Viral

by Robin Cook

  “How so?” Brian asked.

  “He has an armed driver.”

  “Why would a hospital CEO need an armed driver?” Brian asked. As a security-minded individual, Brian was legitimately interested.

  “Because he is an inordinately important man running several large institutions,” Roger said impatiently. “It’s to protect him from people like you, if you want to know the truth. What a ridiculous question.”

  “Okay,” Brian said, trying to maintain his composure. “Let’s move on to another issue. Did you or anyone here make it a point to contact the Hudson Valley Rehabilitation Hospital and report that my wife’s hospital bill had been turned over to collections?”

  “I can’t imagine. It certainly wasn’t me, if that is what you are implying.”

  “Someone did,” Brian said. “Last week I was dragged into their business office and presented with an ultimatum: Either I came up with a twenty-thousand-dollar advance or my wife was going to be booted out for the second time because of nonpayment of exorbitant hospital charges.”

  “I resent that statement,” Roger said irritably. “It seems you’re implying that your wife was discharged from here because of nonpayment of her bill and that our charges are not appropriate. Both statements are patently untrue, as I’ve told you before.” He stood up. “This meeting is over. I want you to leave, or I am going to call security, and they will throw you out.”

  For a brief moment of irrationality, Brian fantasized about refusing to leave in hopes of having a half-trained hospital security person or two try to throw him out. Instead, feeling chagrined at being summarily dismissed after he’d made a sincere effort to come in and resolve the hospital bill problem, Brian stormed out of Dalton’s office. Cursing under his breath and feeling a searing anger at a system designed to make money more than anything else, he strode toward the door leading into the hospital lobby. But on his way out he couldn’t help but stop and stare in at Charles Kelley’s empty office and fancy glass-walled conference room.

  Motivated by morbid curiosity, Brian walked in through the open office door. He was looking for the equivalent of Heather Williams’s ostentatious foxhunting portrait, and he wasn’t disappointed. Hanging above a faux fireplace was a nearly full-sized painting of a blond-haired middle-aged man in a three-piece business suit, arms folded, leaning up against an impressive desk similar to the real one in the room. Just to be certain, Brian approached to read the engraved plaque. It was indeed Charles Kelley. Although pictorially tame in contrast to Heather’s outlandish portrait, Charles’s painting conveyed the same sense of entitlement and privilege, with an equally haughty, superior-than-thou smile. “Two birds of a feather,” Brian observed out loud as he shook his head in disgust.

  “Excuse me!” a voice called. “What are you doing? You are not allowed in here!”

  Brian turned to face a secretary clearly outraged at his violation of Charles Kelley’s inner sanctum.

  “Just enjoying the artwork,” Brian said with a fake, innocent smile.

  A few minutes later as he was passing out through the main entrance’s revolving door, with his irritation and anger still at a boiling point, Brian thought again about the two CEOs and how they seemed to be poster children for what was wrong with American medicine and unbridled entrepreneurial capitalism. And as a doer, he knew he couldn’t just passively allow their greediness to go unchallenged and dictate the unraveling of his life. He had to do something. He just didn’t know what.

  CHAPTER 12

  August 31

  As Brian turned from Park Terrace East onto West 217th Street and slowed to a walk on his torn-up street, what was becoming progressively clear to him was the need to retain a lawyer despite the added cost. The question was: Should he use the counselor Grady suggested, who had some experience dealing with MMH Inwood, or should he use a lawyer from the white-shoe firm he and Emma had employed to set up Personal Protection LLC? As he climbed the stairs in the middle of his front yard where Grady had been sitting that morning, he decided to give Patrick McCarthy a try, as the cost would undoubtedly be appropriately and remarkably less. But that wasn’t the only reason. Brian also thought that Patrick’s experience with MMH could be significant in addition to his being a local boy. In a community like Inwood, being part of the neighborhood made a difference.

