Doctors (85 page)

But after all, he had told her categorically that what they had was all she could expect from him. And he had acknowledged that he was prepared for the day when she would tell him that she’d found a full-time husband. He would bow out gracefully.

Which only bound her more to him, for she had yet another thing she could admire—his generosity.

At one point he invited her to join him on a trip to Finland. (“It’s so pure there—a hundred and eighty thousand lakes and none of them polluted.”) Perhaps, he suggested, while the two big boys honed their data, they could steal a day or two and ski.

“I don’t know how,” she answered.

“I could teach you, Laura. I’m the best instructor you could ever have.”

“Yeah. That’s what my first husband said.”

The conversation blended to another topic. Though Laura was intent on hiding her embarrassment at her reference to “my first husband,” she knew what she had inadvertently revealed, and surely Marshall had noticed it.

And yet he never mentioned it.

Late one evening Marshall woke her with a telephone call. He was in a state of panic.

“Laura, I need help.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Scott, my eight-year-old, has got some kind of FUO. He’s spiked a fever so damn high it’s nearly scorched the mercury. Can you come over quick?”

She was awake enough to feel the shock.

“Marshall, do you realize what you’re asking?”

“Laura, this is no time to play by the rule book. This is life and death. He needs an expert doctor fast.”

“Then take him to the hospital,” she answered, feeling torn and angry.

“Laura, you can get here faster than I can get him to the E.R.—and with all that bureaucratic bullshit he could die.”

He broke off with his plea still hanging in midair.

“All right,” she sighed, “I’ll be right over.”

“Jesus, thanks. You’ll hurry, won’t you? Do you know the way?”

“I know exactly where you live, Marsh,” she said quietly.

The Nova rattled as she gunned it up to ninety-five on Route 15. And even as she sped she tried to put a brake on her emotions.

Listen, Laura, you’re a pediatrician and this child is sick. Whatever you may feel about … his parents is irrelevant. It’s an emergency.

She kept repeating it, a kind of self-hypnotic litany, so that she could function. So that she could breathe.

The Jaffes’ home was in Silver Spring just off the Beltway. But the last eight hundred yards were on a dirt road, totally devoid of light. Despite this, Laura scarcely slowed her car.

She pulled to a sudden halt in front of the two-story white saltbox with a little lawn in front and a mailbox labeled
THE JAFFES.
It was the only dwelling that was fully lit.

She got out of the car and reached back for her bag. Marshall stood in silhouette at the front door.

“Jesus, thanks for getting here so quickly. I won’t forget this, Laura. Really—”

She nodded wordlessly and walked inside.

Up on the landing a boy no more than five or six, in Sesame Street pajamas, was staring down at her with saucer eyes. “Hey, Dad,” he cried in worried tones. “You said you’d called a doctor. Who is
she
?”

“This lady
is
a doctor, Donny,” Marshall answered reassuringly. “Now you just tiptoe back to bed and let her see what’s wrong with Scott.”

Laura hurried up the stairs, trying her best to be invisible, and ran straight to the open bedroom door.

Marshall had already swathed the boy in cold towels.

She walked up to the bed and spoke softly to the feverish child.

“I’m Dr. Castellano, Scott. I know you’re feeling very warm. But is there anything that hurts?”

The boy’s gaze was unfocused as he slowly moved his head from side to side. Then Laura turned to Marshall.

“When was the last time you checked his temp?”

“Maybe five minutes. It was one-oh-six plus.”

Laura felt the child’s burning forehead. “I can believe it,” she replied. “Go down to the kitchen and bring up lots of ice, stat. Do you have any rubbing alcohol?”

Marshall nodded. “In Claire’s bathroom. I’ll get it.”

He quickly left the room, his normally tanned face drained of color.

She turned and took a good look at her patient. The boy looked so much like his father.

Laura checked Scott’s lymph nodes—they were badly swollen—and put a stethoscope to his chest. She could hear nothing but an elevated heartbeat, so that pretty much ruled out a respiratory problem.

At his age Scott’s fever might indicate endocarditis, an inflammation of the lining membrane of his heart—but that was just conjecture. What was important at this moment was to treat the symptoms, get the fever down.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” came a female voice from the doorway. Laura turned and saw a matronly woman of indeterminate age in a tartan bathrobe. She had a screw-cap glass bottle in her hand.

