Oxygen

by Carol Wiley Cassella

  Marsallis nods to himself, oblivious to my embarrassment, as if assimilating this blurted testimonial as thoroughly as he might evaluate my board exam scores. “I like that. I’d like people to hear that.” He raises his eyebrows and looks me directly in the face again. “Of course, this latest twist will complicate things for a while. But, even before I hear any new evidence, I can promise there’s a good chance this will get thrown out.”

  “Thrown out?” I look him straight in the eyes for the first time since entering the office, ready to hear what Marsallis has learned in one week that has eluded Donnelly for months.

  He looks surprised at the animated relief in my voice. “Definitely. It’s hard to make this type of charge stick unless they have really irrefutable information—something concrete. As much frustration as the public professes toward health care, juries are still very unlikely to convict a doctor. I wouldn’t be surprised if the district attorney refuses to even consider it.”

  Something turns over inside my chest. “The district attorney? What are you talking about?” I know I’ve misunderstood him, but blood rushes into my face. “We’re still going to mediation, right? Why would this change to a juried trial just because of the autopsy results?” I want to ask him if he has my case mixed up with someone else’s.

  He sits motionless—I wonder, for a moment, if he’s heard me. Then a creeping flush mottles his neck and cheeks, and I know instinctively that some secret hand has been played.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you’d been told.” He drops his head and stares down at his clasped hands resting on my case files, pages flagged with bits of colorful tape signaling that here a mistake occurred, here a judgment was passed, here a decision was made that exploded into three ruined lives.

  “You thought I’d been told what?”

  “Dr. Heaton, what did John Donnelly tell you about your case at your last meeting?” He says this so softly I have to lean forward in my chair to understand him.

  “John Donnelly told me that I needed to get another lawyer. Because Jolene’s heart defect made me more liable,” I answer, my voice brittle as glass. “He told me that the hospital and I were no longer on the same side of this suit. Without saying it outright, he told me the hospital was going to get out of this by blaming me.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else? That’s not enough?”

  “Did Mr. Donnelly tell you—did anyone tell you—that a criminal investigation is under way?”

  Behind Marsallis the rain heaves in gusts against the windows, which bow and shiver with each pulsation of air. My stomach rolls and I have to swallow twice, and then again, to keep it settled.

  “I need a glass of water. Could you get me some water?”

  “Of course, just a minute.” He leaves the room and I lower my head to my knees, terrified for a minute that I might throw up. The clink of ice on crystal startles me. He is crouching beside my chair, and when I lift my head our eyes are at equal levels—there are lines across his brow I had not noticed before. “Here. It’s okay, just take a deep breath.”

  I take a sip of the ice water, so cold my teeth ache. “Explain this to me. What are you talking about?”

  He puts the pitcher of water on an end table and sits down in the chair next to me. Now we are both on the same side of this desk laden with reams of legal dictums—the counterbalance offered against a lost life. He takes a breath and says, “Someone has filed a complaint with the district attorney accusing you of criminal negligence resulting in the child’s death. You should have already been told about this.”

  “How is that possible? How can anyone claim that—even if they want the money, even if they believe I made mistakes? Where does a tragic mistake become a criminal charge?”

  “You aren’t charged with anything criminal at this point.” He leans over his knees toward me, his tone more like that of a sympathetic consoler than a legal adviser. “But someone has approached the district attorney with allegations—true or false—that the state is obligated to pursue. If they don’t find any substantial evidence to back up the claim, then no charges will be filed. And that’s very likely.”

  I wrap my arms across my abdomen and rock forward. “Who’s behind this? Who’s saying this about me?”

  “I don’t know that right now. And I don’t know what evidence the DA has—they aren’t required to tell us unless they actually file charges. It could be anyone who thinks they have new information the state would be interested in. In truth, it could be anyone who wants to see you take the entire blame for this.”

  “But how can a doctor be charged with anything criminal?”

  “It’s rare. Usually something extreme—like alcoholism or drug abuse, or some blatant misuse of equipment.”

  The muscles of my abdomen are so taut it’s hard to take a breath. I look over at him, this solemn-eyed man I must now depend on, his tie skewed beneath his collar, his bangs frayed along his forehead as if he’d forgotten to comb his hair. “Listen, this has blindsided you,” he says. “I had no idea you didn’t know. But there is a very good chance, like I said, that we can get this thrown out, even if the state does file a charge.”

  “What, then this whole thing finally ends?”

  “No, the mediation still has to be settled. But it ends any question of criminal wrongdoing on your part.”

  We are both quiet. “What should I do now?” I finally ask.

  “Try not to worry too much. We have to wait until we hear from the district attorney to plan any specific defense. Be sure you don’t talk about this at work, of course.”

  I look up. “I’m not at work anymore. Frank Hopper, the hospital’s CEO, asked me to take a leave of absence. Didn’t you know that?”

  His face colors again. “No.”

