Of Flesh and Blood (9 page)

Cheeks flushed, Olivia stared at Evan in awe. “How wonderful!” she gasped.

Evan experienced another surge of the elation, which was happening more often in her presence. He had not had an opportunity to teach students since he had left San Francisco. To have such a hungry pupil, who was so quick to understand, was a pleasure for him.

Their eyes locked warmly. “Dr. McGrath, this clinic could really be something important.”

“Yes.”

A high-pitched moan from Virginia’s room broke the moment. Evan began to rise from his chair. “No!” Olivia jumped to her feet. “Allow me to help Mrs. McGrath up. Please. You look so very tired.”

Evan nodded gratefully. He was exhausted, having stayed at the hospital until four
A.M
. with a gravely ill man who required amputation of his gangrenous leg. “Miss Alfredson, you have been such a help to Virginia and me,” he began awkwardly. “I do not know how to thank you.”

Olivia showed him a big smile. “Dr. McGrath, I believe that a little help around the house is minor compensation in return for saving a person’s life.”

Evan watched her disappear into his wife’s room. He heard voices. Though
he could not make out the conversation, he picked up snippets of his wife’s anxious jumbled words and Olivia’s reassuring answers. Impatient for their return, Evan tried to convince himself that he was just eager to see his wife again.

Ten minutes passed before the floorboards creaked and Olivia pushed Virginia’s wooden wheelchair through the doorway and into the dining room. Evan rose and walked over to meet them. Virginia was wearing a shawl over her shoulders and a long nightgown. She sat slumped in the wheelchair, a blanket over her lap. The sight reminded Evan how much his wife had aged. At twenty-seven, Virginia’s drawn face already looked middle-aged.

She offered her husband a very shaky hand. He clutched it in his as he ran his other hand tenderly over her forehead. “Good sleep, Ginny?”

Virginia appraised him blankly. “At least I can still swim in my dreams,” she slurred, showing a glimpse of her former self. Then it was gone. A confused suspicion clouded her uneven expression. “Evan, who is this lovely young woman?”

Though Olivia had been visiting daily for weeks, Virginia’s memory for recent events had worsened of late. “Remember, Ginny? Miss Alfredson helps us out in the afternoons.”

Virginia turned to Olivia. “You’re very young.” She added warily, “And so well dressed for a housekeeper.”

Evan picked up on the paranoid tone in his wife’s voice. As her memory slipped and her grasp on reality weakened, Virginia was prone to fits of unjustified accusation, often questioning her husband’s faithfulness. Olivia had yet to witness any of these episodes, but Evan realized his wife was verging on one now. “Miss Alfredson is not a housekeeper, Ginny.” He held his wife’s shoulders reassuringly. “She volunteers to help us. Out of the goodness of her heart.”

“The goodness of her heart?” Virginia said. “That is most selfless of her.”

“I performed surgery on Miss Alfredson,” he soothed. “She is eager to help out in return. And you know that while I am at work, you can use the company.”

“Where is Mrs. Shirley?” Virginia asked.

His wife had forgotten that their regular housekeeper was at home with her own very ill nine-year-old. Evan had been caring for the boy—who had suffered from asthma and chest colds his entire short life—but this time his
pneumonia had not responded to the daily injections of silver. “Tommy has another chest infection,” he said, downplaying the gravity of the illness.

“That poor, poor little boy,” Virginia cooed.

A heavy pounding at the door interrupted them. Evan hurried over to open it.

In an overcoat and derby, the bearlike figure of Marshall Alfredson filled the doorway. “McGrath, I know she is in here!” the older man boomed, close enough for Evan to smell the remnants of his most recently smoked cigar.

Evan eyed him steadily. “This is my home, Mr. Alfredson. I do not appreciate your tone.”

Marshall pointed over his shoulder to where Olivia stood. “And how do you think I appreciate discovering this
situation
involving my own daughter?!” He cocked his massive fist and shook it menacingly at Evan.

“Papa, this is not—,” Olivia began.

Without taking his eyes off Marshall, Evan raised a hand to interrupt her. “Perhaps we should continue this discussion inside?”

