Secret Santa

by Cynthia Reese

  Knowing he was susceptible to such temptation drove him crazy. He couldn’t live with himself if he backed off on his own personal code: no matter who was the subject of a story, it went in the paper just as it happened. He’d already broken that once, not revealing Charli as the Secret Santa. No more.

  Inside, the E.R. waiting room was deserted except for Julianne Brantley and Charli. Julianne had grabbed hold of Charli’s arms. “They won’t listen! That man won’t listen! She needs to be in a hospital, and he’s saying it’s a virus—”

  “Shh, shh—slow down, Julianne.” Charli made soothing noises that had the opposite effect on the woman.

  “I will not calm down! I will not! That’s my baby in there!” she raged.

  “Let’s step over here—”

  “No! No! Everybody’s been trying to ‘handle’ me and calm me down and tell me that I’m overreacting, and I’m not!”

  Neil took a step back, meaning to go back out on the portico in order to give Charli space to deal with the crisis at hand. But his movement had attracted Julianne’s attention.

  “Neil! You do something! You own the paper! This hospital is trying to send my baby home and she’s bad sick! They won’t keep her—” Julianne dissolved into sobs that racked her body.

  Charli turned to see Neil. Her face, already pale and drawn, went at least a shade and a half whiter.

  Neil lifted his hand. “This can wait,” he mouthed. Again he started for the door, and again, Julianne saw him. “No! You’ve got to—somebody’s got to—” She collapsed onto the floor. Charli bent down and tried to help her back up.

  Neil closed the gap between them and added his strength to the efforts. Together, Charli and Neil managed to settle her in a chair.

  Neil sat beside Julianne, while Charli knelt down and took Julianne’s hands in hers. “Listen to me,” Charli said. “Listen. Are you hearing me?”

  For a long moment, all Julianne could do was shake with sobs. Finally, though, some of Charli’s calm seemed to penetrate. Julianne took a couple of deep gasping breaths and nodded.

  “That’s good. That’s good,” Charli told her. “I need to go and assess her. But I believe you. I believe that she is critically ill and she needs help. I won’t let them release her until I am sure she’s out of danger. I promise.”

  Julianne’s sobs came harder again. “Thank you! Thank you! Oh, you don’t know what this means—”

  “Now, this is important, Julianne. I need you to focus. I need you to think back.” Charli slid a sideways glance at Neil. Her mouth twisted into a grimace.

  “Anything,” Julianne rasped. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Have you had anything at all to do with Lige Whitaker’s farm workers? Maybe had them help you around the house?”

  Neil drew in a sharp breath. He started to speak, but Charli held up her hand.

  The question made Julianne sit back. She shook her head. “No. What does Lige Whitaker have to do with my Bethie being sick?”

  “Okay, okay,” Charli said. She furrowed her brow, concentrating. “Have you or your granddaughter eaten at any restaurants in the past couple of weeks?”

  “No! No! We’ve been trying to do what you said, Dr. Prescott, and quit the eating out. I’ve been making nice green leafy salads at home. And she likes ’em. She says it makes her feel like a big girl.” Again, what little calm Julianne had managed deserted her.

  Charli stiffened. “Oh, my Lord.” Her bottom lip trembled. “Julianne, you— Where’d you get that lettuce? The tomatoes? For the salads?”

  “Right here. I bought it from the vegetable stand that I was telling you about. You know. Buy local. It was good fresh lettuce. And the tomatoes were very nice. You don’t think— Oh, my gracious, I’ll just die if I gave her something that made her sick.”

  Charli lifted a trembling hand to her forehead. “I—I’ve got to go see your granddaughter. I could be wrong. Let’s pray I am.”

  She stood up, but looked almost ready to fall. The last time Neil had seen her this shell-shocked was when her own father was dying in this very hospital.

  The door to the treatment area opened and a man in scrubs Neil didn’t recognize came out. “Mrs. Brantley, the nurses have told me you wanted to see me before you—”

  Julianne came out of the chair with the ferocity of a wildcat. “You’re fired!” she spat. “I’ve got my own doctor here, and I want her to examine my granddaughter.” She sat down heavily, crying with what looked to Neil to be an equal mix of fear, relief and righteous anger.

