by Belva Plain
“Well, of course, little Judy’s days were few and cruel. When you consider, it’s just as well. Merciful, in fact.”
“True. Undoubtedly true. But not the issue exactly.”
“I wonder,” Leonard began.
“Wonder what?”
“Whether we should—I mean you or both of us, or whether we should—” “Say anything to Perry?” “Yeah. What do you think?”
“Or wait. Maybe he’ll say something. Maybe something win—”
Leonard stood up. “Right. Nothing hasty. It’s all vague. See whether he says anything.”
Perry said, “Tough about the little girl, Martin. But I guess you knew before you started how it was going to end, so it was no surprise to you.”
“It was a considerable surprise,” Martin said distinctly.
Perry’s expressive eyebrows rose to his freckled forehead. “I don’t understand. You honestly expected her to survive the operation?”
“I certainly did, and maybe another one like it a few months down the road.”
They were in an empty corridor, waiting for the elevator. Nevertheless, Martin lowered His voice.
“Perry, were you feeling all right yesterday?”
“What the devil makes you ask that?”
“Because. Level with me. You weren’t monitoring.”
“The hell I wasn’t!”
“I don’t think you were. She went cyanotic.”
“So? That’s never happened before?” A bright flush of anger inundated the freckled forehead.
“Yes, but this time I—”
“Just what the hell are you trying to prove, Martin?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m only asking. Don’t get excited.”
“Don’t get excited! When you’re practically accusing me of negligence, you expect me to—”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I repeat, I’m only asking whether you can clear up something in my mind. If friends can’t talk frankly with each other—”
The elevator came. It was crowded. The two men stood abreast, not touching, Martin aware of Perry’s fast angry breathing. He regretted having spoken. The whole thing might be a dreadful error on his part. If so, Perry had every reason to be hurt and furious. Yet—
On the third day Leonard came into Martin’s office. “You know Perry’s car, that imported job he bought last month?”
“What about it?”
“The front fender’s crumpled up like a handkerchief. I saw it in the parking lot this morning. So I told him, I said, That’s some fender-bender. How did you manage to do that?’ And he said it happened Sunday afternoon, backing out of the lot, after the surgery.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Martin said.
“No, but it adds up.”
Martin didn’t answer. He felt like a cheap detective, one of those matrimonial snoopers. Then he thought of something and rang for Jenny Jennings.
“Did I remember to have you send flowers to the funeral home for Judy?”
“You did. I sent a spray of roses from you and Dr. Max.”
“Good. Good. Thanks.”
So she’s at peace. No more vomiting, dizziness and pain. No more shaved head, medicines and bandages. At peace. But I’m not. Still, can’t play detective, prosecutor and judge. Too difficult. Drop it What’s done is done.
The nursing supervisor met him one morning in the lobby and drew him aside. “I’ve had a call from a lawyer, a Mr. Rice. He wants to see the record on Judy Wister. It looks like trouble.”
So it’s come! was Martin’s first reaction. All these years he’d gone without a suit for malpractice. It was bound to come once in a lifetime anyway, he thought grimly. Still, he had done his best for the child. He would have said, naively no doubt, that the Wisters of all people would never do this to him. They had seemed to worship him, to be so grateful. And he felt a small, sad hurt.
“Well,” he said, not wishing to let the hurt show, “I guess my turn’s just come. I’ve got plenty of company, that’s for sure.”
So he was quite prepared when a few days later Jenny Jennings informed him that a Mr. Rice had called on behalf of his clients, Louis and Martha Wister, and would be in to see him at three that afternoon.
Mr. Rice was a garish individual with oiled hair and a rasping voice. Two strikes against him anyway, Martin thought, feeling some amusement at his own surprising calm.
“Well, Mr. Rice, what is it you want to know about me?” he began.
“Nothing about you at all.”
“You’re not here to serve papers, to sue me?”
