by Robin Cook
Fifteen
Cassandra could hear someone calling her name from a great distance. She tried to answer but couldn’t. With a great effort, she opened her eyes. Joan Widiker’s concerned face emerged as if from a dense fog.
Cassi blinked. Slowly glancing upward, she could see a tangle of IV bottles. To her left she heard the incessant beep of a cardiac monitor. She took a deep breath and felt a stab of pain.
“Don’t try to talk,” said Joan. “It may not feel like it, but you’re doing fine.”
“What happened?” whispered Cassi with great difficulty.
“You were in a car accident,” said Joan, smoothing back the hair from Cassi’s forehead. “Don’t try to talk.”
As if recalling a dream, Cassi remembered the nightmare ride with Thomas. She could remember her anger and grabbing the wheel. She had a vague memory of being slapped and then bracing herself against the dash. But after that, it was as if a curtain had been dropped over the scene. It was blank.
“Where is Thomas?” said Cassi, struggling up in fear.
“He was hurt too,” said Joan, urging her to lie quietly.
Cassi suddenly knew that Thomas was dead.
“Thomas didn’t have his seat belt on,” said Joan.
Cassi hesitated, then said the word aloud. “Dead?”
Joan nodded.
Cassi let her head fall to the side. But as the tears poured down her cheeks, the memory of her last conversation with Thomas returned. She thought of Robert and all the others. Gripping Joan’s hand, she said, “I thought I loved him, but thank God…”
Epilogue
(six months later)
Dr. Ballantine pushed through the swinging door into the surgical lounge. He’d finished his only case for the day and it hadn’t gone smoothly. Perhaps it really was time to slow down. Yet he loved to operate. He loved the triumphant feeling that came at the end of a successful case.
Pouring himself a cup of steaming black coffee, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he found himself looking into the smiling face of George Sherman.
“You’ll never guess who I had dinner with last night,” said George.
Dr. Ballantine examined George’s worn face. Since Thomas’s death, the inpatient load was taking its toll on all the staff, but George was perhaps the most overworked. Under the pressure he had matured. Although he still had a ready smile and ready joke for his colleagues, he seemed increasingly thoughtful. But now he looked at Ballantine with the old roguish grin.
“So who did you have dinner with?” the chief asked.
“Cassandra Kingsley.”
Dr. Ballantine’s eyebrows lifted in a gesture of admiration. “Very good. How is that one-sided romance coming?”
“I think the opposition is weakening,” smiled George. “I have her convinced to go down to the Caribbean come January. That would be wonderful. She really is a fabulous person.”
“How’s that eye of hers doing?” said Dr. Ballantine.
“Just fine. And every one of those bones healed flawlessly. She’s really got courage, especially getting back to work so fast. And she seems to be making quite a name for herself on Clarkson Two. One of the attendings told me she has all the makings of a chief resident.”
“Does she ever talk about Thomas?” asked Dr. Ballantine on a more serious note.
“On occasion. I have a feeling there is part of that story that no one but Cassi knows. She’s still confused as to what she should do, but personally I think she’s going to let it go.”
Dr. Ballantine sighed with relief. “God, I hope so. At our last meeting I thought I’d convinced her that making Thomas’s story public would do more harm than good. But I wasn’t sure.”
“She doesn’t want to hurt the hospital,” said George. “Her main point is that she thinks peer review doesn’t work. People like Thomas are allowed to go on destroying themselves and their patients because their colleagues won’t take action.”
“I know. At least I contacted the Drug Enforcement Administration and suggested they force the medical licensing board to contact them whenever a physician dies. That way no one can abuse a dead physician’s license.”
“That’s a good idea,” said George. “Did they do it?”
Dr. Ballantine shrugged. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I never followed up on it.”
“You know,” said George, “the thing about Thomas that bothers me the most is that he seemed so normal. But he must have been taking a lot of pills. I wonder how it got out of hand. I take a Valium now and then myself.”
“So do I,” said Ballantine. “But not every day like Thomas apparently did.”
“No, not every day,” admitted George, shaking his head. “You know I never could understand why he wouldn’t face the fact the whole department was going full-time. Maybe the pills did blunt his sense of reality. After that late-night meeting with the trustees, he could have written his own ticket. The money men were wild to keep him happy. Even if they did want him to give up an independent practice.”
“As good a surgeon as Thomas was,” said Dr. Ballantine, “he had trouble seeing beyond his own nose. He was like the subject of all those jokes. You know, the doctor who plays God.”
George was silent for a minute, thinking they all made decisions affecting their patients’ lives. “What about that triple valve replacement you mentioned last week,” George said, following his train of thought. “What have you decided to do?”
Ballantine took a careful sip of his coffee: “I’m not even going to present the case. The woman’s got questionable kidneys; she’s over sixty; and she’s been on welfare for years. Some of Thomas’s objections to our teaching cases were valid, and I don’t even want the committee to know about her. If that goddamn philosopher hears about this woman, he’ll probably insist we operate.”
George nodded, ostensibly agreeing. But in his mind he recognized they all played God to a degree, and he knew that was Cassi’s real concern. He’d promised her that when he became chief, which he’d already been guaranteed, he’d let such decision-making rest with the committee, including the philosopher.
George broke off from Ballantine and passed through the crowded lounge into the locker room. Passing by the phone he realized he felt more and more uncomfortable concerning Ballantine’s decision about the triple valve case. Abruptly he picked up the phone, called the operator, and put in a page for Rodney Stoddard.
***
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