Marshall grunted his agreement. As soon as Evan stepped out of the way, Marshall stormed toward his daughter. He had made it several strides before he stopped abruptly, noticing Virginia for the first time. He pulled off his hat, brought it to his chest, and bowed toward her. “Pardon me, madam, I am . . . er . . .,” he stammered to Virginia. “I am Olivia’s father. Marshall Alfredson.”

“Mr. Alfredson, allow me to introduce my wife, Mrs. McGrath,” Evan said pointedly.

Always self-conscious of her tremor and slurred speech in the company of strangers, especially men, Virginia merely said, “A pleasure, sir.”

Evan joined the others collected around Virginia’s wheelchair. He viewed Marshall’s mortified face with a satisfaction he found hard to suppress. “You see, Mr. Alfredson, the
situation
is that our regular housekeeper has not been able to come due to family illness. Miss Alfredson has been kind enough to keep Mrs. McGrath company while I attend to my patients.”

“I see.” Marshall nodded, regaining some of his composure. He glanced over to his daughter, his expression a contrast of approval and annoyance. He turned back to Evan. “Olivia has not been so forthright. I was not aware of her contributions here.”

“You are now, Papa,” Olivia said evenly.

“Would you care to join us for tea, Mr. Alfredson?” Evan asked.

“No, thank you,” he said stiffly. “I really must be on my way.”

“Papa, I would like you to listen to Dr. McGrath,” Olivia said. “He has a wonderful idea. I think you could help him realize it.”

Marshall shook his head. “I don’t see what possible help I could offer Dr. McGrath.”

Olivia reached out and grasped her father gently by the elbow. “Listen to him, Papa, please. This is something truly good and visionary. With your sense for business and your backing—”

Evan flushed. “Miss Alfredson, this is neither the time nor the place,” he said.

Ignoring Evan, Olivia stared at her father. “Please, Papa.”

His defiance withered under her stare. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Dr. McGrath, I would be most interested in hearing this idea.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Alfredson,” Virginia said. “I am fatigued and need to retire to . . . my bedroom.”

With a pang of melancholy, Evan realized that Virginia wanted to hide her appearance from the distinguished-looking gentleman.

Olivia moved quickly to Virginia’s wheelchair and began to push her toward the bedroom. “I am happy to help Mrs. McGrath,” she said. “Perhaps, Dr. McGrath, you might take the opportunity to explain your concept to my father.”

Evan led Marshall over to the dining room. The businessman folded his arms across his chest. With the women gone, his demeanor assumed a semblance of its previous edge. “Your grand vision, Dr. McGrath?”

“It’s not that grand or original, really,” Evan began uneasily. “In fact, it is similar to what I saw in San Francisco.” He went on to explain his disillusionment with the state of health care in the Pacific Northwest and then, though in a more restrained tone, shared his idea for the clinic he had earlier described to Olivia.

Marshall unfolded his arms and rested his hands against the edge of the table. The ruddy skin around his large features wrinkled in concentration, and Evan could see that he was running mental calculations. “Where would you house such a facility?” he asked.

“I do not know,” Evan admitted.

“And how would you attract all these great minds to come work in the Pacific Northwest?”

“I would hope that if one furnished the space and opportunity, the talent would follow.”

“You hope?” Marshall huffed. “As I understand your description, this hospital would not charge patients for the care.”

“Only those who could afford to pay.”

“Another charity hospital. Just like the Catholics.” Marshall sighed. “And how do you assess whether a patient could afford to pay or not?”

His self-consciousness growing, Evan simply shook his head.

“And the total cost of building and maintaining this hospital?”

“Mr. Alfredson, I am a doctor, not a businessman. I would have to rely entirely on someone else to manage the finances.”

“I think what you mean, Dr. McGrath, is that you would need to rely on someone else to build and finance this hospital for you.”

Evan said nothing. The two men stared at one another for a long moment. “I am a lumber trader,” Marshall said. “I know nothing about endowing hospitals. And frankly, I do not even see the necessity for this utopian medical clinic you dream of.”

“Perhaps you might have seen it better when your daughter was still ill,” Evan snapped.

“Perhaps,” Marshall said grimly. “However, I am not Andrew Carnegie. I cannot afford to throw money at some half-baked idea, regardless of the good intentions behind it. I have a family to provide for. Olivia will find a husband soon,” he said. “And grandchildren will soon follow. I have their futures to consider first.”