“No, no. Mr. and Mrs. Wister specifically exclude you from any culpability in the death of their child. The matter concerns the anaesthesiologist alone. We want your testimony to the effect that he was negligent as a result of being under the influence of alcohol.”
“Oh, no,” Martin said. “I’ve known Perry Gault for years, and he’s the best man in his field that any surgeon could want. As a matter of fact, I don’t like to operate without him. He’s completely reliable.” He heard himself babbling.
“That may all be true, but the fact is that on this particular day, he had been drinking. Mrs. Wister’s brother, Arthur Wagnalls, had conversation with Dr. Gault and smelled alcohol on his breath. Furthermore, the doctor had an accident in the parking lot on the way out, and the man whose car he hit believed either that he had been drinking or wasn’t feeling well, he wasn’t sure which. Also—”
Martin raised his hand. Something in him was frightened for Perry and wanted to defend him. “Wait. This is all unsubstantiated. The child’s uncle is not an impartial person, after all. And anyone can say anything about anyone, can’t he? You could go out of this office right now and say I’m drunk, couldn’t you? And it would only be your opinion.”
Mr. Rice smiled. It was an all-knowing smile. It said, “I am a step ahead of you and no matter how fast you run, I shall always remain a step ahead.”
“We have an impartial person, as you say. One of the nurses, Delia Whitman, has already given a statement to the effect that Dr. Perry had been drinking.”
“Delia Whitman? There was no such person in the operating room, and I’m well acquainted with them all.”
Mr. Rice said patiently, “She’s a student nurse. You probably wouldn’t know her. She was attending Mrs. Wister and was present when Dr. Gault and Mr. Wagnalls were talking. Afterward Mr. Wagnalls remarked on Dr. Gault’s condition, and she answered, she told him, yes, it was clear to her, too.”
Martin, stunned, resorted to pencil-tapping.
“Furthermore, the record of the operation says a great deal. The girl became cyanotic. Anaesthesia was hurriedly lowered and oxygen increased after you, the surgeon, ordered it. Dr. Gault had not been monitoring the flow.”
Ugly, ugly! The only other brush with law that Martin had had in all his life had been his divorce and he had come away from that with no love for lawyers. Wordmongers, sophists and procrastinators, they were; their aim was to trip you up, to trick you into saying what you didn’t mean.
“I’m not a lawyer,” he said somewhat brusquely, “so will you come to the point? What do you want of me?”
“I want you to be a witness for the Wisters in a suit for malpractice against Dr. Gault.”
“No, no,” Martin cried. “I want to be left out of this. I don’t have time, I’m a busy man. There’s a roomful of patients out there. I’m concerned about them and only about them.”
“Exactly. And you want them protected against this sort of thing, don’t you? Isn’t it your duty to protect them, since you’re so concerned?” Mr. Rice stood up. “I won’t take any more of your time now, Doc. Think it over. When you do, you’ll do the right thing, I’m sure.” He backed toward the door. “I’ll be calling you again.”
I’m sure you will, Martin thought with enormous distaste.
Perry looked large and clumsy in Martin’s little den.
“I’m sorry to come bus
ting in on you like this,” he said, “but I was sitting around after dinner tonight and I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I go see Martin and talk it all out?’ We’ve been avoiding each other. I was hasty that day in the hall, very upset, but as you see, it turns out I have reason to be upset. I’m so damn sorry, Martin,” he finished.
“Yes. Well—”
“You know, of course, you’ve heard they’ve served me with a suit?”
“I heard.” He estimated that the entire hospital had heard within an hour.
Perry leaned forward. “Martin, I’m going to level with you. I did have a couple of drinks. You know I don’t drink much. A little goes a long way with me. Too long.”
Oh Jesus, Martin thought.
“I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all. I know I ought to have told you to get somebody else, but the thing is, when you’re a little bit dazed, under that thin edge of sleepiness, you don’t know you are. Martin, you’re not going to testify against me? She was going to die anyway.” There were tears in the friendly copper eyes and Martin couldn’t bear to look at them. “You don’t know how I feel. That kid—If I could bring her back! But nobody could. How long did she have? Three months? Six at the most? So when you come down to it, what great difference did it make?”