  Reaching the top step and despite his preoccupations, he paused. He couldn’t help but appreciate his surroundings. He was standing with his profusion of riotously beautiful orange tiger lilies flanking both sides of the walkway, which had been planted by the house’s previous owners in lieu of a minuscule lawn. After admiring the flowers, he then looked up at his home with its striking Tudor revival mixture of brick and stonework. He and Emma loved the house and had admired it during their childhoods. Brian was proud that they owned it, but now, with MMH Inwood’s Premier Collections on his case, he knew that the property was potentially in jeopardy. The thought shocked him back to reality and reawakened the anger he’d felt in Roger Dalton’s office, forcing him to try to think about something else.

  The something else was what he would be confronting once he entered through the front door. The one positive thing that he hoped would have resulted from Emma’s being kicked out of two hospitals was that her presence at home would have drastically improved Juliette’s attitude and behavior. But that hadn’t happened. If anything, Juliette’s apparent anxiety was even worse because Emma’s illness made it difficult for her to meet her daughter’s needs. As a result, Juliette was back to refusing to eat, was again voicing vague bodily complaints, and was displaying frequent temper tantrums.

  Brian’s worst fears were substantiated the moment he entered through the front door. Standing in the foyer and removing his shoes, he could hear both his wife and his daughter distantly sobbing and complaining, one from the kitchen and the other from the upstairs guest room. Flipping a mental coin of which situation took precedence, he first went into the kitchen. Juliette was sitting in the breakfast nook and Camila was at the sink washing a frying pan. For a brief moment Brian and Camila exchanged a glance and Camila rolled her eyes.

  He slid into the banquette alongside Juliette. In front of her on a plate was a freshly made grilled cheese sandwich. “What’s the matter, my sweet?” Brian asked. Juliette cried harder.

  “She said she was hungry for a grilled cheese,” Camila said. It was obvious her patience was being tested. “Now she won’t eat it.” Camila finished with the pan and then turned to face the room, leaning back against the sink arms akimbo.

  “Why are you not eating?” he asked his daughter.

  Choking on her tears, Juliette managed: “I don’t feel good.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Brian said. He looked over at Camila, who was at her wits’ end. “Why don’t I spend a little time with her?”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Camila said, and immediately left the room.

  “If you don’t want to eat, what do you want to do?”

  “I want to watch cartoons with Bunny.” Bunny was propped up against her as per usual.

  “Why don’t you?” He pushed the TV remote in Juliette’s direction.

  “Camila said I couldn’t until I finished my sandwich.”

  Brian guessed there had been a mini test of wills, which wasn’t uncommon or unusual considering both individuals’ personalities. He took the remote and turned on the TV. “What do you mean when you say you don’t feel good?” Brian was curious about Juliette’s ongoing long list of mild complaints, which had started with Emma’s seizure and hospitalization, and had only gotten worse since her homecoming.

  Juliette rubbed her hand vaguely around her stomach, which is what she’d done previously when he had asked for specifics. “And my head hurts.”

  “I’m sorry you are not feeling well. Does Bunny have the same symptoms?”

  Juliette nodded.

  �
�The more I check out that grilled cheese sandwich, the better it looks,” Brian said. “Do you mind if I have a bite?”

  Juliette pushed the dish in his direction. Brian took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Not bad! Actually, really good! Maybe you should let Bunny give it a try.”

  After offering the sandwich to Bunny to take a bite, Juliette took one herself. Brian purposefully didn’t comment. Instead, he was content to just sit with her and enjoy a portion of a Curious George episode. As they watched, Juliette toyed with her food without eating any more, until Camila eventually returned.

  “I’m sorry,” Camila said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, waving her apology away. “I understand completely. We’re all under stress.”

  “I think you’d better see if you can help Aimée and Hannah. They’re having a difficult time with Emma.”

