The California Coven Project

by Bob Stickgold

  Glanvil nodded slightly.

  “Well, I think we will most likely go to the state, and ask that their credentials be revoked for their refusal to employ reasonable care in their medical practice. We might also request local hospitals to remove their privileges.” He paused a minute, as if wondering whether he had failed to mention something.

  “As you can see, Susan, we are not taking this turn of events lightly. I feel, and a goodly number of my colleagues agree, that we are experiencing a subtle but direct attack on the medical establishment, one which, if allowed to continue, could undermine the entire medical profession in this country.”

  Glanvil opened her mouth, as if to disagree.

  “Now, Susan, I don’t want to argue with you over whether such a threat exists, for that’s not why I asked you to come by. I and many of the more influential doctors in the A.M.A. have decided that there is such a threat. I asked you to come here mainly to inform you of our opinion and of our decision to cut this cancerous growth from the medical body.” He paused, and as be did, his strident manner softened.

  “Now as you know, Susan, when a doctor decides that he’s dealing with a malignant growth, it is most important that he remove all the cancerous tissue. To do so, he must always remove a certain amount of healthy tissue; one can never tell whether a few cancerous cells have wandered into the peripheral tissue.

  “Of course, when one is dealing with tissue, one doesn’t feel sympathy for the healthy tissue so excised. But in a situation such as we now face with the N.M.A., I would be saddened if all the midwives in your organization were to be stripped of their credentials, solely to insure that the entire contingent of . . . disruptive midwives is removed.

  “Yes, Susan, I believe there is some reason to worry. I fear that some of the other doctors involved in this project might be unwilling to take my word for your dedication. . . .” For a moment, he seemed lost in thought, as if be were unsure of what to say next, or had actually forgotten. Finally, nodding his head to himself, he continued. “Susan, I feel that it is really important for you, and the other midwives who have remained loyal, within the Midwives Association, to take a public stand and condemn the N.M.A. I think that is the only way that you can guarantee your own survival in the fight ahead.”

  Somers rose from behind his desk. “Well, we’re both busy people, Susan, and I don’t want to keep you any longer.” He extended a hand to help Glanvil up. Walking with her to the door, he added, “I wanted to talk to you personally, so I could emphasize how important I think it is for your group to take a strong stand on this issue. Because, if it doesn’t, I’m afraid I can’t promise you that it will come out of this any better than the N.M.A. is going to.” Standing in the doorway with her, he smiled broadly. “Well, thank you again for coming.”

  Closing his door, he returned to his desk and smiled. She’ll go along with it, he decided. She’s too scared to realize that no one but the midwives can assist at home deliveries—or would be willing to. Too dangerous. More important, there’s no profit in it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ON Wednesday Carol cooked dinner. Maggie had her worried. Since Monday, she had seemed listless and sleepy. And today she had disappeared before Carol got up. Again. Clearly, something was amiss.

  On the other hand, Ann was recovering more rapidly than Carol could cope with. She sat in the kitchen chattering while Carol cooked, and at the dinner table, Carol was stunned by the normalcy of the scene, the three of them sitting around, eating joking.

  After dinner, Maggie retired to her room while Carol cleaned up. Ann remained in the kitchen with her, a little run-down from all the time up and about, but happy to be out of her room. The air there, she insisted, was perpetually stale despite open windows and doors.

  The dishes done and the kitchen cleaned, Carol finally helped Ann back to bed. Returning to the kitchen, she passed Maggie’s room. She could bear Maggie’s voice and, since the door was not quite shut, Carol stopped to listen.

  “Maybe you aren’t so upset by the possibility,” Maggie said, “but I’m trying to support a family. Beckie, you know, since Steve died, I’ve been totally on my own in raising Carol, and now I have not just her, but Ann too. I can’t afford to go to jail, arid, dammit, I have no interest in going to jail.”

  Moving even closer to the door, Carol could hear only half the conversation; the telephone volume was set on low or Maggie was using the receiver.

  “But you’ve come up with two more cancer patients, and you ask me not to worry about how you found them. . . . Beckie, this is going beyond the point of trust—you’re making decisions that could turn my life upside down and you’re not even asking me about them.

  “I’m just not going to let you get away with it anymore. You’ve found me three patients to treat, and fine, I appreciate it—but no more! You bring them to me without our having discussed it ahead of time, and I’ll refuse to help. And I mean that. When am I going to be able to treat these two? . . . Beckie, I’m still working at the clinic; I can’t just spend all day seeing cancer patients. . . . We talked about that before, with Amy’s aunt, It’s too early for you to go by yourself—first we have to be sure the treatment’s working at all.”

  There was a long pause during which Carol heard nothing.

  “All right. All right. All right! Friday morning I’ll go to Amy’s aunt with you, and then you’ll go up to the city to talk with the two new patients; I’ll head back here. The first treatment will be scheduled for Saturday, and if there’s clear improvement in Amy’s aunt, then you’ll go up to the city by yourself. . . . Fine,” Maggie said unenthusiastically. “It’s really too much for me to do myself. Now I’ll be preparing triple batches, and that’s going to take longer. I don’t know how much longer I can go to bed at three in the morning, and get up at seven. Now I’m going to be doing it all next week, too.” Her voice clearly indicated Maggie was not happy with the prospect.

