The Missing Year

by Belinda Frisch

  Jeremy gave Ross a version of the stink-eye the office women had perfected. He, too, had apparently heard the cheating husband bit. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Actually, I do have to go to the bathroom.”

  “That’s okay. Go ahead and I’ll be right back.”

  Jeremy turned to grab his laptop.

  Ross waved for Camille to hurry out.

  She hopped off the examination table, narrowly missing the foot stool to her right. The end of the crinkled white paper runner caught on her shoe and unraveled behind her.

  Ross stepped on the paper to free her and handed her the car keys on her way out the door. Her departure wasn’t nearly as smooth as Ross had planned, but now that he was alone with Jeremy, he took his shot.

  It was his turn to do some acting.

  Ross closed the door behind Camille, stuck his hand in his coat pocket as though he were packing a small pistol, and said, “We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  “What’s going on?” Jeremy cast back and forth glances between Ross—who had never considered himself intimidating—and the wall-mounted phone, too far out of reach for him to easily grab.

  “Please,” Ross said. “Sit down. I need to talk to you about Blake Wheeler.”

  Jeremy sat, white-knuckling the exam table’s edge. “This is how you go about asking?”

  “I tried calling.”

  “You’re that doctor from upstate, the one taking care of Lila, aren’t you?”

  Ross didn’t like the way Jeremy said the word “doctor,” as though it weren’t true. “I am Lila’s treating psychiatrist, yes.”

  Jeremy scoffed. “Ironic, don’t you think? Seems like you may need some help of your own.”

  “Why wouldn’t you take my call?”

  “Did you leave a message?”

  “I tried leaving a message, but your receptionist hung up on me.”

  “Hard to get good help these days.”

  “Listen,” Ross said. “I don’t want any trouble. Cooperate and this will be quick and painless.” Ross considered pushing the fake gun bit to intimidate Jeremy further, but decided against it. As it stood, if Jeremy were to call the police, Ross was only a man with his hand in his pocket. “Tell me how you became the admitting physician of record for Blake Wheeler’s hospitalization.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you? I have a copy of his medical records from after the shooting. You still want to play stupid?”

  “How—”

  “It doesn’t matter how I got them. What matters is that I know you’re lying. I also know you lobbied to have Blake started on an ASO trial, and that your request was denied. When did you first know he was sick?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re a terrible liar. You trying to get Blake on an ASO trial could mean only one thing. Huntington’s Disease has a fifty percent chance of being inherited. Blake’s father died from Huntington’s. Why wait until Blake’s hospitalization to try and treat him?”

  “You had to have known Blake to understand.”

  “I need to understand if I’m going to help Lila, or don’t you care what happens to her?”

  “Of course I care. What Lila did, that stunt with the car, none of us saw it coming. She isn’t irrational, which is more than I can say for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “It means you have a hell of a way of treating people. I’m not sure I’d be holding someone at gunpoint for any patient.”

  Ross pulled his hand out of his pocket. “What makes you think I have a gun?”

  Jeremy deflated. “Seriously?”

  “All kidding aside, I need your help. Lila won’t tell me the truth.”

  “She’s what one might call loyal to a fault.”

  “How so?”

  “If Blake wanted something, Lila wanted it for him. Blake insisted we not tell anyone about his disease, especially not his mother. Lila won’t tell you why she removed him from life support because she won’t break her promise not to tell anyone he was terminal in the first place.”

  “Then I’m going to have to find another way. Tell me what you know, anything that can help me get through to her. You were friends, right?”

  “Blake and I were friends since we were twelve-years-old.”

  “And you were never more than friends with Lila, right?”

  “Of course not. Are you crazy?” Jeremy gestured at Ross’s pocket. “Obviously you’re a little off, but Blake and Lila were like family.”

  “Then you knew Blake’s father?”

  “I did, and his mother, Ruth, too.”

  “Then explain all this secrecy.”

  “I have patients waiting.”

  “Patients wait, that’s what they do. You’ll tell them you had an emergency after we at least cover the highlights. When did Blake test positive for the Huntington’s gene?”

  “About a year before the shooting.”

  “Was the test predictive or diagnostic?”

  Predictive tests were for when people had a reason to believe they carried the gene, like Blake after his father’s diagnosis. Diagnostic tests were for patients showing symptoms.

  “Diagnostic.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “He chose not to be tested until—”

  “Until he lost his patient.”

  “Blake started having tremors maybe a month or so before that, but when his patient died he knew he was done.”

  “Tough way to learn a lesson. How did Blake handle the news?”

  “How does anyone face being terminal?”

  Ross thought of Sarah. “I imagine he was angry.”

  “At first, but he accepted it faster than I expected, which was odd for Blake. He wasn’t a ‘sit back and let things happen’ type of person. He was action-oriented by nature. When Blake found out his father was sick he spent the entire summer studying the disease at the library.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Fourteen. We were about to go into high school. Blake’s father’s diagnosis is what made him decide to be a doctor.”