“Dr. Jaffe said you need rubbing alcohol.” She now held
out the flask. Laura nodded and took two steps forward to accept it. Before she could say thank you, the woman spoke again.

“I’m Mrs. Henderson. Can I help in any way? Please, Doctor, we all feel so helpless.”

“Well, we could use a lot of washcloths—”

“Yes, Doctor, right away.”

The woman turned and disappeared. Almost simultaneously Marshall entered with a bucket full of ice. Young Donny trailed behind him holding a bowl that held a cube or two.

“Is this enough?” Marshall gasped.

“It’ll have to do. Now quickly, fill the bathtub with cold water.”

“What? Couldn’t that cause shock? I mean, a cardiac arrest or—”

“Marshall,” Laura snapped, “either you trust me or not. If you want to treat your own family, go right ahead. But don’t you
dare
try second-guessing me.”

Chastened, Marshall rushed to the children’s bathroom to fill the tub. Then he raced back to help Laura strip Scott and carry him.

“Hey,” squeaked Don, “what are you doing to my brother? He’ll freeze in there!”

“Shut up, Don,” his father barked. “We’ve gotta do exactly what this lady says.”

Laura turned to the frightened boy and in a much gentler tone said, “You could really help us, Donny, if you brought in some ice.”

But Mrs. Henderson was already there with the bucket.

“Thank you,” Laura whispered. “Dr. Jaffe and I will put Scott in the water, and you and Donny can drop ice cubes all around.”

She turned again to the younger boy and smiled, “Not on your brother’s head.”

Donny’s fright was suddenly dispelled by giggles. The prospect of inserting ice in his brother’s bath seemed amusing. Scott scarcely whimpered as they placed him in the freezing water. As he lay soaking, Laura checked him for clues that might be on the surface of his body.

“How much longer, Laura?” Marshall muttered anxiously.

Laura turned to Mrs. Henderson and said, “I’m sorry, I seem to have left my thermometer in Scott’s bedroom. Could you …”

The woman disappeared and was back in an instant. Laura
now monitored Scott’s temperature. At last she ordered Marshall to pull the boy out, help dry him, and get him to bed.

“But Laura, you just saw, he’s still got a fever.”

“One-oh-two is low enough. Stop backseat driving, dammit.”

Back in the young boy’s room, Mrs. Henderson and Donny set about the task assigned to them by Laura—gently dabbing alcohol all over Scott to get the fever down further. Laura and Marshall stood together at the doorway.

“So what do you think it is?”

“I’ll take some blood and have a complete workup done in the morning. That’ll tell us more than anything.”

She looked at him and then commented, “You don’t seem exactly relieved.”

“I’m worried, Laura. What about rheumatic fever?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you
sure
?”

“Is any doctor ever sure?” she asked him with exasperation. “Marshall, has it been so long since you’ve been in a hospital that you’ve forgotten we’re not omniscient?”

He lowered his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Laura, but if it were your own kid …” He stopped himself in midsentence.

“I know,” she said softly. “In fact, doctors tend to be the most hysterical parents I have to deal with. And you, Marshall, are no exception.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just lost my head. I … I’m not trying to pin you down, but can you tell me what you think?”

“At his age, probably CID or maybe Juvenile RA.”

“Tissue inflammation—rheumatoid arthritis?”

“Ah, you still remember one or two things from Med School days. But if it turns out to be RA, it’s not that big a problem in a kid his age.”

“Any other ideas?” he asked nervously.

“Hey, listen,” Laura said with annoyance, “at this hour of the night I’m not about to give a differential diagnosis. It’s highly unlikely he’s got anything serious, like bacteremia. Just believe me, he’s okay. Meanwhile, give him two of those Junior Tylenols every four hours.”

“Will aspirin do?” he asked, frowning.

“No, Marshall, it’s been linked to Reyes Syndrome in children. Tylenol—or if you want your child to take a drug of last resort like corticosteroids, get another doctor. Which reminds me, don’t you have a pediatrician?”

“Sort of. But I wouldn’t trust the guy with anything more serious than poison ivy.”

