“Okay, this is it,” he said. “I’m wearing these shoes because I came in wearing a suit. I had a meeting upstairs this morning.” One of the interns rolled a cart of blood draw supplies past the door, the wheels squeaking on the linoleum.
“Upstairs?”
“In the executive conference room. The professional assistance committee.”
“Doesn’t Vik chair that one?”
“Yes.”
“Since when are you on that committee?”
“I’m not.” He took a breath. He had to tell her the truth, but he hoped she wouldn’t cause a scene in the middle of the ICU. “I was called in for an interview.”
“You? What do you need assistance with?”
“I’m not sure I do,” he said.
“So why did they call you in?”
“They had some questions for me,” Grant paused and took a deep breath. “About the pills.” He could feel his pulse galloping is his neck as he spoke. Admitting weakness wasn’t easy for him.
“The ones Adam gives you?” she asked. “You said that wasn’t a problem.”
“Everything is under control.” Grant said.
“What did they ask you?”
“The usual,” he said. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“It sounds like a big deal to me. Does this have anything to do with the lawsuit you’re dealing with?”
“No, not at all,” Grant said quickly. “Totally separate issue.”
“How did they leave it?”
“They want me to get a blood test at employee health this afternoon.”
“What if it’s positive? What happens then?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” If he was being honest, he would tell Cynthia that the test was almost certainly going to be positive, but he just couldn’t do it. After facing the firing squad this morning, he didn’t have the energy to deal with Cynthia’s hysterics. He’d figure out how to tell her when the results came in.
Cynthia looked at him, studying his face for a moment. “Maybe this is a wake-up call, Grant. They called you in for a reason.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“This doesn’t seem fine at all,” she said, her voice wavering. “Maybe you need help.”
“There’s no reason to worry,” he said. “I promise.”
“You can tell me that all you want, but I am worried. I think you need to take this seriously, if not for yourself, then for me. And for Sadie.”
CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT
Alison
November 13, 2019
IN THE SHOWER, Alison relished the feeling of the water streaming down her body. She’d always loved a hot shower, but today, because she was doing it on her own, the water felt even more luxurious.
She turned off the water and opened the door, steadying herself against the wall. Usually, Rhea would help her step over the ledge onto the bathmat, her steady arm bolstering her and giving her strength. For a moment, Alison wished she were still here, but she pushed that thought away. I’ve got this, she told herself. Leaning the right side of her body against the shower frame, she lifted her left leg over the ledge, then pushed against the wall, the momentum allowing her to bring her right leg over. With that small win, she dried off and took an embarrassingly long amount of time getting dressed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.
In the kitchen, she poured a bowl of granola and topped it with almond milk, giving the cereal a few minutes to soften. As she took her first bite, her thoughts drifted back to yesterday, the triumph of walking on her own followed quickly by Rhea’s disappointing announcement. So used to the background noise of Rhea cooking, doing laundry, watching daytime talk shows, she found the quiet unsettling. She hadn’t been alone for eight months. Now, Alison was left with the chirping of birds outside the window and the occasional swish of a car passing on the street. Today, she could do anything she wanted: binge on Netflix shows for hours, eat macaroni and cheese straight out of the pot, walk, or should she say limp, around naked.
After stacking her dishes in the dishwasher, Alison sat down on the living room couch. She slid open the drawer inside the coffee table which housed plastic bags full of photos and a few empty albums. There never seemed to be a good time to sit down and organize the photos. Maybe she was afraid to confront images of the way she used to look, the person she used to be, but today she felt ready to look in the mirror and accept the woman reflected back at her.
Emptying the drawer, Alison placed the bags of photos on one side of the couch and the photo albums on the other. At the bottom, she found an old album with a red felt cover, the last one her mother had made before she died. The fabric was nubby with age, the word “Memories” embroidered across the front in white thread. She opened the book and ran her fingers over the plastic sheet covering the photos. If she could face these happy memories, maybe it would help her imagine her future, however different it may be from what she’d envisioned.
On the first page, there was a photo of her and Cynthia, side by side on the swings in their backyard. Alison wore her favorite jean overalls, the ones her mom called dungarees, and Cynthia had on a pink, flowered dress, both of them smiling wide. Her mother was always behind the camera, saying funny things and telling silly knock-knock jokes to get their eyes to twinkle. After the accident, the photos dwindled, her father leaving the camera at home or forgetting to charge the batteries.
Removing the plastic covering, she lifted the photo, the back tacky with adhesive. Her mother had probably shooed them outside when they declared themselves bored. The swing set was their favorite place, she and Cynthia swinging their feet to the sky, coming up with funny ways to go down the slide, playing pretend in the shady area underneath. Alison followed Cynthia everywhere, longing to be just like her confident big sister. After their mom died, Cynthia became Alison’s keeper, bossy and shrill, the girl Alison had idolized crushed alongside their mother in the car. Now, Alison felt Cynthia’s absence more acutely than ever. Maybe she’d been too rigid and unyielding. Maybe her months of silence were punishment enough and it was time to open the door a crack, to let her sister back in.