  “But not a neurologist?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Blake said he never wanted to have to give anyone the news they had Huntington’s, and he didn’t want to get it. Ruth pushed him but he refused predictive testing.”

  “He was only a child. She could have made him get tested.”

  “She could have, but she didn’t. Blake said he wanted to live, that if he was carrying the gene, he didn’t want to know until he had to. In a way, everything he did—becoming a surgeon and even marrying Lila—was in spite of the disease.”

  “Did Lila know?”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it,” Ross said. “Did she know what she was getting into?”

  “She did. One of the conditions of their getting married was Blake’s vasectomy, which I think was the first time they really talked about the odds. Lila wanted children, but Blake refused to risk passing the gene to a child. It was hard on Lila, but she agreed, and do you know what she said to me at the hospital?”

  “What?”

  “She said, ‘Even if I knew how short his life would be, I’d marry him all over again.’”

  “They really were a perfect couple.”

  “As perfect as any.”

  “Then how do you explain the drinking?”

  “She told you about that?”

  “She told me Blake had pushed her.”

  “Once, and he felt terrible. Lila can be the most persistent person, not that her personality excuses anything, but Blake was dealing with so much that he snapped. I think he was farther along in the disease process than we realized. He wasn’t himself. Huntington’s affects cognitive abilities, as I’m sure you know being a psychiatrist. Blake hated himself for what happened. He came to me the day after for help.”

  “What kind of help?”
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  “The kind of help you can only get from another physician.”

  “New York doesn’t recognize the Death with Dignity Act,” Ross said.

  As far as he knew, only Oregon, Washington, and Vermont did. In those three states, patients who were within six months of their natural death could request a prescription from a participating physician for a life ending drug, typically secobarbital or pentobarbital, for the purpose of ending their suffering.

  “I know that.” Jeremy sighed. “He wouldn’t have met the criteria anyway. Huntington’s works at its own pace, sometimes taking years.”

  “Then what did he want?”

  “Prescriptions for opioids and benzodiazepines,” Jeremy said. Ross was familiar with the fatal combination. “He’d have written them himself, but the pharmacy would have red flagged them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I referred him to a specialist and told him if he ever came to me asking for anything like that again, I’d tell Lila. I never heard another word about it.”

  “And his hospitalization?”

  “Blake was initially admitted through the ER, but he had worked at the hospital for years. Lila knew people there and managed to get him treated without anyone finding out about the Huntington’s, other than the select few in administration that authorized me to be the admitting physician of record. I coordinated his care, and yes, I went above and beyond. Blake didn’t want to be experimented on. He had seen what his father had gone through and had confided in me that, if given the option, he’d rather die in peace.”

  “In your medical opinion, was he terminal?”

  “He was shot in the head.”

  “That wasn’t the question. Why push for the ASO protocol to possibly delay the Huntington’s symptoms if Blake had no chance of surviving?”

  “How do I answer that without making you think less of Lila?”

  “Try.”

  “There’s an effect losing everything has on someone. Blake defined himself as a surgeon. Lila defined herself as Blake’s wife and she was ready to take care of him up until the bitter end.”

  “Is that why she enrolled in nursing school?”

  Jeremy nodded. “But Blake didn’t want her help. He had watched his father’s deterioration, saw what it did to his mother taking care of him, and he didn’t want that for Lila or for himself. You want my honest opinion? Blake didn’t value his life as much as he should have. As much as I valued his life. I thought if I could get the ASO approved, that if I could prove to Blake that it could help, maybe get rid of the tremors, he’d come around. He’d fight.”

  “You felt Blake could have pulled through after surgery?”

  “Medically, there was reason to believe he might survive, yes. But he clearly didn’t want to.”

  “Lila supported that?”

  “Until the bitter end. She knew what Blake wanted.”

  “What about Ruth? After Blake died, did anyone tell her he was sick?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  “No one said anything, not even when this advance directive showed up?”

  “What good would it have done to break Blake’s trust at that point? The hospital made it clear they intended to side with Lila.”

  “Ruth tried to stop them.”

  “She did, but Blake had signed the paperwork months before the shooting. Lila had lawyers and administration on her side. Ruth was fighting a losing battle.”

  No wonder she was so pissed.

  “Look, I know you don’t owe me anything and that we got off on the wrong foot, but since you’re a friend of the Wheelers, do you think you can convince Ruth to see me?”

  “You aren’t going to tell her about Blake, are you?”

  It was his only in, but he didn’t plan to tell Jeremy that. “Of course not. No,” he lied.

  “Then why should I help you talk to her.”

  “For Lila. It seems she and Ruth have some unfinished business.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Ross surveyed the makeup-covered dashboard as he relayed the story of his near-perfect thug impression to Camille who had made herself at home in the passenger’s seat of his rental.