Angered and humiliated by Marshall’s brush-off, and the perception that he had ever intended to solicit from the businessman, Evan broke off the eye contact. He rose to his feet. “Mr. Alfredson, I believe you told me earlier that you needed to be off.”

Marshall rose to his full height, too. “Yes, I did. And I will escort my daughter with me. I have no doubt you can find a temporary chambermaid somewhere outside of my family.”

William McGrath’s back throbbed as he stepped out of the climate-controlled environment of the administrative building into the unseasonably hot fall sunshine. Each of the ten steps down to the cement pathway below intensified the exquisite pain in his low back, but he was conscious to keep his posture straight and his gait steady, so as not to let on to any passing personnel that he was suffering. As the hospital’s CEO, he believed he shouldn’t show any sign of frailty or weakness, especially now that he had reached seventy.

William stopped a moment to give his back a break, pretending to study the redbrick building that was the original site of the Alfredson in 1896. Though engulfed by newer and larger surrounding structures, the three-story building, with its simple elegance and stalks of ivy snaking up its walls, was still his favorite—a slice of living history on the sprawling grounds of the Alfredson complex. William was fiercely proud of his family’s role in establishing the hospital and nurturing it into a world-renowned medical center. One that possessed the heart and soul to never turn away patients who needed its specialized care; not even those who lacked the means or insurance to pay for it.

But all that will go by the wayside if the Alfredsons vote to sell
, William thought with a heavy heart.

Resisting the temptation to massage his back, he turned and began down the pathway. He walked past the green space of the enclosed courtyard—once part of the front lawn of the original clinic—where some staff lounged their breaks away. He heard the beating blades of the helicopter and knew, without looking up, that it was about to alight on the pad atop the Henley Building. He walked on past the waffle-shaped façade of the Adler Diagnostics
Building. Though he found the building an eyesore, he knew it housed one of the most high-tech and innovative radiology and diagnostic imaging facilities in the country.

William rounded the corner and saw the children’s hospital looming ahead of him. His thoughts drifted back to his conversation—
More like confrontation
, he thought—the evening before with Tyler. Though both of his children now worked at the Alfredson, neither showed a glimmer of interest or investment in the family’s ongoing administrative presence. Since its inception, a McGrath had always overseen the Alfredson, from William’s great-grandfather, Evan, through his grandfather, and three uncles since. And now that legacy was at risk of succumbing to indifference. The idea saddened him.

William shook off the thought and strode on toward his destination, the ten-year-old northeastern Grovenor Medical Tower, known by most people as simply “the Tower.” A twenty-six-story cement-and-glass behemoth, the Tower was the tallest structure in a forty-mile radius and occupied the equivalent of a city block. Dwarfing most of the other buildings on the complex, it accommodated thirty-four inpatient wards, forty-five operating rooms, and twenty outpatient clinics. It also housed the world-renowned kidney transplant program and renal dialysis unit. And the Alfredson’s main kitchen, which could have easily filled a couple of football fields, was situated in the Tower’s labyrinthine basement. The underground food preparation factory ran round the clock and was connected by a subwaylike system of tunnels and electric trolleys to all of the other twenty-seven buildings on site. The kitchen staff prepared over three thousand inpatient food trays for each meal. And they catered to every conceivable diet including—but not limited to—vegan, gluten free, kosher, diabetic, low sodium, hypoallergenic, renal dialysis, low protein, and cardiac.

Approaching the Tower’s entrance, William spotted Dr. Norman Chow pacing in front of the glass doors. Chow turned to him and waved his arm as though trying to flag a passing plane. “You’re still alive, Bill, thank God!” Chow called out happily.

The tall, stooped Taiwanese microbiologist and head of infection control—who, at fifty-five, still insisted on everyone calling him Normie—was one of the only people since grade school to address William as Bill. And though he would never admit it, William did not mind Chow’s use of the nickname.

“Guess I can call off the search party now,” Chow went on with a high-pitched laugh. “I wasn’t sure who was going to get here first, Bill, you or the Second Coming.”

Less than ten minutes late, William still chuckled at his friend’s hyperbole. Between Chow’s bulletproof cheerfulness and his informal Western idiom delivered in a Chinese inflection, William found it impossible to be offended by the man.