PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) (4 page)

Chapter Six

James hurried past the two nurses behind the desk, studiously ignoring their curious stares. He knew they’d probably overheard some of what had gone on just now with Melissa Clayton, because the office they’d been using was directly across the hall from the nursing station and sound carried in a building as old as St. Joe’s.

He strode down the hall, around a corner and into an empty room. There, he shut the door behind him and locked it, then leaned back and closed his eyes. He was shaking, and his gut felt as though he’d swallowed a vial of acid. He dug in his pocket and popped an antacid tablet in his mouth.

With painstaking attention to every aspect, he went back over the procedure he’d performed on Betsy Clayton, trying to pinpoint anything that had occurred in the OR that might have precipitated the cardiac arrest.

He’d done so countless times in the past two days, and again he couldn’t come up with a thing. The operation had been textbook perfect; the orders he’d given for her postoperative care had been meticulous and detailed.

Whatever had brought on the cardiac arrest and its resulting effects hadn’t been his fault, he assured himself. But old feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and guilt washed over him.

He went to the sink and poured a glass of water, which he drank in one long swallow. Then he stood at the small window and stared sightlessly at the traffic on the side street below, as old memories rolled through his mind.

He’d been a young and arrogant surgical resident, the darling of the head of Surgery because of his prowess with a scalpel. He’d operated on an eight-year-old boy named Paul Renaud, a simple procedure to replace tubes in the boy’s ears. The irony of the thing was the procedure was no longer done; it was now recognized that such tubes did no good whatsoever.

He hadn’t realized that then, however. Afterward, James gave an order for medication. The child died within the hour from an allergic reaction to the drug. Although there’d been no way of predicting the allergic reaction, James still blamed himself. He’d been so cocksure he’d never for a moment considered the possibility. He hadn’t even thought to ask the mother, though it turned out later that she hadn’t known any more than he had about the boy’s sensitivity to the drug.

Bad as it was, that wasn’t the worst part of the disaster. The true nightmare had come when he’d tried to notify Marie Renaud of her son’s death.

Mrs. Renaud, blue eyed and young enough to be the boy’s sister instead of his mother, either couldn’t or wouldn’t hear what James was saying to her—that her son had died.

“When can I see Paul? I want to be there when he wakes up.”

James had swallowed hard and repeated the fact that the little boy had died.

Marie Renaud had given him a sweet smile and even nodded. “I promised I’d be there when he woke up. Can you take me to him?”

Even now, years later, in a hospital on the other side of the country, James could hear Marie asking repeatedly in her soft, accented English when her son would wake up and when she could see him. Finally, like a coward, he’d turned and fled. The resulting inquiry had absolved him of blame—the drug he’d ordered was a commonplace one, routinely used after such procedures—but James had spent weeks in hell. He’d come close to quitting not just surgery but medicine. It was a turning point in his career. He’d vowed from that moment on that no detail ever would be overlooked.

He’d become a perfectionist, not just about surgery but about everything regarding the safety and health of his patients. Sure, there were times when a patient died. It was inevitable. He’d learned to distance himself emotionally while he told next of kin the bare facts, as he’d done just now with Melissa.

Betsy Clayton wasn’t dead, although she might as well be; she was in a deep coma. In James’s experience, such patients rarely woke up.

As chief operating officer, Melissa Clayton was one of the most powerful individuals at St. Joe’s. She was a woman he’d noticed, admired and applauded for having the same drive, energy and ambition he had. And damn it all, he found her vibrant red hair and tall, slender body disturbingly sensual in an understated way that excited and intrigued him; she seemed so totally unaware of her appeal.

Every time he was near her his body reacted. He’d thought more than once about asking her out, but he had a long-standing policy of not dating co-workers, and he suspected she did, as well. He’d never heard of her dating anyone from St. Joe’s, although he knew she was unattached; the gossip mill was up-to-date on who was available and who wasn’t.

He’d dreaded this meeting with Melissa. Yet he’d said only what he believed to be true about Betsy Clayton: that there was no hope now she’d recover; that the extensive tests he’d ordered confirmed that she was in a vegetative coma.

Melissa Clayton had called him arrogant. Insufferable. Had said a veterinarian would show more compassion. But it was her tears that had driven him out of the room, not her accusations. Accusations, he could counter. Tears made him feel impotent and responsible. He saw her face again in his mind’s eye, the stunned, incredulous expression in her hazel eyes before the tears had welled up and spilled over.

They had to work together; he was on the physicians’ action committee. He’d be seeing her as early as tomorrow morning at a meeting. It was essential that they communicate.

Communicate, hell
. He was going to have to apologize to her; there was no way they could work together otherwise. The problem was, he had no idea how to go about it. To him, apologies were like Swahili. He knew that some people could speak the language fluently. He, however, had never learned more than a word or two, just barely enough to get by.

Somehow, Melissa made it through the day. She drew on reserves of self-control and competency she’d hardly realized she had, and she delegated everything possible. The one task she had to do herself was a television interview for a local station, explaining the reasons for the job action and the steps St. Joseph’s was taking to minimize the effect on the public. It came at the very end of the endless day, and she got through it, but afterward she couldn’t remember a single thing she’d said.

She visited Betsy every moment she could squeeze out of her schedule. She took in a radio and tuned it to her mother’s favorite station. She talked to her in a bright, cheerful voice, even as tears streamed down her face. She held her hand, stroked her cheek, rubbed her feet and her back.

Betsy lay unmoving.

For Melissa, the worst time came in the middle of that night. During the day, she’d been forced to rush from one item on her calendar to the next, and she’d had to concentrate, which kept her from thinking too much or too often about her mother.