  In the building across the street, workers gather briefcases and umbrellas, chatting in small groups as the day winds down. Someone in his partner’s office behind us laughs, and the noise reverberates until a door slams and all goes silent.

  “So there’s nothing more we can learn today?” I ask, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.” He stands and puts his jacket on.

  I walk to the door before he can open it for me, then turn and look back at him. “Can I leave town?”

  “Leave town?”

  “Am I allowed, I mean? To leave the state?”

  He hesitates and looks as if he wants to ask me another question, then slips his hands in his pockets and nods. “Sure. But you should leave a phone number.”

  As I’m about to close his door behind me he begins talking again and I turn to face him. “My son…” He stops and takes his hands out of his pockets, folds them across his chest. “My son, he’s six now. He was born with a birth defect. His trachea had a narrowing in it, and he stopped breathing right after his delivery. He’s…well, he has a mild palsy, most likely as a result of that episode. But my son is alive because an anesthesiologist was working at the hospital that night.”

  He stands there watching me, so lean and athletic, so resilient with his freshly framed degrees and untarnished willingness to lope into this medical-legal labyrinth. “I’ll let you know where I can be reached, Mr. Marsallis,” I say, while I can still speak without my voice breaking.

  Lori is ecstatic when I tell her I’m coming for a few weeks, if a little surprised that I’ll arrive tomorrow. In the middle of our short conversation she is already telling Elsa to get her stuff out of the guest room, and Neil to clear his toys out of the bath. I don’t try to explain to her that this is not purely a long-postponed pleasure trip. I pull a kitchen chair to my closet and drag dusty suitcases from the high shelves to the floor. The effort exhausts me, as if age had slipped in at dawn and thrust me decades forward by dusk.

  Except for some short naps and a long shower I am up all night paying bills and stopping the newspaper and sorting through my mail. At least I’ve no cat to kennel, and I’m willi
ng to let my lone philodendron wither away. At 6:00 AM the taxi driver rings me from the entry gate and I bump down the hallway with my bags to the front door, backing through it to wedge my suitcase past the hinge. I nearly stumble when my heel catches on the ribbons of a small white box sitting on the mat just beyond my threshold.

  My arms are so full I have to nudge the box into the elevator with my foot and drop my purse before I can pick it up; the weight of its contents gaps open the cardboard lid, and chocolate suffuses the air. I slip its silver ribbons free, and inside is the ebony torte; a floret of chocolate frosting glues a slender gold chain to its lacquered coating. The chain loops beneath the flap of a sealed envelope. I tease it open without dislodging its chocolate tether and free a pink sapphire pendant and a note.

  I think I like these tortes so much because

  they are the color of your eyes.

  24

  From the airport I call Charlie Marsallis’s office and leave my cell phone and my sister’s home numbers on his answering machine, in case any charges arrive from the district attorney while I’m away. The second call I make is to my malpractice insurance company. After punching in an endless string of automatically answered and forwarded numbers I land in Caroline Meyers-Yeager’s voice mailbox. Her recording informs me she is away from the office for more than a week but her assistant would be happy to help me, or I may leave a message at the tone. I begin with a polite summary of my meeting with Charlie Marsallis and end with a barely restrained rant about unethical legal charades, which is amputated midstream by the beep concluding my allotted digital space.

  The jet engines fight the tenacious grip of gravity—a battle I always marvel at surviving—and the supernatural feat of soaring five miles above the earth takes hold. I am, for the moment, unavailable to prosecutors and accusers. Thousands of feet below, the Rocky Mountains slough into farms and deserts; the Colorado River is siphoned into perfect green circles stitched across brown land. Just before we descend I take the white box from beneath my seat, open it and release the slender gold chain from its chocolate rose, then clasp it around my neck.

  Lori lives in the plains just west of Fort Worth, where cattle drives used to camp on their way to the transcontinental railroad and settlers laid claim to Indian lands with barbed wire. Now, a grid of pavement allots quarter-acre swatches of azaleas and scrappy live oaks to homeowners who coax green growth out of the dust. The lushly watered lawns invite barefoot play, until the Texas sun slaps you back inside. The moment I step out of Lori’s car the heat swallows me like a blood-thirsty beast. It takes my breath away.

  Behind me the tick, tick, tick of a sprinkler reminds me of summers spent racing through their spray. In the two years since I last visited, the sprawling brick and stucco homes have seeped toward the flat horizon to claim more open space for the seemingly endless array of families able to afford them. The sidewalks are deserted.

  “Is it OK that I put you in Lia’s room tonight? I didn’t have time to get the guest room ready yet—I’m using it for an office and papers are spread out all over the bed.” She is scooping up baseball mitts and LEGOs and balled-up socks as we walk in. “Sorry about all this junk. You look hot.”

  “Seems like I can’t handle Texas summers anymore. Too long up north in the rain, I guess. When did you cut your hair? It’s cute.” It cups her chin at the front, and the highlights pick up the pale taupe hue of her skin, her dark eyes.