  The doctor rolled his eyes heavenward. “Sure, fine.” He reached over and extended a hand to Charli. “Dr. Warren Teglia. And you are...?”

  “Dr. Charlotte Prescott. I’m their primary care physician. I think you should be aware—”

  He interrupted Charli. “Sure, the child is sick, very dehydrated, but you know these things. She’s already been symptomatic for a few days, so she’s probably through the worst of it. We’ve pumped her full of fluids and she’s good to go. Take a look at her. You’ll see. I did a thorough exam.”

  Neil saw Charli’s back go rigid, her jaw jut out, at the condescension in the man’s tone.

  In a crisper voice, Charli asked, “I understand she had a nosebleed? Along with gastrointestinal distress?”

  The doctor shrugged. He stepped a few feet away and motioned for Charli to follow him, which she did. However, he made no real effort to lower his voice. “Yeah. Nosebleeds. Kids have nosebleeds.” He shrugged again. He made an effort to clear the put-upon expression on his face and school it into a mask of patience. He began ticking off a few salient details on his fingers. “The grandmother said the nosebleeds stopped after about ten minutes. No history of unexplained bruises. No history of bleeding disorders or clotting issues, if that’s what you’re getting at. Plus, she’s a girl, so it would be a rare thing for her to have a bleeding disorder. The kid needs some Pedialyte and bed rest, period, and she can do that at home. I don’t like admitting kids. They do better at home.”

  Neil felt Julianne about to come out of her chair again. He put a soothing hand on her, though he, too, wanted to deck the man.

  “Remind me—what’s gastroenteritis plus bleeding issues? In a kid?” Charli snapped.

  Teglia blinked. “If you’re thinking HUS as a complication of STEC, I’d already asked the grandmother about fast food and undercooked beef.”

  Neil tried to figure out the medical lingo. Whatever HUS was, it had lit a bell of recognition in Charli, and he certainly recognized the term STEC.

  But as Charli was about to speak, Teglia cut her off yet again. “So it’s not that, most likely. Yeah, I’ll send the labs off, but I’m not really expecting anything. And the grandmother’s raising the kid, by herself, on a fixed income—she can’t afford a hospital stay to cover our butts.” Teglia blew out a breath and reached over to pat Charli on the shoulder. “Look, no offense, but I’ve been doing this for years, and you look like you’re fresh out of med school. Let me give you some helpful advice. Maybe you should just chill—”

  Charli picked Teglia’s hand off her and practically shoved it away from her. Her eyes blazed. “Maybe you should just stop. I hope you’re not this condescending with all of your patients and their families.” She pushed past him. “I’ve wasted enough time with you. I need to see my patient.”

  The door slammed behind her. The E.R. doctor stood there for a minute longer. His brows flexed up and he made a little “hmm” noise. He approached Julianne and Neil with some visible trepidation. “I am sorry if I offended you or if you think I wasn’t thorough. Of course it’s your prerogative to have someone else assess your granddaughter. But it’s my opinion—from years of experience in emergency medicine, mind you—that she’s got a self-limiting viral infection that will get better on its own. Now, I
have other patients. If you’ll excuse me.” With that, he disappeared behind the door to the treatment area.

  In the quiet of the empty waiting room, Julianne sniffled. “Dr. Prescott sure told him, didn’t she?”

  Neil sat beside the grandmother, unable to say anything. Sure, Charli had taken on the other doctor. She’d stood up to him.

  But if she’d stood up to Lige Whitaker with that kind of backbone, maybe Julianne’s granddaughter wouldn’t be ill in the first place.

  * * *

  CHARLI RUBBED THE BACK of her neck and looked at Bethie Brantley’s labs. Not good. Not good at all. “Lainey, any luck getting a bed in a children’s hospital?”