She’d been exhausted by the time she got home. There’d been an evening meeting that hadn’t ended until nine-thirty, after which she grabbed a burger from a drive-through. Home at last, she filled a tub with hot water, soaked for ten minutes and then collapsed in bed, emotionally and physically exhausted.

She’d fallen asleep in an instant, but at 2 a.m. she was suddenly wide-awake, and the first image that popped into her mind was that of James Burke. Every heartless word that hateful man had spoken about Betsy reverberated in her head. The awful thing was that there was no indication his assessment was wrong. Betsy was unresponsive.

In an effort to keep hysterical tears at bay, Melissa planned what to do, aside from playing the radio, to stimulate Betsy. Medical evidence indicated that even patients in deep comas responded to auditory stimulation.

As she racked her brain, the clock crawled from two to three, then to four. She got up and found a tape player to take to her mother’s room. Betsy liked old favorites such as “Moon River” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Melissa vowed she’d hunt down a store in the morning that sold vintage tapes.

She sorted through photos and found the ones of the holiday she and Betsy had taken to Mexico to celebrate Melissa’s getting her master’s degree. There were pictures of the resort where they’d stayed, the mariachi singer who’d taken a fancy to Betsy. Melissa put them in an envelope.

She’d pin them up in her mother’s room and talk to Betsy about them.

When she was exhausted from worrying about Betsy, Melissa turned her thoughts to James Burke. What was she going to do about him? She had a meeting at which he’d be present scheduled for this morning. How could she possibly remain cool and businesslike around him?

She finally fell asleep again at 4:45, and when her alarm went off at six, she could barely force herself out of bed and into the shower.

The day showed signs of being a disaster before it had even properly begun. She’d started her period and her stomach was swollen and crampy. She had a burgeoning zit in the middle of her chin. Her hair needed a trim and a conditioning treatment: it defied all her efforts to contain it in its usual tidy knot at her nape.

She spilled coffee on the first ensemble she put on, and when she clicked on the television to the local station as she ate a bowl of cold cereal, she caught the news clip of her being interviewed the previous afternoon. That took away even the small appetite she had.

She stared at the screen, aghast. Lord, was that really her? She looked downright frowsy and ancient contrasted with the peppy young blonde who’d done the interviewing. The cameraman had filmed head and shoulders, close up. Melissa’s makeup was nearly nonexistent, her obstinate hair hung in tired wisps around her face and the camera accented the weary lines around her eyes and mouth. Thank God, she’d sounded better than she looked.  She’d actually managed to get across most of the information she’d wanted to convey. But seeing herself was almost painful. She imagined female viewers wondering aloud why she didn’t get her hair styled and use some mascara.

Feeling as low as she’d ever felt, Melissa swallowed two aspirin, packed up the photos and the tape player and drove to work, not sure how she was going to struggle through the day.

The doctors were picketing in front of the hospital, and when she pulled into the parking lot she found that a battered silver travel trailer was blocking her privileged parking spot.

Amalgamated Plumbers Of Canada proclaimed a banner across the back of the trailer. Honk If You Support The Docs, another hand-lettered sign decreed.

Melissa pulled up in front of the trailer and climbed wearily out of her car. The sun was up, the air already humid. Smells of simmering chili and cinnamon buns permeated the air, reminding her that she’d hardly eaten since Betsy had gotten sick.

A potbellied giant of a man stepped out of the trailer, opened up a collapsible table and began setting up green plastic lawn chairs around it. He was whistling “When The Saints Go Marching In.”

Melissa went marching over. “Can I speak to whoever’s in charge here, please?” She squinted up at the huge man, realizing she’d left her sunglasses in the car and now her head was aching, as well as her stomach.

“I guess that’d be me, ma’am. Name’s Rudy Ransom.” He stuck out a massive paw, and she had no choice except to shake it. “What can I do you for?” He grinned at her. He had a silver tooth on the top, just left of center, rosy cheeks, a cherub’s face and a full head of curly white hair, all of which made him look a little like Santa Claus without a beard.

Melissa dredged up her most professional demeanor. “This trailer is blocking my personal parking spot, Mr. Ransom. I’d appreciate it if you’d have it moved as soon as possible. I work at St. Joe’s and need a place to put my car where I can be assured of its safety. I’d rather not be towed for parking in someone else’s spot.”

“Sorry about that, ma’am. This is the food trailer for the picket line. I put ’er here because of the tree. Get’s hot as Hades in there, what with the stove goin’, never mind the oven. How’s about I find you another parking place for a coupla days?”

For a moment, Melissa considered sticking to her rights and insisting that he move the trailer, instead. But the energy that would require could better be used at her job. And her energy was in short supply this morning.

“As long as my car is in a safe place, I guess that’ll be okay.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle that made Melissa wince.

A uniformed security guard came trotting over.

“Lennie, the trailer’s blocking this lady’s personal parking spot. How about finding her another good one?”

“Sure thing, Rudy.” The guard smiled at Melissa and jerked a thumb at her car. “This little beauty yours, ma’am?”

She nodded, and Rudy Ransom whistled his approval. “Nice wheels,” he said. “2009 BMW, am I right?”

“You got ’er,” Lennie confirmed, before Melissa could say a word. “I’ll take good care of her for ya,” Lennie promised, as Melissa handed over her keys. “I’ll bring these back to you in a few minutes, soon as I locate a good spot.”

“Take the load off your feet,” Rudy ordered, pointing at a lawn chair. “You got time for a cuppa java. It’ll be a few minutes before Lennie gets back.” Rudy disappeared inside the trailer, and returned with a steaming mug of coffee and a silver thermos jug.

Melissa hesitated, then sat. She was early, and she needed to find out exactly what the Plumbers’ Union was doing here supporting the physicians’ job action. The relationship between the two escaped her.