Saving Meghan

by D. J. Palmer

  He could do it well enough with his business, that was for sure. Contractors weren’t delivering on a job? Look out, here comes Carl to give them a good tongue-lashing. Local government wasn’t cooperating with a permit problem? It’s Carl to the rescue! But when a doctor absconds with his child and won’t answer her damn page? Please … and thank you … and yes, we’ll patiently wait right here. Becky gritted her teeth because otherwise she might have punched him in the jaw.

  Stepping away from the window, Becky let the gentleman with a nagging cough behind her check in with Reception.

  Carl followed. “Just relax, honey,” he said, taking hold of her arm. “It’ll all be fine.”

  “You relax,” Becky said to him, pulling free of his grip.

  She walked away, not back to their seats, but to stand near the automatic door into the ER. Those doors stayed shut unless the receptionist or someone else with a badge opened them.

  “What are you doing?” Carl asked. He eyed Becky with suspicion.

  “I’m waiting patiently for our daughter,” Becky said, taking a sarcastic tone. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  She did not mean to be so cutting, but he was making it difficult to be kind. Carl exhaled loud enough to express obvious exasperation with his wife.

  “What on earth do you think could have gone wrong?” he asked. “It’s just taking time. These things always take time.”

  “Plenty could be wrong,” Becky snapped. She shook her head in disgust at Carl’s inexcusable nonchalance. “There could be a medical emergency, or worse. So until Dr. Nash gets back to us with an update, forgive me for not feeling compelled to sit down and wait patiently.”

  At that moment, the automatic doors to the ER whooshed open as a nurse exited. Becky slipped past the nurse unnoticed. Carl hurried his steps to catch up to his wife before those doors closed. Becky paused to glance over her shoulder. Satisfied nobody was coming to stop her, she continued her advance. Carl fell into step behind. He reached again for Becky’s arm, but she pulled away.

  “Stop, Becky! Just stop!”

  Becky glared back at him without breaking stride. Soon, she was standing in the actual emergency room. In the background, she could hear babies crying, groans from the sick and injured. She heard doctors shouting orders and saw nurses running to carry them out. The ER was a brightly lit, open space. A curved desk in the center of the room served as mission control for the doctors and nurses who triaged the emergencies taking place behind the curtained bays that lined the walls. Becky wondered which one held her daughter. With the curtains closed, it was impossible to tell.

  She tapped the shoulder of a woman dressed in burgundy scrubs who was standing nearby, writing something on a medical chart. “Excuse me,” she said. “My daughter, Meghan Gerard, is here being seen by Dr. Amanda Nash. Could you tell me which bay she’s in?”

  The woman’s eyes turned murky with confusion. “I’m sorry, who are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Meghan Gerard,” Becky said anxiously. “Dr. Amanda Nash brought her here.”

  The woman—a doctor or nurse, Becky had no way of knowing—took Becky and Carl over to mission control. Carl still looked perturbed, but Becky could not care less how annoyed or frustrated he was with her. She wanted her daughter, and she wanted her now.

  The woman with the burgundy scrubs hurriedly typed something into the computer. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, sending Becky a sidelong glance. “But we don’t have a Meghan Gerard here.”

  Becky’s pulse started racing, and even Carl began to show some real concern.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Of course she’s here.”

  Burgundy Scrubs shook her head. “No, I just checked. She may be at White, but she’s not here in the ER.”

  Becky’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Carl got out his phone.

  Becky glared at him hard. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling … I’m calling the hospital,” he said, stammering. “I’m trying to find her.”

  “We are in the hospital,” Becky snapped at him. Turning to Burgundy Scrubs, Becky shouted: “Where is my daughter!”

  Becky’s outburst caught the attention of an armed security guard standing nearby. He hurried over. As he approached, Carl moved away, still with his phone pressed to his ear.

  “A doctor at your hospital brought my daughter to the ER, and now she’s missing,” Becky told the guard. It terrified her to think Meghan could be anywhere in the massive White Memorial Hospital complex. With so many buildings, a person could vanish here and never be heard from again.