  She ruffles the feathery fringe at the nape of her neck. “I cut it all off around Christmas. I’m coloring some of the gray—can you tell? Now we don’t look so much alike, huh? Sit down, I’ll get some iced tea.”

  “Where is everybody?” I call out to the kitchen.

  “Neil’s at a sleepover and I made Elsa take Lia to the pool so I could pick up the house—you should have seen it in here two hours ago.” The room is sprinkled with evidence of five lives, scattered like excavated artifacts of the modern American household, a maze of plastic toys and polyester clothing, a cornucopia of synthetic abundance. Lori brings in the iced tea and settles opposite me across a vast, beveled-glass coffee table stacked with home decor magazines and real estate journals. An abandoned game of Monopoly spills to the floor when she sets down the tray of tea and frosted glasses. “They’re excited to see you. Elsa is beside herself.”

  “I was hoping she’d be at the airport. I wonder if Lia will even remember my face—I haven’t seen her since right after her third birthday.”

  “We look at your picture. She knows you.” Lori crosses her legs beneath her in the armchair and studies the swirling ice cubes in her glass, then looks back at me and smiles—her smile so like our mother’s. “So, should I ask you how you are?”

  “Probably not.” I pick up my tea and focus on squeezing the lemon wedge, stirring the tea with the yellow rind. “I think, right now, I want to feel every one of the two thousand miles between me and Seattle. Thanks, though, for letting me come at the last minute like this.” I smile, looking back up at her. “And for asking if you should ask.”

  “You’re welcome. You’re always welcome.” After a pause, she adds in a brighter tone, “Well, you look good.”

  I have to laugh. “No I don’t. I look haggard.”

  “All right, you’ve looked better. You must have been up all night, getting things pulled together. Do you want to take a nap before everybody gets home?”

  Even the suggestion makes me aware of how exhausted I am. Lori leads me down the hallway, lined with her own black-and-white photographs of the children, into Lia’s bedroom—an altar to Walt Disney. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Belle crowd the pillow and I place them next to the bed before turning back the quilted spread. Last Christmas I gave her a pink tulle princess costume with sparkled plastic high heels. Lori told me she wore it to bed every night for weeks, despite the scratchy lace.

  Above me a canopy floats on four wooden pillars, and ruffled curtains swoop back into braided ties like Rapunzel’s locks. What a dreamy five-year-old bed—enclosing its sleeping treasure in a safe and private kingdom. I pick up an oversized picture book from the floor and browse through it, waiting for drowsiness to settle. The illustrations are luminous, the pages framed by interlaced ivy and climbing roses, bodices and dancing slippers embroidered with filigreed golden weaves. Every story describes evil vanquished by good, loneliness banished by love, wrapped up with a final triumph of royal nuptials. At what age did I notice the fairy tale always ended with the wedding? At what age did I begin to question the unwritten conclusions of women’s lives?

  I’m awakened with a start when Lia jumps into the middle of her bed. I shriek and then roll her over to tickle her belly, doughy and soft beneath her T-shirt. How sweet that she can love me in the flesh after knowing me mainly as a voice over the telephone.

  “Look how big you’ve gotten,” I say, brushing her brown hair back from her face. Her eyes are dark and shiny as coffee beans. “Your mother must be feeding you too many vegetables to get you so tall in just two years.”

  “Come outside, Aunt Marie. You have to see my secret garden.”

  She stands and pulls me to my feet with five-year-old urgency. Lori is basting chicken pieces in barbecue sauce as Lia leads me, arms over her head grasping my hand, through the kitchen and out the screen door, letting it slam behind us. Their terrier circles in a whirlwind to get her attention. The concrete is still warm, radiating back the day’s heat. Lia steps catlike across the prickly coolness of spiky grass; the naked soles of my feet tingle with this unaccustomed contact with earth.

  She guides me around behind the garage to a fenced enclave of garbage cans and redolent grass clippings. There rises a pyramid of sand, abandoned after some recent landscaping venture, an adult’s forgotten project converted to a child’s wonderland. We crouch side by side, conspiratorially, and the seemingly solid mound of sand discloses castles and moats, Tupperware lakes and twig forests, winding mountain roads and intersecting tunnels carved by her small hands. Cave
rns of sand shelter plastic knights battling rubber dragons, and fat pink ponies with blue manes parade inside a pencil-fenced corral.

  Lia crouches in the way of little girls, heels flat against the ground, knees accordioned against her chest, a flexibility granted before the pelvis wings open for childbearing. A breeze of evening air, moist and still warm, lifts off the Texas prairies; her fine hair feathers across her eyes and she sweeps it aside with a clutched fistful of princesses. Her skin is pure in the shadowy evening sun, a downy gold, unmarred by whatever strains will engrave themselves on brow and chin in her future. I reach over and stroke her face. Her body, at this age, is an efficient machine of DNA repair and well-regulated cell division, birth upon birth of refreshed generations of perfect tissues. By the age of twenty it will begin to lose the race with time, sliding slowly into the decline of age, ceding itself unto the next generation.