though she was clearly depressed and hadn’t fully recovered from the
previous round of treatment.”
He took a bite of salad, leaving me in suspense while he chewed.
“So my friend operated again,” he finally said, “and while he was in there, he gave
serious thought to just amputating anyway. He wouldn’t have to look too hard to find
a legitimate reason to make the call—she actually started to hemorrhage on the table,
and the fastest way to save her would have been to just clamp off the artery and remove
the leg. But visions of lawsuits and disciplinary hearings danced in his head, so
he stopped the bleeding, excised the tumor and closed her up, putting her through
more chemo and radiation. The girl died six months later in terrible pain, and my
friend had a hard time looking himself in the eye for a long time afterward.”
“He made the right decision,” I said uneasily.
“Did he?”
“Yes! That’s why we have a code of ethics, so doctors aren’t forced to make choices
like that for their patients. Her parents were supposed to be advocating for her—if
that girl was too sick and depressed to make an informed decision, they should have
manned up and done it for her.”
“What if they couldn’t agree with each other? What if they were too overcome their
own grief and prejudices and fears to see what was best for their daughter?” Adam
pointed his fork at me. “And what about your patient? Who was advocating for him?
I assume, if he was in late stages, that he was exhausted, depressed, and possibly
suffering debilitating pain. Was there anyone else to fight for him when he was too
weak to fight for himself?”
I stared at him, my stomach churning.
“No.” A tear streaked down my cheek before I could check it and I wiped it away self-consciously.
“Just Ju— Just his brother. Their parents are dead.”
He sighed. “Rachel, you must know that our code of ethics is just a framework for
helping us understand conflicts. It can’t always tell us how to resolve them. Sometimes
we’re placed in a situation where there
is
no good answer, and we just have to do whatever we feel is right and hope for the
best. If this guy was his brother’s only advocate
and
his only hope, what other choice could he have made?”
Another tear escaped. “I don’t know.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said quickly, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “Sometimes
I don’t know when to quit.”
I wiped my eyes. “It’s not your fault, Adam. In fact, I wish I were more like you.”
“Opinionated? Oblivious?” he asked with a grin.
I couldn’t help smiling. “I suppose both would make my life easier. At least I wouldn’t
agonize over every little thing.”
“You gotta learn to let go, Rachel,” he said. “The stress will kill you if you don’t.”
Sighing deeply, I said, “I know.”
“And I’m sensing a deep and abiding platonic friendship developing between us,” Adam
said dryly, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb.
“You’re probably right. For the time being, anyway.” I sighed. “I apologize if I’ve
led you on.”
Adam grinned. “I’d sound like an ass if I said you did but I’d get over it, wouldn’t
I?”
“Probably, but friends can get away with sounding like an ass occasionally,” I told
him ruefully.
The server came back with our entrees. “Are you done with that?” she asked, looking
at my untouched salad.
Realizing I was hungry after all, I told her to leave it. I obviously had a lot of
soul-searching to do and I couldn’t do it on an empty stomach.
* * * * *
Three days later, I finally made it to the post office and checked my mail for the
first time in weeks. I’d managed to squeeze in a lot of thinking around my last few
shifts, going over everything Julian had said to me again and again, and I still wasn’t
any closer to having the answer I needed.
Yes, his brother was young, and yes, his father had died of the same disease, and
yes, he’d dedicated his life to finding a cure. And yes, he’d even found one and it
was frustrating as hell that his brother wouldn’t accept it.
But even taken all together, those facts weren’t enough to justify what Julian had
done, what he’d risked. What he’d sacrificed.
So why did it feel like I was missing some vital piece of information? Why did it
feel so utterly wrong that I’d left him? Left
them
?
“Bad Rachel,” I scolded when I opened the box and found it stuffed with envelopes.
The last time I’d gone this long without checking, my electricity was on the verge
of being shut off for non-payment of the first bill. Not a good way to renew my relationship
with the power company.
Setting the pile down on the lobby table, I sorted out all the junk and threw it into
the recycle bin. There was a plain white envelope postmarked Coppell, Texas with no
return address, just my name and address on a computer-generated label. I didn’t know
anyone in Texas and thought about tossing it away but then decided it was better to
be safe than sorry. Maybe I’d just inherited millions of dollars from some distant
relative I’d never heard of and this was my only chance to claim it.
Instead, it was a photocopied newspaper article, dated more than fifteen years ago,
about a commercial jet crash that had killed twelve passengers and injured fifty more.
The name Kilmartin jumped off the page at me.
Among the dead is Elaine Kilmartin, 43,who was on her way to lobby the National Institutes
of Health for increased funding for Bain’s atrophy research. Mrs. Kilmartin founded
and was a tireless supporter of the Bain’s Research Project after her husband, Dr.
Stuart Kilmartin, died of the neuromuscular disorder four years ago. She was dedicated
to finding a cure before it cut any more lives tragically short. Elaine Kilmartin
is survived by two sons, Julian Kilmartin, 20, and Jordan Kilmartin, 10.
My chest hollowed out as I stared at nothing, letting the article fall to the post
office floor. Julian hadn’t just lost his father to Bain’s—he’d lost both his parents.
And Jordan…
I couldn’t let it take him, too.
If he’d let Jordan go, Bain’s would have cost him his entire family.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Without giving myself time to think, I hurried to my car, dug out my phone with shaking
hands and hit Colin’s speed-dial number. His service had been disconnected. I tried
Vince’s number next and it was also out of service.
What the hell?
I rolled several stop signs in my race to get home and scoured the internet looking
for information, but there was nothing current on any of them that I could find.
“Shit,” I whispered.
After dithering for two hours, I finally picked up the phone again, totally forgetting
that Bree was on night shift. When she answered in a sleep-roughened voice, I took
a deep breath. “How would you like to go to Montaneva with me?”
* * * * *
We pulled up in front of Bangenschloss three weeks later, this time in a terrifying
little excuse for a taxi. The terrifying little excuse for a driver dumped out our
two small bags with an indecipherable grunt and then zoomed away like he was afraid
I was going to demand a refund of his tip, which I’d paid in advance along with the
fare.