  Maggie shifted her position slightly and Carol could make out a muffled squawking. Her mother was using the telephone amplifier.

  “Come on,” Maggie complained. “One variable at a time, huh? We can have you give the medication, but if you’re making it up and it doesn’t work, we don’t know whether to blame your presentation or your preparation—or something else entirely. If these two pull through and Amy’s aunt, then we can consider your helping in the preparation. . . . Look, this is silly. I want to nap before Carol goes to bed, so I can get some rest before I make the medicine. Let’s get off the phone now, and when we meet on Saturday, I can talk to you about the things we need to work out, okay? . . . ’Bye.”

  * * *

  Carol quietly backed away from the door, and tiptoed to her room. She stood there a minute, trying to understand what she had just heard. So that was Why Maggie was so tired—she was waiting until Carol was asleep to make up more medication. Suddenly, she had an idea. Walking down to Maggie’s room, she knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Maggie answered.

  The lights were off when Carol entered. “I just wanted to tell you I’m going to bed,” she announced. “I’m totally wiped out, and I’m going to fall asleep one way or another in the next ten minutes.”

  Carol saw a smile of relief cross Maggie’s face. “Okay,” she replied, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Closing the door, Carol returned to her room, and got ready for bed. Then she tried to piece together what she knew. Obviously, her mom was testing the cancer cure on more people, and Beckie was helping her. It had never occurred to Carol that Maggie would do that, but there was no question about it. But what was the meaning of her comments about going to jail? It almost sounded as if Beckie wanted to, but Mom didn’t. What were they planning to do that would get them into that kind of trouble? I have to talk to her, she decided. Find out what Beckie’s trying to get her into. Beckie was like that, always wanting to do crazy things. Maybe just telling Mom that I know about it, she thought. Maybe that’ll stop her. I could
even threaten to tell on her.

  She lay in the dark, imagining her mother in prison. How long would she be gone? Sometimes they send people off for only a few days, or weeks, but sometimes they’re gone for twenty years, or longer. When she tried to imagine herself thirty-five years old, her mother sixty, the two of them driving home from the prison, she began to cry.

  Chapter Nineteen

  SATURDAY, Maggie and Beckie didn’t leave Santa Cruz until almost eleven, but Maggie was exhausted nevertheless. Thank God Carol had been going to bed early the last few nights. Maggie never would have made it to the weekend if she’d had to stay up until three every night. It things went well at Amy’s aunt, Beckie would drive the VW up to San Francisco to see the two new patients, while Maggie returned to Santa Cruz by bus. If, Maggie reminded herself.

  As if in response to her thought, Beckie asked. “So what do you think? It seemed to me yesterday that she was definitely better. How about you?”

  Maggie nodded slowly. “Yes, she definitely seemed to be better. But I’m not sure that she is better. There’s a big difference between the two, you know, especially when everyone wants there to be an improvement. It’s not exactly a double-blind experiment.”

  Beckie flashed a questioning look at Maggie, and then turned her attention back to the road. “I’m tempted not to ask you this question, because you’ll think Fm a fool, but what the hell—what is a double-blind experiment?”

  Maggie laughed. “It’s the dreamchild of the clinical researcher. In a lot of types of experiments that involve people, it’s hard to determine what is caused by the test system you’re using, and what’s due totally to the expectations of the patients. It’s called the placebo effect. It turns out that if you give patients with colds, or various types Of pain, like arthritis, some pills and tell them that they’re a new wonder cure, about half of them will show significant improvement, even if all that you gave them was sugar pills. So to make sure that the improvement is due to the drug you’re testing, you don’t tell the patients whether they’re receiving the test drug or the placebo, the sugar pill. The point is to try to determine if those that got the test drug showed more improvement than those that received the placebo. That’s called a blind experiment.

  “Why don’t you just give everyone sugar pills?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you said that it made half of the patients better. I mean, maybe when a patient in labor needs something for their pain, we should just give them sugar pills.”

  “But it’s not a real effect,” Maggie explained.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Maggie tried to explain, “it would work no matter what you gave them, so it isn’t really the pill that’s making them feel better.”

  “Yeah, but it is making them feel better, isn’t it?”

  “Well, not really,” Maggie said uncertainly.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, it makes them think that they’re better, but it doesn’t really change anything.”

  “But,” Beckie argued, “in labor you don’t care if anything really gets better, because everything’s just fine. You just want it to feel better, and that’s what it does. And besides, how do you know that it doesn’t really make them better, just to think that they’re better. I mean, isn’t that what you’re saying about your magic potion? That it only works if the patient expects it to?”

  Maggie was confused. “There’s a mistake in there somewhere, I’m just not sure where it is.”

  “Boy,” Beckie said, “it’s a good thing you’ve got me working with you on this project. I think you know too much scientific technique for your own good.”

  “You’ve just been getting more sleep than me,” Maggie complained. “I’m sleeping the rest of the way. Tell me when we’re there.”