  “When did you last see your daughter?” the security guard asked.

  “When Dr. Nash took her away from us over three hours ago,” Becky said, her tone asking: Where could she be?

  Searching for Carl, Becky spied him as he slipped out of view into the adjacent hallway. She went that way, hands on her hips, taking shallow breaths to force back a tide of rising panic. She stopped halfway to the hall.

  “Meghan!” Becky called out, spinning in a circle like a mother who’d lost her child on the playground. “Meghan, baby, are you here? It’s Mom. Where are you, sweetheart?”

  The security guard approached again, but this time his expression was more severe. “Ma’am, you need to calm yourself.”

  Becky whirled to face him. “You need to help me find my daughter.”

  She was bewildered, bathed in sweat. People were coming toward her now, all looking a bit uneasy, as if they were approaching a wild horse. She pulled at her hair as if that could calm the canter of her heart. Every fiber in her being told her something was dreadfully wrong.

  “You have no right to keep her from me!” The shrillness of Becky’s voice startled even her.

  From the direction where Carl had gone, two additional armed security guards entered the ER. Patients and their worried families began poking their heads out from behind curtains. Becky resisted the urge to go into each of those bays.

  “Which doctors were treating your daughter?”

  Doctors, thought Becky. That’s right. What’s the name of that other doctor Nash mentioned? And where the hell is Carl? Becky would address him later. She searched her mind, and eventually the name came to her.

  “Dr. Peter Levine,” she said.

  Burgundy’s eyes lit up. “I know Peter,” she said with a smile that brought Becky a measure of calm. “He’s a child psychiatrist here.”

  Becky felt the air leave her lungs. “He’s what?” Alarm bells rang loudly in her ears.

  “He’s a staff child psychiatrist. Works in the Behavioral Health Unit. I can give you directions there.”

  Becky vigorously shook her head. “No … no … she came here to have a medical procedure. It was an emergency exam.” Becky cupped her hands over her mouth again and started to pace. “I shouldn’t have let her go.… I should have asked for more details … but … I thought, I thought…” She stopped and looked Burgundy Scrubs in the eyes as though she were a confidant. “I trusted her.”

  And it was true. When she got the second doctor’s name, Becky had assumed he was a GI specialist, same as Nash. And Nash was the one in charge. She was the one Becky had to know about, not Levine. Becky’s thoughts had been so fogged with fear, a certainty that it was cancer, stress eclipsing her disciplined approach, that in an unforgivable lapse of protocol, she had lost sight of the other doctor involved.

  Just then, Carl appeared, but he was not alone. Nash was with him, as was a man Becky did not recognize. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a finely coiffed mane of silver hair and swarthy good looks that would make him stand out in almost any crowd. He wore a well-tailored blue suit, and his shoes were shined to a mirrored finish. She figured this was Dr. Levine.

  Becky sighed with relief. She shifted her gaze over to Carl and noticed his grave expression. Fear wormed into her gut again.

  “Who is that with Dr. Nash?” Becky asked Burgundy Scrubs.

  �
�That’s Knox Singer. He’s the hospital CEO.”

  Singer, not Levine, thought Becky. What the hell is going on?

  Carl worked his way through the small crowd of people gathered around Becky. He took hold of Becky’s arm, pulling her in close. His touch, the familiar lemony scent of his aftershave, brought her no comfort.

  “They want to speak with us in private,” Carl whispered in her ear. “There’s a serious problem.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Crammed into a room off the ER, Becky, Carl, Dr. Nash, and Knox Singer sat at a round table facing each other. Becky wondered if this was the place doctors retreated to when they had to break bad news. The framed pictures of ships at sea looked cheap enough to grace the walls of a second-rate motel. Equally cheap lighting made everyone look washed out and slightly ghoulish. The tight quarters forced Becky into close proximity with a woman she wanted to pummel with her fists.

  Two armed and uniformed security guards stood in a corner, animated as statues. They fixed Becky with sober expressions, an obvious warning against any kind of outburst.