  “Right!” Brian slid out from the breakfast nook. The whole time he’d been in the kitchen, he’d occasionally heard distant sobbing and raised voices. With some apprehension about what he was going to face, he climbed the stairs. If both Aimée and Hannah were struggling, he thought the chances he could help were mighty slim.

  The hospital bed was in the center of the room with the head pressed up against the wall between the two windows that looked out over the driveway and the neighboring house. The guest room bed, where Hannah had spent the night, had been pushed back against the common wall with the hallway. Aimée was on one side of the hospital bed and Hannah on the other, while Emma was lying in the bed with her upper body on a towel. Her face was streaked with tears, and a basin with soap and water was on a stool on Hannah’s side. As Brian entered and approached the foot of the bed, Hannah draped a towel over Emma’s midsection.

  “She’s refusing to let us bathe her,” Hannah explained with irritation.

  To Brian it was clear that everyone in the room was emotionally overwrought. The question was: What to do?

  “I want to take a shower,” Emma complained, her voice catching. “They won’t let me!”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Hannah lectured. “You are not walking right, and you might fall. Then you’d be worse off than you are now.”

  “It’s true,” Aimée added.

  “How about a bath in the master bathroom?” Brian offered. It was clear Emma was feeling ganged up on, and the guest room bath only had a shower.

  “That might work, but only if she lets us get her there and then back to bed,” Hannah stated as the domineering mother she’d always been.

  “How about you guys take a coffee break?” he suggested, trying to be diplomatic toward Aimée and Hannah. Since he was highly dependent on their help, the very last thing he wanted to do was offend them in any way. “I think I’d like to have a few moments with my wife.”

  Aimée and Hannah exchanged a questioning glance, then reluctantly agreed. They filed out without another word. Hannah, who was the last to leave, closed the door behind her.

  “I don’t want to be here,” Emma said, surprising Brian. Over the last few days, she’d been suffering various stages of confusion. But now she sounded not only oriented, but lucid and almost like her old self. “I feel that I’m getting worse, not better. I need to be back in the hospital so I can be treated to get back to normal.”

  Brian nodded but struggled with what to say. After he had read that the vast majority of encephalitis survivors ended up with serious neurological deficits, he was reluctant to bring up the issue of what getting back to normal was going to mean. He also wasn’t prepared to explain to her why it wouldn’t be possible to get her back into MMH Inwood, even if that was what she preferred and even if it made the most sense medically. The whole situation was much too complicated and heartbreaking.

  “Besides, I’m a big burden being here at home,” Emma continued as new tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

  “You are not a burden,” Brian said, trying to protest but knowing in many ways that her presence was more difficult than he had expected. He gave her a hug and then gripped her hand. “And your mother and my mother are thrilled you are here. They see it as an opportunity, certainly not a burden. They’re happy to help.”

  Taking advantage of her sudden lucidity, he broached the subject of Juliette. Brian could tell that she was horrified to learn that her actions since arriving home on Saturday had exacerbated Juliette’s behavioral problems.

  “I had no idea,” Emma said regretfully. “I hardly remember anything since I’ve been here, which is scary.”

  “She’s missed you terribly. If I had to guess, I think it’s mostly from having witnessed your seizure in the car. That’s frightening for anyone, especially a four-year-old who’s as close to her mother as Juliette is to you.”

  “Oh, gosh! I’ll have to make it up to her. It just makes me feel awful, the poor thing. She’s been through a lot.”

  “It’s certainly not your fault,” Brian said. “But anything you do or say will undoubtedly help.”

  Without any warning, Emma pulled her hand away from his and slapped her palm to her head, gripping herself hard enough that her forehead wrinkled and knuckles blanched. At the same instant, her other hand noisily grasped one of the bed’s metal guardrails. Shocked by the sudden motion and noise, Brian blinked and retreated a full step backward.

  “What’s going on? What happened? Are you okay?”

  Emma withdrew her hand, blinked, and looked over at him. “Wow! That was strange. I guess I’m okay. I just had a sudden jolt, and now I have a headache.”