  Forty minutes later, Beckie pulled off the Interstate and turned into Palo Alto. “Hey, Maggie, wake up.”

  Maggie opened her eyes and looked around, disoriented. “Where are we?”

  “We just pulled off 290. We should be there in about five minutes. I thought you might want that much time to wake up.”

  Maggie yawned and stretched. “Thanks. I’ll need it.”

  A few minutes later they pulled into the drive, and as they turned off the engine, Amy came running from the house. Concerned, Maggie quickly leaped from the car. But as Amy came up to her, she threw her arms around Maggie and hugged her.

  “She’s asleep!” Amy exclaimed. “I keep checking every ten minutes, because it’s so strange, but she’s sound asleep! Could it be working this fast?” It all came out m a rush and Amy’s excitement made Maggie smile.

  “Right on schedule,” she announced. “Beckie, we’re a success.”

  Beckie, who had been slower getting out of the car, came around to join them. “What’s this all about?” she demanded.

  “The patient is sleeping soundly, after a pleasant evening,” Maggie proclaimed, mimicking the voice of a pompous doctor. “The cure is effective.” Then, suddenly, her own excitement broke through and she gave out a loud whoop.

  “Quiet!” Amy insisted. “She’s sleeping, remember?”

  Maggie smiled apologetically. But an instant later, she was hugging Beckie in delight. “It works!” she whispered as loudly as humanly possible. “It really works!”

  Maggie suddenly became aware of Amy, standing off to the side, alone. Stopping herself, and turning from Beckie, she said, “It’s just—well, so exciting to me,” she sputtered. “I guess I’m not acting very professional.”

  Amy’s smile spread into a huge grin. “Maggie, I’ve been dancing around this house for the last two hours, Please don’t apologize. In fact”—She grabbed the two women by the hands and started to lead them back to the house—“I took the liberty or setting out a bottle of champagne and three glasses while I waited for you.” All three headed up the walk to the drive. “Just remember that Auntie’s sleeping.”

  “A toast!” Beckie announced, as the three of them lifted their glasses from the table. “To Maggie’s Magic Cancer Cure!” They drank to their joys.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Amy’s aunt awakened to a complete absence of pain, a miraculous change from her condition of just a week earlier, and excitedly took her medicine, or, as Beckie still insisted on calling it, her potion. Beckie then drove Maggie to the terminal to get the bus for Santa Cruz before hurrying to the city, to start the two new patients.

  Maggie rode the bus in a dream. She was so excited that her mind refused to concentrate long enough to complete a thought. She considered how all their lives had been changed so drastically, and she remembered how it bad been with Ann’s improvement, She tried to imagine all the hundreds of thousands of families around the world waiting for someone to die of cancer, someone who could now be cured. And she thought, most immodestly, about the fame, and the glory, and the riches that soon would be hers. And she thought, most seriously, about the N.M.A., and how her cure could be used to guarantee not only its success but also an even greater opening of the medical profession to create a larger nurse-practitioner program, to remove more power from the hands of doctors and to spread it around to all the trained people who could, but were forbidden to, practice the healing arts.

  But the situation had so many ramifications that she could not bring it down to the level of reality. She thought of going to the state legislature and saying, “I’ve got a cure for cancer, but if you cut off the N.M.A., I’m going to burn it.” But that was just a fantasy, she knew. It all seemed like a fantasy, though some of it obviously wasn’t. In the end, it really didn’t make any sense, and the dreamlike feeling lasted all the way back to Santa Cruz.

  * * *

  When she finally got back home, the world seemed to become a little more real. Ann was sitting in the kitchen, sipping hot chocolate. “Hi, Mom, how’re you doing?”

  Ann smiled. “I’m getting bored, again, Margaret. I’m still too weak to be up as much as I want to. And Caro
l,” she nodded toward the hall, “disappeared into your study after you left this morning, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since, if television hadn’t run so far downhill these last few years, I’d even be willing to watch it. A hundred channels worldwide to choose from, and every one a loser!” She dropped her hands to the table. “But even talking exhausts me. It’s so irritating!”

  “Carol’s in my study?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. Said she had to get some of your stuff into better order.” She looked at Maggie curiously. “I took it that you had agreed to this.”

  “Noo, not as far as I know.” She headed down the hall.

  The desk in Maggie’s study sat beneath a window facing the street, opposite the bedroom door, so Carol heard and saw nothing as Maggie quietly entered the room. Maggie was startled to see Carol sitting at her desk, her notes spread out, working busily. She paused suddenly, realizing how much her daughter had grown. She’s an adult, Maggie told herself. A real, live, full-grown adult. “Carol?”

  Carol jumped in her seat, turning to face her mother as she did so. With difficulty, she regained her composure, then replied. “HI, Mom. How’s Mrs. Belever doing?”

  Maggie smiled. “I gather you’ve been reading my notes? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

  Carol fought to keep as adult a look on her face as she could. “Now look, Mom, somebody has to keep your records, because you’re just too busy to do a good job. Since I already know what you’re doing and I do have the time, I figured I might as well do it.”

  Maggie stared at her in amazement. “Just what is wrong with my records?”