She turned to the next page, a Halloween photo catching her eye, the last time they’d worn their mom’s homemade costumes. Cynthia was dressed as a cowboy in a tan hat, chaps made of brown and white cow-print fabric, and a red bandana around her neck. Her little cowgirl sidekick, Alison stood at her side with her hands on her hips, proud in a red-fringe vest, jean skirt, and leather boots. In later years, their father would forget all about Halloween until they reminded him a few days before, their costumes purchased in a frenetic trip to the mall on a school night. Alison wiped tears from her cheek. There were no photos of her mother on this page, but she felt her presence in every one: in the hand sewn costumes, their childhood innocence, the way they both beamed straight at the camera.
On the next page, there was a picture from Alison’s second grade Thanksgiving play. Dressed as a pilgrim in a black dress with a white apron, she was delivering a line, classmates on stage dressed as fellow pilgrims and turkeys with rainbow feathers. Her thoughts turned to the Thanksgiving dinner that followed, all of them crammed around the dining room table, her mother in and out of the kitchen with serving dishes, her little cousin, Josh, sticky from apple pie, her grandmother suggesting they go around the table and announce what they were each thankful for.
In recent years, they’d always gathered at Cynthia and Grant’s for Thanksgiving. Maybe Alison would go to the movies or something, anything to take her mind off the idea of happy families sitting around tables together, smiling and basking in their love for each other. She wanted to call Cynthia, but she couldn’t make herself pick up the phone just yet. After all this time, their rift seemed too wide to bridge with a phone call. What would she say anyway? Alison closed the album and placed it back in the drawer. It was time to contact Michael. She opened her laptop and signed into her email account. It might take her an hour to peck out an email on
the keyboard, but it had to be done.
From: [email protected]
November 13th, 2019
To: [email protected]
Dear Michael,
I hope you are doing well and that you’ve calmed down since our meeting with Shelly. I really think she’s very good. She can help us both get through this tough time. I’ve been thinking about your suggestion. About suing Grant. I could spend the rest of my life blaming him for his mistakes, but I can’t do that. It doesn’t feel right. He’s not perfect, but neither am I. None of us are. I need to repair my relationship with my sister and move toward forgiveness. I hope you understand.
Best,
Alison
After she finally pressed send, Alison felt a renewed sense of energy. She would call Cynthia. It was long overdue. Picking up her cell phone, she navigated to favorites and found Cynthia’s name. With each ring, she felt her breakfast swirling in her stomach, and then the call went to voicemail. As she listened to her sister’s recorded voice, the photos from the albums flashed through her mind.
She waited for the beep and then tried to speak. “Uh, hi Cyn. It’s been … a while.” Even if her speech were perfectly fluent, Alison still wouldn’t have the right words for this moment. “Call me, I guess … okay … talk soon.” Alison pressed the red button to end the call, exhausted by the effort, like she’d struggled up a steep mountain, but now that she’d done it she was overcome with relief. She hoped it would be all downhill from here.
CHAPTER THIRTY - NINE
Grant
March 29, 2019
AS GRANT DROVE ACROSS the Longfellow bridge and merged onto Cambridge Street, he noticed the trees on the sidewalk starting to bud. The endless Boston winter would soon come to an end. Yesterday, the day after the committee interview and blood test, he’d sat on the couch all day pretending to watch TV. He’d managed to convince Cynthia he was developing a man cold, making his voice sound nasal and faking a cough, and she’d seemed to believe his act, spending the whole day at the hospital without him. He couldn’t face another day of wallowing, so he’d decided to go with her today, anything to prevent him from thinking about the results.
He was about to turn into the hospital garage when he heard a text come through on his phone.
Glancing quickly, he saw Vik’s name.
“Stop looking at your phone when you drive,” Cynthia said. “You know I hate that.”
“Lay off me today, okay?”
“The last thing you need right now is to get pulled over again right in front of the hospital,” she said. Getting pulled over would be nothing compared with the heat he would face when the blood results came back. He had a sinking feeling that’s why Vik was texting him.
He pulled into a spot in the garage and looked at the text.
“Have a minute to stop by?”
Shit. He knew Vik wasn’t inviting him for a social visit. He pocketed his phone and walked with Cynthia to the lobby.
“I’ve got to go fill out some charts in medical records,” he said. The hospital records had been completely electronic for several years, but Cynthia wouldn’t pick up on the white lie. “I’ll be up in a few.”
He watched Cynthia head down the hall to the blue elevator, waiting for her to turn the corner before going in the opposite direction. When he got to the anesthesia department, Vik was sitting at his desk, his face nearly hidden by a massive pile of papers and journals. Usually, Grant would walk right in and make himself comfortable, often bringing snacks from the vending machine or two cups of coffee from the lobby, but today he felt like he had to knock. This wasn’t a normal visit with one of his closest friends, but instead a staff physician reporting to the chairman of the professional assistance committee.
“Grant,” Vik said. “I wasn’t sure if you were around. I know you have a lot going on.”
Grant took a seat in the chair opposite the desk.