  “You did what?” She painted her cheeks pink, not yet recovered from her White Coat Syndrome shade of pale. Even with the freshly applied makeup, she looked as though she’d seen a ghost.

  Ross typed Ruth Wheeler’s address, which Jeremy had been kind enough to give him, into the GPS and waited while it calculated the route.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Ross said.

  “You pretended to hold a man at gunpoint.”

  “I thought you’d be proud.”

  “Proud? I’m a nervous wreck. Why aren’t we moving? Is he calling the police?”

  Ross shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “The only thing I hate more than the doctor’s office is a police station.”

  “I’m sure there’s a story there.”

  “Not one I want to talk about.” Camille kept an eye over her shoulder, as though expecting them to both be arrested on the spot.

  Ross pulled into traffic, studying the elusive pink line on the GPS that was directing him to one of three places. “Where does this thing have me going?” He entered the first of three roundabouts.

  “There.” Camille pointed. “Then follow that blue car.”

  The electronic voice said, “Recalculating”

  “These things are impossible.”

  “You’re impossible. I still can’t believe you. You had a problem with Adele Clements having an STD, but no issues turning Cletus into a mobster. Mind telling me where we’re going?”

  “I have to fill up and talk to one other person before we leave town.”

  “You’re not going to hold them at fake gunpoint are you?”

  Ross shook his head. “That shouldn’t be necessary.”

  According to the GPS, Ruth Wheeler’s home was less than a quarter-mile away. Ross pulled into the first gas station he saw and parked at the pump.

  “You want anything?” Camille took her wallet out of her purse.

  “No. I’m good.” Ross swiped his credit card, opened his gas cap, and stepped away when the phone rang. He didn’t necessarily believe using his cell phone at a gas pump could light him on fire, but he’d have hated to be wrong. The caller ID said “Mattie” and he became instantly excited.

  “Camille, wait.” Ross held up his phone. “Can you help?”

  Camille shook her head as she made her way back across the lot to take care of the refueling.

  Ross moved out of earshot before answering.

  “Mattie?”

  “Ross, is that you?” A familiar man’s voice came on the line.

  “Tim? What are you doing with Mattie’s phone?” Dr. Tim Manning, Carebridge’s Chief Medical Officer, had graduated from the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine two years ahead of Ross. They had come up together, and their paths intersected again when Ross admitted his mother to Carebridge. Tim had been her physician, as well as Mattie’s boss. In a sense, he and Ross were friends, though Ross used the term loosely. He had never confirmed his relationship with Mattie out of fear that she’d be fired for dating the per diem on-staff psychiatrist. The fact that Tim was calling said he didn’t have to.

  “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

  “What’s wrong? Is Mattie okay?”

  “There’s been an accident.”

  “What kind of accident? Is Mattie all right?”

  “She’s fine. She was rear-ended on South Chicago Avenue and is having some neck and back pain. She was admitted to Southeast Memorial for observation, but it looks like she might be here for a couple of days.

  “A couple of days!”

  “She asked me not to call, but you’re listed as her emergency contact. There’s some swelling—”

  “Let me talk to her, Tim. Please?”

  “She’s on pain medication, asleep. That’s how I got he
r phone. I know how hard you can be to get a hold of, but I figured you’d answer if you saw her number.”

  “Tim, I should’ve been up front with you about things.”

  “It’s fine, Ross, and Mattie is fine.”

  “I have a few loose ends to tie up, but I’m coming home. You don’t have to tell Mattie if you don’t want to, but know that I’m on my way.” Ross thought about Sarah’s birthday and the promise he’d made to Camille. “I’ll be there by the time she’s discharged.”

  “That’s up to you. I just thought you should know what’s happened. Mattie’s on pain medication, but her hospitalization is more or less a precaution.”

  More or less.

  Ross didn’t like the phrasing.

  “I’ll be there within forty-eight hours.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Ross thanked him and hung up the phone.

  Camille leaned across the driver’s seat and waved the gas receipt out the partially open window.

  Ross snatched it from her hand and tucked it into his pants pocket. “We’re going to have to hurry things up a bit.”

  “Why? What happened? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Mattie. She’s been in a car accident. She’s in the hospital.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “I think so, but I should’ve gone home, Camille.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for this.”

  “Can’t I? Everyone around me seems to get hurt. Are you sure you don’t want me to let you out at the curb?”

  Camille reached across and hugged him. “I’m positive. Is there anything I can do?”

  Ross started the car. “Not unless you want to book me a flight to Chicago.”

  “Today?”

  “Tomorrow night or first thing the next morning. I said I’d be with you for Sarah’s birthday and I meant it.”

  “I don’t want you to stay here for that if—”

  “Mattie’s on observation, but more than likely she’s fine. I’d go right now if I thought otherwise, but I have it on good authority that her being held is a precaution. I want to stay, Camille, at least until tomorrow night. It’s taken me too long to visit Sarah already.”