by Hamel, B. B.
“You okay?” Mary asked when she joined me a few minutes later. “You look like hell.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “You know how this place can be.”
She nodded, eyes distant. “I sure do, sweetheart. You want to talk about it?”
“Not at all.”
She sat down next to me and didn’t say anything more—and I knew she wouldn’t gossip about this.
There was an unspoken understanding between everyone that worked at Mercy. The hospital was a force of nature in itself, and it could get the better of anyone, at any time, for any reason. Sometimes you broke down, had a good cry, and moved on, and everyone learned not to ask too many questions. Mary might’ve been a gossip, but she understood how things went around here. One day, I’d return that favor to her, I was sure of it.
I leaned back in my chair and thought of Dean back in that room, telling me he didn’t care about having kids—and only cared about me. Maybe he meant it, and maybe it was true, but it wouldn’t always be. If he wanted kids, even a little bit, sooner or later he’d resent me for being unable to give him any, and we’d never be able to get past it. I knew it’d happen, whether he thought it would or not, and I wasn’t going to let whatever we had get ruined because I was too broken.
So I’ll let it go. I’ll mourn it for a while, and think about that night fondly, but I’ll move on because I’m strong, and because I’ve gotten used to living with myself like this. We’ll fight Maria, and maybe we’ll win or maybe we won’t, but the relationship has to be over.
Otherwise, I don’t know what I’ll do, or how I can live with myself.
20
Dean
I kept thinking about Fiona, about the way she spoke to me in that room, but most of all about the hurt in her eyes, the pain in her expression, and it killed me.
She had no clue, no clue at all. Whatever happened that caused her to be unable to have children so clearly defined everything she did. She lived her life assuming that she was broken, and that nobody could love her because she was flawed in that one specific way—and yet I couldn’t care less about that.
Having kids wasn’t the most important thing in the world. I didn’t need her to be able to carry my babies, and even if that was something we both agreed we wanted one day, there were so many other options, like surrogates or adoption. Her being unable to have children was such a small thing, such a minor problem, and yet standing in that room with her, watching the way she spoke about herself, the way she looked at me, I could tell that in her mind it was her defining quality.
I didn’t know how to convince her that it simply wasn’t that important to me, that I cared about her way more than I cared about having children with her. Sharing a life together—that was something I wanted.
I gave her space. Even though I wanted to hunt her down that day and tell her exactly how I felt, wanted to find her and convince her to listen, I kept away and focused on my job. I lost myself in work, or at least I tried to, even if she was still on my mind, still lingering in the back of my mind every second of every day.
Obviously, I couldn’t let it last. She didn’t show up for a ride home that night, and the next morning she didn’t come out when I called or knocked. Part of me was worried until I got a text from her. — Don’t worry, already at the hospital.
I knew what she was doing. She meant it when she said she wanted this to be over, that she thought it needed to end, and now she was putting herself in danger to put distance between us. The rides to and from work weren’t only for fun and because I liked being with her, but because those thugs might make a move on her at any moment, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
And yet now that she was pulling away, I couldn’t protect her.
I had to do something. I knew I needed to give her space and to let her figure this out on her own, but I couldn’t sit by and let something bad happen. I got to the hospital, got myself prepped for the day, then went looking for her before I had to go do rounds.
But I didn’t get far. As I walked down the hall heading away from my office, I stopped near the elevators as Maria stepped out. She looked around then spotted me, and a smile slid across her face as she stalked toward me like a lion on the prowl. I clenched my jaw and crossed my arms over my chest, drawing myself up to my full height.
That didn’t seem to bother her. She stared up at me with a smile and stopped a few feet away, one hand lingering against the wall, her fingernails long and black. “Dr. Coarse,” she said, “just the man I was looking for. Do you have a minute?”
“Not right now,” I said. “I’m busy, actually. Maybe we can speak later. If you’ll excuse me—”
I went to step around her, but she cleared her throat. “This is important, Dean.” Her eyes were sharp, and as much as I wanted to tell her to fuck off, I knew I had to hear her out.
“Let’s talk in my office.” I turned and went back inside.
She followed but left the door open behind her. “Smaller than I thought,” she commented, a little smile on her lips.
I didn’t know why that annoyed me so much, but I had to push my anger back. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“If you’re here to threaten me, I’m not interested.”
She laughed softly. “I’m here to give you one more chance, actually.”
“Maria—”
“You have no power in this situation,” she said, stepping closer. I leaned up against my desk and glared at her. “You’re a good doctor and popular with your patients, but at the end of the day you’re still only a doctor. You’re replaceable, but you’re not acting that way.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“I would, and I will, if you don’t promise you’ll stop snooping.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m not interested in more empty threats. I have rounds to do.”