Vik pushed the piles aside so he could make eye contact. “I don’t want to prolong the inevitable. This is just as awkward for me as it is for you.”
Grant somehow doubted that, but he nodded anyway. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. He was used to be being the one making the important decisions, not the one squirming while someone else called the shots.
“Give me a minute to pull up the lab results.” Vik turned to his computer and clicked the mouse, biting his lower lip with his front teeth. Grant had seen him do that in the OR when the shit was hitting the fan—when he lost airway access and couldn’t navigate the tube past the true cords, when a patient’s blood pressure was dropping or oxygen saturation plummeting—so Grant knew the news wasn’t good.
“Here it is.” Vik said. “I received the results of your drug test a few hours ago. It came back positive for both amphetamines and opioids.”
“Oh,” Grant said. He’d known this would be the case, but he’d allowed himself to hope for a miracle.
“Do you have anything to say about the results?” Vik asked.
“I’ve been taking Adderall for a few years. It helps me concentrate. Improves my focus in the OR. I thought you knew that.” Maybe if he distracted Vik with an explanation about the first result, he might forget about the other one.
“I think you may have mentioned that at some point.”
“So that explains that.” Grant stood up. “I’m going to go check on my sister-in-law.”
“Sit down, Grant,” Vik said. “Please don’t make this harder for me than it has to be.”
Grant could tell by Vik’s tone that he meant business. This discussion was not going to end well.
“On behalf of the committee, I’m requesting a letter from your physician attesting to the prescribed dose and reason for the prescription.”
“I’m sure Adam would be happy to do that.”
Vik bit his lip again. “And what about the Oxy? Did Adam prescribe that, too?”
“No, not exactly.” Grant couldn’t think of an explanation Vik would buy. Vik knew he didn’t have a medical condition requiring its use, no history of cancer or anxiety or chronic pain. He stared up at the ceiling, wishing he was anywhere but in this office, a no-nonsense look on his best friend’s face.
“What’s going on?” Vik asked. “If I don’t know the truth, I can’t help you.”
“Everything’s fine,” Grant said.
“Grant, everything is far from fine. Allow me to summarize the situation. You are being investigated by professional assistance, your drug test came back positive, and your sister-in-law, on whom you performed a craniotomy, remains in the ICU after a difficult surgery and—”
“Wait a minute!” Grant interrupted. Vik’s voice sounded jarring and much too loud. He needed him to stop talking.
“I’m not finished,” Vik said. “This one’s the cherry on the sundae. The pills your daughter’s friend took to get high happened to have been prescribed with your DEA number to one of your surgical patients. And to make matters even worse, that’s the same drug that showed up on your test. I sure hope you have a reasonable explanation because the committee isn’t going to look favorably on all of this.” Grant wished he could stop Vik’s voice from grinding into his eardrums.
“There’s a reason that I had those pills …” Grant trailed off. He knew Vik would see through his lies in a second.
“And that would be what?”
“Nothing.” Grant stared at the floor.
“There’s another important piece you need to know,” Vik said.
Grant couldn’t imagine how anything could be worse than the dirty laundry Vik had just hung out to dry.
“Nancy Kovatch has referred you to the ethics committee.”
“That bitch.” The second Grant said the word he wished he could take it back. Insulting the head of nursing was not going to help him here.
“Honestly, I think it’s a fair question. If Alison had an ideal outcome, you probably would have gotten away with it, but the protracted recovery she f
aces calls your choices into question. It puts everything you did under a microscope.”
“An ethics investigation on top of everything else?”
“I’m afraid so,” Vik said. “If I try to pull strings, it will only raise a red flag. Everyone knows we’re friends.”
“Seriously? Honestly, I feel like the whole fucking world is against me right now. If you can’t count on your friends at time like this, I don’t know when you can.”
“I wish I could give you another answer,” Vik said, “but my hands are tied.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?”
“I’m always on your side, but I still have a job to do.”
Grant knew this was true, but he still couldn’t help feeling betrayed. Vik had been faced with a difficult choice and he’d chosen his job over his best friend.
After the meeting, Grant decided to stop by his office, give his blood pressure a few minutes to normalize. Wendy had texted him earlier to say there were some checks to sign. Usually a micromanager, he’d put his office business on the back burner the past few weeks, assuming Wendy would keep everything under control. He sent her a quick text saying he was on the way.
When he stepped into the elevator, he noticed Nancy Kovatch, the last person he wanted to see right now, or ever. She refused to acknowledge him; her eyes remained fixed to the panel of buttons at the front.
“How you been, Grant?” Someone clapped Grant on the back. Grant turned to see Roland Butler, one of Vik’s partners.
“Can’t complain,” Grant said, trying to sound casual. He couldn’t help wondering if Roland was just making small talk or if he’d heard something from Vik or, even worse, through the OR rumor mill. He looked over at Nancy, but she gave no indication she was listening.
“How are the kids?” Grant knew he might be opening a can of worms—Roland’s daughter had placed second in the national spelling bee a few years ago, and he never missed an invitation to talk about it—but Grant wanted to seem as natural as possible.
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