Martin was silent.
And Perry continued. “It should never have happened and you can bet everything that’s holy, it never will again. Never. Martin, what are you going to do?”
Martin spoke very gently. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Do I have to tell you that?”
Perry stood up and began walking the length of the little room: twelve paces to the bookshelf at the far end and twelve paces return. “Martin, for myself—Oh, I won’t say anything grandiose and tell you it wouldn’t matter, because of course it would. But the truth is, there’s more than myself. The truth is I’ve got the two boys in college and Leonore’s having a mastectomy. A radical, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, we just found out last week. Now I’ve got to put this on her, too. You see, what I’m saying is, I’ll need all the support I can get from my friends. Martin, I’m scared as hell.”
“Take it easy, Perry, take it easy. Things have a way of working out. We all want to help you get through this, stand by you.”
What was he saying? Words, cheap, smooth, easy words, meaning nothing. How was he going to “help out”? Just what, exactly, was he going to do? His head whirled with it.
A week after that the lawyer came from the company that insured Perry, that insured them all. This one was a gentleman. He wore a nice dark suit and had a nice quiet manner. He was from Harvard Law. You would like your son to grow up and be like him.
“What is it you want of me?” Martin asked for the second time in as many weeks.
“To testify on behalf of Dr. Gault. The child died of natural causes. There is no convincing proof of anything to the contrary.”
“Convincing” Martin thought. Semantics. All law is word-twisting. Convincing to whom? He passed his hand over his forehead.
“I’m not cut out to be a lawyer,” he said apologetically. “I’ll confess my head’s beginning to whirl.”
“Of course. Let me get in touch with you in another few days, to go over specifics. I’m sure we can work things out with satisfaction, and dispatch this nasty business as quickly as possible.” And with a pleasant smile and handshake, he, too, departed.
The case seemed to fill Martin’s life. He wished it would go away, wished he’d never seen Judy Wister or Perry or anyone. It was becoming uglier, with a creeping element of vengefulness. The Wisters telephoned him at his home—he ought to get an unlisted number, damn it!—to plead. The mother wept Well, he couldn’t blame her! Perry’s wife came to his office late one afternoon and walked five blocks with him toward his home, red-eyed and begging all the way. Couldn’t blame her, either.
One afternoon the hospital superintendent called him in. “There’s talk that you don’t want to work with Perry’s lawyers,” Mr. Knolls said.
Martin answered slowly, “It’s not that I don’t want to work with them. I don’t want to work with anybody. I want to be left out.”
“You can’t be. You won’t be.”
“Why?” Martin burst out. “Why can’t I mind my own business and be left alone!” The instant he had said it, he knew the lament was puerile.
Mr. Knolls didn’t even deign to answer it He said instead, “Of course, I can’t tell you what to do, and I’m not trying to tell you. I’ve known you a long time, though, and I feel free to point out a few things you may have overlooked.”
“Such as?”
“Perry’s had twenty-two years here at Fisk. A distinguished record.” “I certainly know that.”
“Unblemished. The publicity of this affair, the strain, the emotional damage can wreck a man after all those good years.”
“I know that, too.”
“Now he needs all the help he can get. Don’t condemn him. It won’t bring the child back, anyway.” Martin looked at him.
“He’s suffered enough from this already. His wife’s undergoing—”
“He told me.”
“Well, then, I’ll say no more.” Martin nodded. “I understand.”
He began hearing unpleasant things about himself. “You’re acting like a boy scout,” he was told. “The guy had one extra drink. We all agree he shouldn’t have come into the O.R. But he’s never slipped before, and hell never slip again. So what’s to be gained by crucifying him? What?”
Purpose. Abstractions. A man’s whole professional life versus a dead child who was going to die anyway.