  Lainey ducked her head. “I’ve tried. They’re saying they don’t have a bed yet—not in Macon or Savannah or Augusta. Everybody’s full up. They keep telling me maybe tomorrow.”

  Lainey’s words made Charli want to weep. “What about Egleston or Scottish Rite? She can’t make it until tomorrow. Her kidneys are failing. If she goes into multi-organ failure, we’ll lose her. We may lose her, anyway. Her condition is beyond this hospital.”

  “I—I tried, Charli.” Lainey’s face was pinched with misery. The whole hospital had watched the child deteriorate in the hour since she’d arrived. “Thank you for taking a piece out of Dr. Jerk. Boy, I would have paid money to see you tear into him.”

  If I’d done my job, I wouldn’t have had to.

  Charli pushed away the thought and gritted her teeth. “There will be no dead babies on my watch. I graduated with a few pediatricians who are at Egleston and Scottish Rite. Let me see if I can swing something.”

  She checked on Bethie one more time— critical but stable. The small figure seemed so weak and listless as she lay in one of the four beds in the hospital’s tiny ICU, despite the IV fluids and packed blood they were pumping into her. She would need dialysis, and pediatric dialysis needed to be handled by a children’s hospital with a stellar pediatric nephrologist.

  Julianne sat slumped, asleep beside Bethie’s bed, her head on the mound of blankets, her hands tightly clasped around the girl’s pale fingers.

  When Charli moved the covers to place her stethoscope against Bethie’s chest, Julianne stirred. The grandmother looked up, her face alight with hope. She waited until Charli had listened to the child’s labored breathing, decided it would do for now and straightened up.

  “Did you—”

  “No, no bed yet.” Charli placed a hand on Julianne’s shoulder. “I’m going to try to call in some favors in Atlanta. I know it’s a long way for you to travel, and you said you didn’t have any family there, but she really needs to be in a children’s hospital, okay? I wouldn’t send her unless—”

  “Oh, Dr. Prescott, she’d be dead by now if it weren’t for you. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I don’t care if you send us to a hospital in Timbuktu.”

  Julianne’s faith in Charli cut like the sharpest of scalpels. Charli flinched and turned away. “I’m going to call. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  She walked outside where the cellular reception was marginally better even if the air was colder. Leaning against the rough concrete of the building, and trying to ignore the biting wind, Charli thumbed through her contacts. Who could help her? Who did she know who could find a bed for such a sick little girl?

  It was almost Christmas, the worst time in the world to be sick. Doctors were away on month-long vacations and kids packed the hospitals with respiratory infections and the accidents that always happened around the holidays.

  The crunch of gravel pulled Charli’s focus from the phone. She looked up to see Neil. For a moment her heart lifted. Seeing him made her think surviving this awful night was possible. He’d been there for her so many times. She ached to throw herself into his arms and let him hold her.

  And then she saw there was no smile on his face.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  Charli stopped herself before putting her hand to her mouth. “Not good. I’m trying to find a bed for her at CHOA—Children’s in Atlanta. Either their Scottish Rite or Egleston campus. We need to airlift her out of here. I have the chopper. Just no bed.”

  Neil hunched his shoulders forward. He folded his arms across his chest, and Charli’s gaze fixed on his cast. The night she’d met him felt as though it had been a million years ago. That night, she’d been worried about proving she was a good doctor to her father.

  And now? Now Charli knew good doctors weren’t only up on the latest techniques and treatments and doses. They weren’t necessarily politically correct. Good doctors made the hard decisions. Not like her. Not like her father.

  “What’s HUS? Julianne said you’d pretty much confirmed HUS, but she couldn’t remember what it stood for.”

  Charli ran a hand over her head. What was the point in arguing about Bethie’s privacy when she’d already broken so many, much more important, ethics rules?

  “Hemolytic uremic syndrome. It’s a complication of STEC—of E. coli. About fifteen percent of kids with STEC get HUS. It...” Charli closed her eyes, pictured the textbook definition and tried to figure out a way to explain it minus the medical jargon. “The body gets rid of red blood cells too quickly, and that clogs up the kidneys. Bethie’s part of the fifty percent of kids with HUS who need dialysis—she needs everything a children’s hospital can throw at this thing.” Charli tried not to think of what would happen if she couldn’t find a bed for Bethie.