“Call me tomorrow at the office, and I’ll give you the names of some good ones.” She turned to the others in the room and said, “Take it easy, Scott, you’re going to be fine. Mrs. Henderson and Donny, thanks for all your help. Now it’s time for everybody to go to bed.”

She had almost made it to freedom.

But just as she was on the landing a door opened and a very pale, slender woman in a pink silk dressing gown leaned unsteadily against the wall and asked, her voice barely audible, “Will he be all right, Doctor? Will my boy get well?”

“He’ll be fine,” she answered. “Please don’t worry, Mrs. Jaffe.” She had turned and started down the stairs when the same weak voice called out, “Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“You’re very kind to come here at this hour. Marshall and I are very grateful.”

Laura nodded and continued down the stairs without another word.

She climbed back in her car, folded her arms across the steering wheel, and leaned her forehead on them.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Why the hell do I stick my chin out like this?”

She could still hear the painful, wounding words, “If it were your own kid.”

As she started the car and began driving down the road, an Armageddon of thoughts raged in her mind.

But she did not, as part of her wanted to, drive a hundred miles an hour off a bridge.

B
arney tried to reason with her.

“Castellano, I’ve told you a hundred times, you’re caught up in a very sick situation. Where’s your confidence? Don’t you think you deserve a full-time relationship?”

“He says he loves me, Barn,” she protested weakly.

“I’m sure he does—in his own way. He probably regards you as the romantic equivalent of fast food. The real problem is that you don’t love
yourself.
Why don’t you talk to a shrink about it?”

“Like Andrew Himmerman?” she asked facetiously. “Then I could have my analysis and my social life in the same hour.”

“Don’t be snide,” he objected, “Grete’s given you a distorted vision of the guy.”

“Now I know you’ve joined The Establishment,” she retorted, “sticking up for another member of your club.”

Barney longed to tell her about his meeting with Himmerman and the true version of the “seduction” of Grete. But he couldn’t. It had been a professional confidence. So he closed the discussion by saying, “I’ll get you a good name, Laura.”

“Fine. Be sure he’s blond. It takes one to understand one.”

She hung up feeling satisfied she had won the debate. But was it really a debate? Wasn’t her best friend only looking out for her best interests?

She suppressed an impulse to call him back. Instead, she phoned Marshall, who was working late in his lab.

He was happy to hear her voice. “I was really feeling low,” he confessed. “Let’s connect in half an hour.”

There, Laura thought to herself, he needs me. He wants me. Ergo, he loves me. Isn’t that all that really matters?

It had been a terrible day for Marshall. Not only had the department secretary called in sick with yet another of her psychosomatic illnesses (“I think she reads
The Merck Manual
in
her spare time,” Laura once joked), but he had also been summoned to Donny’s school because his younger son had been “clowning around again.”

And to aggravate his already bad humor, he had returned to the lab to find that the afternoon mail did not contain the urgently awaited proofs of the Rhodes-Karvonen article that would trumpet their breakthrough achievement to the scientific world.

And so, unable to concentrate, he drove to the tennis club, purchased an hour of the pro’s time, and pounded the poor bastard to smithereens. But when he went home to have dinner with the boys, he was still incapable of suppressing his frustration.

Donny was right on target when he complained, “Daddy, it’s no fun when you’re angry all the time. Couldn’t we just eat with Mrs. Henderson?”

Great, great. He was striking out on all fronts today. Claire was asleep when he went up to see her, and she seemed unlikely to wake till morning. And thus, feeling otherwise useless, he had returned to his lab. But there was no one else in microbiology, which was yet more dispiriting.

A little after ten his phone rang. It was Laura.

“Listen,” he suggested, “let’s meet in the parking lot and go for a drive.”

She readily agreed.

Marshall went to the bathroom, washed his face, checked his hair in the mirror—and then started for the stairway. When he reached the landing he looked down the corridor. There were lights in the director’s office. He decided to say goodnight to Rhodes. It might even win him some Brownie points for working late.

He knocked on the wooden frame of the glass-paneled door. There was no answer. He knocked again, and then tried the knob and found the door was open. He walked in hesitantly, calling softly, “Paul? Are you here? It’s me—Marshall. Anybody home?”