“You’ll be a great hero to no one but yourself, Martin. Perry’s going to win the case. He’s got prestigious people to testify for him. And the O.R. nurse is sweet on him; you know the chubby blond, what’s-her-name? And that resident Maudley is scared shitless. He’ll say what he’s expected to say. So where does that leave you if you go to the other side?”
He spoke to Tom. “Awful, awful,” Tom said, sighing and shaking his great leonine head. Then he said cautiously, “It puts you in a bad position. Tough on you.”
Martin waited.
“Yes. Tough. It’s always hard to testify against another doctor, I guess because you never know when it could be you. There but for the grace of God—that business.” He paused. “Any one of us could make one slip in a lifetime, couldn’t we?”
True. And Braidburn long ago had warned not to be too quick to judge: you never knew when it might be you who’d make a fatal mistake. One mistake out of a lifetime of good service.…
At night he lay awake conducting internal dialogues while shadows flickered over the ceiling.
Tomorrow the lawyers will be calling again. I’ve told Jenny Jennings to stall them off, but that can’t go on indefinitely.
Cold, stony looks in the hospital now. I used to think it’s simple. One side or the other. Angel of truth, versus monster of corruption. Not like that at all! Generals on the battlefield lose thousands of men through miscalculation, errors of judgment, quirks of behavior. Nothing happens to them.
You’re comparing canaries with alligators.
Not so. Death is death, whether of one or thousands.
She was going to die anyway, remember that.
But if it hadn’t been that child, that case; if it had been a benign encapsulated tumor, a meningioma, something relatively easy and Perry had not monitored, what then? Then there would truly have been disaster.
Yes, but it wasn’t an easy case. It was death-writ-large.
They won’t recover, the Wisters won’t, whether you’re for them or against them or if you take a boat to China and disappear. The biggest names in the county medical society are going to testify for Perry. So you’ll be a boy scout! You’ll lose a friend and make more enemies.
You could retrieve a lot of goodwill by agreeing to testify for him. You could. You have tremendous prestige
, which is respected. Don’t underestimate it.
So the long nights passed.
After dinner the doorbell rang. Enoch came into the den where Martin was at his desk. “There’s a lady wants to see you, Dad.”
He hoped it wasn’t Perry’s wife coming again, but probably it was. And, suddenly very tired, he made a decision. He would just simply say “yes” at last. Throw in the sponge and say, “Okay, how do you want me to help?” Get it over with. It made sense, really.
Instead a young girl walked in and sat down. He didn’t recognize her.
“Delia Whitman,” she said. “I know you but you don’t know me. I’m a fourth-year student nurse.” She swallowed hard. “I’m the girl in Dr. Gault’s case.”
Oh, not more of that! “Why have you come to me?”
“Because—I don’t know. I wanted to talk to somebody, some doctor. And I thought—the things they say about you, the nurses, I mean, a person gets a reputation—” Her voice trailed off in tears and she took out a handkerchief.
“Don’t cry,” Martin said, forcing patience. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Well, it’s—This is what happened. After the operation when the little girl died—the mother went to a room. She was crying and Miss Hannigan called me to come and help. Stay with her, you know?”
Martin nodded.
“So, then I had to go out in the hall for medicine, and this man, the uncle, was talking to Dr. Gault, and he called me over and asked me how his sister was, and I said we were getting her some medicine, and I’m awfully sorry about the little girl. And Dr. Gault started to talk. And Doctor, he was acting awfully funny. He was talking loud, not very loud, but the thing is he was just—funny. And afterward, when they were taking the mother home, the man saw me and he stopped me and said, That guy, that doctor, he’d been drinking, hadn’t he?’
“And I said, ‘I guess so.’ And he said, ‘You smelled liquor on him, didn’t you?’ and I said yes, I had, because it was the truth, I did smell it. And now, now the lawyer for Dr. Gault—he’s an awfully nice young man, but he keeps coming around and they want me to say I had only been joking, that the man had put the words in my mouth, that I had thought he was kidding.” The girl wiped her eyes and blew her nose.