  “She’s going to make it, though, right? You got it in time?”

  Charli stretched her neck and considered the question. Her heart wanted to say, “Absolutely! Yes!” But she’d seen how sick Bethie was...and HUS was serious.

  “I...I honestly don’t know, Neil. I’ll feel a lot better if we can get her to CHOA.”

  Neil’s face visibly paled. His brows drew together and he swallowed hard.

  “She wouldn’t be here, Charli. If...”

  At his words, echoes of her own thoughts, a tear trickled down her cheek. She dashed it away. “I’ve called DPH. They’re bringing in a team. You were right, Neil.”

  “Yeah. Well.” He stared into the concrete wall hard enough to bore holes in it.

  “I know you’re angry. So say it. Go ahead. Tell me you told me so. Tell me it’s all my fault.” She reached out a hand to his arm.

  Neil stepped back and stared at her with flat eyes. “Just so you know. The migrants are going to be on page one this week. Do you want to give me a quote?”

  As she had the night she’d stood listening to the doctors run the code on her father, Charli knew the bitter taste of regret. Her heart physically ached at the finality in Neil’s tone, the disappointment in his eyes.

  Whatever she and Neil might have had was gone, and gone before she’d even realized the prize she’d held.

  With as much dignity as she could muster, she lifted her chin. “Only that I am aware how my decisions—or rather the lack of my decision to act—endangered the lives of many people. And...I am...” Her throat closed up. “So sorry.”

  Neil didn’t bother to hide the contempt that twisted his mouth. There would be no more dimples for her, she knew, no more admiring glances, no more laudatory articles about her prowess as a doctor. He gave her a stiff half nod of his head. “I appreciate the quote.” With that, he spun on his heel and walked to his car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “THE STATE MEDICAL BOARD has confirmed it’s investigating a south Georgia physician who covered up an outbreak of E. coli that has led to at least eleven people sickened from a migrant-run farmer’s stand―”

  Neil punched the radio knob off with a stab of his finger. He didn’t need to hear another state news bulletin about Charli. He’d written it. It was his article that had blown the whole cover-up. The only things he’d left out of th
e story were her mother and the part about the Secret Santa—that was the least he could do for her.

  He parked the car in about the same place he had when Charli and he had come to the farm only a few days before.

  Only a few days? Today was just Thursday, and he’d broken the story early, putting it on the news wire so the dailies could pick it up.

  It felt like it had been forever. It felt like Charli—the woman he’d hoped had been Charli, anyway—had been ripped from his heart. Neil stiffened his resolve. He didn’t need the woman she’d turned out to be. The Charli who had turned a blind eye and allowed an outbreak to explode unchecked was not the Charli he’d fallen for.

  The migrant settlement looked even more ramshackle and deserted than it had before. Mainly because it was deserted.

  Every single family here had disappeared into the mist, vanished. It was of huge concern to the state officials because they still hadn’t pinpointed the cause of the outbreak.

  Sure, they’d figured out the common denominator had been the migrants, who had grown the vegetables sold at the farmer’s stand, and the vegetables had sickened Bethie Brantley and at least ten other people in addition to the workers. But had someone brought the bacteria in? And if so, was a public health risk compounded because the migrants had taken the source with them?

  So now, Neil waited for the rest of the team sent in from the state to leave their vehicles. They’d asked him, since he’d been the one translating for Charli, to walk them through and give them some context.

  Stretching and joking, taking last swigs out of their coffee travel mugs, the doctors piled out of an SUV with state license plates.

  Didn’t they know that lives were at stake?

  Maybe they were as cavalier about this as Charli had been. She had made her choice to hide from the truth, and she apparently was still making it. Charli, for all practical purposes, had vanished, too. After she’d gotten Bethie a bed and had her airlifted to Scottish Rite in Atlanta, Charli had locked up the office and disappeared.