  “What the hell is going on?” Becky said, preempting Knox Singer, who appeared ready to make some introductory remarks.

  “Mrs. Gerard,” Knox Singer said, “let me start by saying how truly sorry I am for keeping you and your husband waiting so long for information.”

  Singer’s imperturbable voice made Becky want to scream. He was smug and arrogant, full of himself, she thought. Nothing about him came across as sincere or honest.

  “Where is Meghan?” Carl said harshly. “What the hell have you done with her?”

  Becky was pleased to see her husband direct his question to Dr. Nash, whom she blamed for this trouble.

  “Meghan is fine,” Singer said, still trying out his placating tone. “She’s presently in our Behavioral Health Unit.”

  “Doing what?” Becky asked, now in a stare-down with Singer. “Why is she there?”

  “She’s resting.”

  “Okay,” Carl said, baffled. “Resting from what? Pardon my French, but what the fuck is going on here?”

  Singer and Nash exchanged glances.

  “We have a serious situation,” Knox Singer said.

  “Yes, you told me that in the hall,” Carl said. “I’m asking, what situation do we have?”

  Carl directed his question at Nash. Becky set her hand on her husband’s leg, and soon felt the familiar brush of his fingers as he interlaced his with hers, squeezing tight.

  The room door opened, ushering in a man with a troubled expression who looked young enough to be Becky’s son. Accompanying the man was an older woman, dressed nattily in business attire. She was in her late fifties, Becky thought. She styled her hair with severe bangs and wore practical shoes that suggested she did lots of walking. Deep worry lines stretched across her forehead, as though she were perpetually dealing with some crisis, seldom getting a reprieve from the tempest of her day.

  “Sorry I’m late,” the young man said. “There was an incident. Ms. Hope was there to observe.”

  “What kind of incident?” Nash asked warily.

  “Who is this?” Becky said, gesturing to the man. She looked around the room as if everyone should share her outrage at how uninformative this meeting had become. “Is this about Meghan? And who are you?” Becky addressed the woman in a voice loud enough to inspire the guards to take a single step away from the wall.

  “This is Dr. Peter Levine,” Knox Singer said. “He works with us. And this,” he said, motioning to the woman, “is Ms. Annabel Hope, with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. And, yes, this is about your daughter.”

  There was only one empty seat at the table, which Annabel Hope took, leaving Dr. Levine to stand. Whatever rodeo this was, it was obvious to Becky that Ms. Hope had ridden her share of horses.

  “We had to give her a sedative,” Dr. Levine said, addressing Nash while ignoring Becky. “Five milligrams of haloperidol.”

  Becky knew all about the antipsychotic medication haloperidol, or Haldol, as it was marketed under its brand name. Becky was outraged. “You can’t give my daughter a sedative like that without talking to us first,” she said angrily to Levine, who shrank under the weight of her stare.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Gerard,” Knox Singer said in an affectless voice. “I don’t know how to tell you this gently, so I’m just going to have to come out and say it: Meghan is now in our temporary custody.”

  Carl shot out of his chair like a launched rocket. Pressing his arms against the table, he leaned forward, sending dirty looks at Nash, who did not shrink away. The two guards sprang forward to frame Carl so that if he made any threatening advance, it would be quickly countered.

  Becky felt her stomach drop. “What are you talking about?”

  Try as she might, Becky could not wrap her mind around what Knox Singer had said, and yet on some primal level, she understood: Her daughter was no longer hers. She belonged to someone else. But why? How could she be in the custody of the hospital? How could they give her drugs without parental permission?

  “What do you mean, she’s in your temporary custody?” Carl asked, saying what Becky was thinking. He remained standing, while Becky feared she’d topple over if she tried to join him.

  Nash removed her glasses and bit at the tip. She looked at Ms. Hope, who seemed perfectly fine with someone else answering. Nash eyed Becky briefly before turning her attention to Carl. “We believe that your daughter’s illness is primarily psychiatric in nature,” Nash said in a voice that, much like her office, lacked any color or personality.

  “No, no, you told me on the phone that you wanted to have Meghan seen to run some kind of tests,” Becky said, seething.