  “Do you want me to get you something? An ibuprofen?”

  “No, I’m okay. I just feel a little odd, and the headache is already going away.”

  Brian moved back alongside the bed and gripped Emma’s arm. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I guess.” She blinked several times. “What I’d like to do is get this ridiculous bath conundrum over with. As much as I hate to admit it, my mother is correct about it being dangerous to try to shower in my current state. I don’t want to fall, nor do I want to burden them with giving me a bed bath like I’m a child.”

  “Okay, I’ll run the bathwater,” he said. “And then can I call the mothers back? They are desperate to help.”

  “I guess. Sure. Call them back! Meanwhile, put down one of the guardrails so I can sit here for a few minutes on the side of the bed to adjust to being upright. What will you be doing while I take a bath?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll spend a little more time with Juliette.”

  “Good idea,” Emma said, sounding like her old self. “Tell her that I look forward to seeing her after my bath.”

  “I’m sure she’ll like to hear that,” Brian said, giving his wife’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

  CHAPTER 13

  August 31

  After spending nearly a half hour with Juliette watching Ask the StoryBots and getting her to eat the rest of her grilled cheese sandwich, Brian was glad she seemed back to near normal. When she and Camila began coloring together, Brian had checked on Emma’s situation before retreating to the home office. His plan was to try to get an idea of what they would be able to cover with their current depleted cash reserves if they were forced to endure the entire fall season with few or no security gigs, which was how it was beginning to appear. The reality was that by the New Year, they were going to be in bad shape even with Camila gracious enough to be willing to defer receiving her salary. The thought of losing her, especially under the current circumstances with Emma and Juliette, was painful.

  While deep in his depressing thoughts, a sudden nerve-shattering, shrill scream reverberated around the room, sending a shot of adrenaline through Brian’s body and propelling him out of his desk chair and into the hallway. Instantly he could tell the continued shouts were coming from above, although already there was an answering softer wail from the kitc
hen. Brian hit the stairs at a run and within a blink of an eye he’d reached the guest room. Inside he found both Aimée and Hannah frozen like statues with their hands clasped over their mouths and eyes thrown open to their limits.

  Within the hospital bed Emma was in the throes of yet another full-blown seizure, with her back arched grotesquely and her arms and legs thrashing. Most disturbing of all, her head was repeatedly hitting against the bed’s protective metal rails and making a horrific clamor. Without a second’s hesitation Brian rushed to the bedside and pulled his convulsing wife more into the center of the bed to prevent any head trauma. With Brian’s arrival, the mothers’ screams trailed off.

  “Thank God you came,” Aimée wailed. She stepped closer to the bed. Hannah stayed away, her hand still clasped over her mouth.

  “What happened?” Brian managed as he forcibly kept Emma away from the bedsides and struggled to roll her on her side, so she didn’t choke. As muscular and athletic as Emma was, it took all of Brian’s considerable strength.

  “I don’t know! Nothing particular. She’d had her bath, and we’d managed to get her back into the bed, which wasn’t easy. It did make her really upset. Could that have caused this?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Brian said, struggling to keep Emma centered in the bed and on her side. He noticed she was turning slightly blue from her breathing being suppressed.

  “Should I find something to put in her mouth so she doesn’t bite her tongue?”

  “No, it’s not necessary,” Brian said. “That’s an old wives’ tale. It’s enough to keep her on her side and keep her from injuring herself.”

  “Should one of us call an ambulance?” Hannah asked frantically. She’d recovered to a degree but still hadn’t moved from where she had backed up.

  Brian didn’t answer immediately because he didn’t know what to do and keeping Emma centered was taking all his attention. He assumed the seizure would stop just as it did when she’d had a similar fit in the car on the way back from the Cape. But as the minutes ticked by, Brian got progressively frantic, especially since she was only getting bluer in the face.