  Nash shifted uneasily in her chair.

  Ms. Hope looked about as surprised at Nash’s bait-and-switch routine as someone answering the doorbell on Halloween.

  “What I told you on the phone,” Nash said, “is that we had to do an emergency exam. Those were my words exactly.”

  “Then you tricked us,” Becky said, her voice slipping into a harsh whisper. “How dare you! How could you?”

  Again, Becky blamed herself for not thoroughly vetting Levine. Why hadn’t she looked him up in the hospital directory while she was in the waiting room? It would have done her no good anyway, Becky realized now. Megan was in their custody the moment she let her daughter out of her sight.

  Dr. Levine shuffled nervously on his feet, but since there was nowhere for him to sit and nowhere else to go, he took over the spot on the wall that the security guards had abandoned to keep Carl in line.

  “We have an obligation to all our patients to do no harm, and that includes making sure nobody is doing any harm to a child,” Singer said.

  “Are you suggesting that we’re abusing our daughter?” Becky was beside herself with anger, though her expression showed only stunned disbelief.

  “We have evidence to support that very possibility,” Ms. Hope said, speaking for the first time. “A hospital has a legal responsibility to intervene in these matters. Dr. Nash felt strongly enough about her suspicions to order the psychiatric evaluation, which Dr. Levine performed.” Ms. Hope nodded toward the rube doc perched against the wall.

  “Dr. Levine interviewed Meghan about her experiences,” she continued, “and based on her answers to a series of questions, he became very concerned. Given Meghan’s lengthy medical history with puzzling symptoms and an endless stream of consults and treatments, all to no avail, there was reasonable cause for the hospital to file a complaint of medical child abuse with my group, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. My team acts quickly in these matters, since there’s the possibility a child could be returned to a dangerous situation.”

  “We discussed your case in depth and reviewed all the evidence as provided to us by Drs. Nash and Levine,” Knox Singer added, as if that made everything all right.

  “Could I see that evidence?” Carl said, speaking through grit
ted teeth.

  “I’m afraid not,” Ms. Hope answered. “It’s privileged.”

  Becky scoffed incredulously. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” She looked around the room as if everyone should be sharing her outrage. She looked to Carl, and then to Ms. Hope. “She’s our daughter!” Becky shouted, pointing at herself. “Ours! You can’t just take her without showing us this irrefutable proof of yours.”

  “At the moment, Mrs. Gerard,” Ms. Hope said calmly, “as a consequence of the complaint, a judge has awarded temporary custody of Meghan to the Department of Children and Families.”

  “But how?” Becky asked, letting the disbelief ring her voice. “And when? She’s been here only a few hours.”

  “In cases of suspected child abuse, the system has measures for expediting an emergency temporary ruling. We, in turn, have given our permission for Meghan to remain in the care of Dr. Nash and Dr. Levine here at White. Your daughter is now officially a ward of the state, so in legal terms, she’s no longer yours to care for.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Becky wanted to stand up, scream, and throw her chair at Ms. Hope, then pick it up and use it to beat Dr. Nash.

  A ward of the state—that made her daughter sound like an orphan. In the eyes of the court, Becky was technically no longer a mother. But emotionally, spiritually, in all the ways that truly mattered, she had never felt more like a mother in all her life.

  Fixing a pointed stare on Nash, Becky’s eyes grew wide as she rose to her feet. “You tricked us! You tricked us!”

  Her vision went black with anger. Separated from her body, her thoughts and actions no longer belonging to her, Becky lunged across the table at Nash. Before she could latch on to the lapels of her lab coat, one of the guards seized a clump of Becky’s light knit sweater in his meaty mitt, hard enough to rip a small hole in the delicate thread as he pulled her back.

  Carl went on the attack. He grabbed the guard’s button-down shirt in his clenched fists, his face snarled with outrage. With a loud grunt, he gave a hard shove that sent the guard backward into the wall. The other guard, who had four inches and a good thirty pounds on his opponent, used a bear hug to pin Carl’s arms to his sides.