“Your patients can wait.”
“Can they? Since when do you know a damn thing about this hospital, Maria? You launder your dirty money, and profit off it nicely, but when it comes to the people here, you’re clueless.”
She only smiled and shook her head. “That’s not what I want to hear from you, doctor.”
“Then I’ll say this: go to hell. I’m going to find proof of what you’re doing, and when I do, you’re finished.”
She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Her fingernails acted like claws, brushing along, separating the strands.
“Last chance. Tell me you’re going to stop this stupidity, and we can all move on. The hospital is fine, Dr. Coarse. Patients aren’t being hurt. So what if I make a little extra money on the side? Nothing is taken away, none of this matters. You’re on some foolish crusade, and it’s your own actions that are going to lead to serious problems.”
I stood up and stared at her. “I’m finished with this.”
“All right then.” She turned and left my office without another word.
I frowned, staring after her. I hesitated before I walked out into the hall, then stopped completely when I spotted Maria down near the elevators again, but this time speaking with two security guards.
My heart started racing as they looked at me and their faces went blank. I’d seen that look before, right when they come to throw out some unruly family member, or a drug addict that’s pretending to be hurt to get some pills. That was the look of two men that were about to do something unsavory, and weren’t excited about the prospect.
But Maria’s face was jubilant. She walked back toward me, arms swinging, a huge grin on her face.
“Dr. Coarse, I gave you one last chance, and since you’re not interested in helping this hospital out, I have no recourse but to dismiss you. Please, follow these gentlemen out, you can pick up your things tomorrow.”
I stared at her, and for one moment, my heart stopped.
Being a doctor at Mercy was everything to me. My whole life was this place, my identity, my reason for living. If I couldn’t be a doctor, I didn’t k
now what the hell I was going to do. I didn’t move, I was rooted to the spot, and one of the guards came toward me, a white guy with a thick neck and a huge gut.
“Sorry, doctor, but if you’d come with me, please?”
I looked at Maria. “You can’t do this. You can’t fire me.”
“I can, and I did. If you would be so kind as to go with these gentlemen, Dr. Coarse? We’ll work out the logistics of your dismissal some other time.”
I clenched my jaw. I had the insane urge to fight these guys, but they were only doing their jobs. It was Maria I wanted to hurt, wanted to smash her face through the wall and leave her skull in bits and pieces—but instead of doing anything stupid, I strode to the elevators.
The guards walked behind me. They didn’t touch me, but it was very clear that they were going to escort me out.
I hesitated, and felt a strange, sudden pulse of shame. I hated myself for it, but I wondered what it would look like when I walked out of here, flanked by two goons. Everyone would know about it, everyone would hear, and the gossip would be horrible. The things they’d say—goddamn, I couldn’t picture how I’d recover.
And yet that didn’t matter. Truly, it didn’t. All these people could fuck themselves, since they didn’t know shit about why I was getting fired. The only person that mattered was Fiona.
I couldn’t see her, couldn’t speak to her, and I needed to worse than I could imagine. She was going to hear secondhand about this, and I didn’t want to picture what she was going to think.
But no, she had to know, she’d realize what happened. Maria was the enemy, and I couldn’t let myself forget it.
I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby. The guards joined me, but Maria lingered, and waved.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Coarse,” she said, practically bouncing on her toes with joy. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
Then the doors slid shut and left me alone.
The elevator dropped down in silence. I stood there, seething, boiling with pure animal rage. I wanted to hurt something, break someone, but instead, when the door opened to a lobby packed with former colleagues and patients, I kept my head held high as I marched toward the exit. The guards came with me, keeping a respectful distance, but I saw the looks: surprise, shock, outrage, confusion, wicked glee. The nurses and doctors down here knew what was happening, they all knew what was going on, and it would get back to Fiona.
Good. She needed to know, because she might be next.
And maybe it wasn’t too late to save her.
21
Fiona
I tapped on my phone’s screen for the fiftieth time that morning. I kept waiting for a message from Dean, kept thinking he’d reply to my text, or maybe come down to see me—but he didn’t do either.
I should’ve been relieved. Instead, I felt strangely hurt and angry.
I didn’t have any right to feel that way. I told him very clearly that I wanted to end things between us, that I didn’t want to continue whatever relationship was beginning to grow. I told him I wanted to end that aspect of whatever we were doing, and focus on finishing things with Maria and those bastards she was working for.
I couldn’t be shocked that he listened to what I said.
It was a busy morning and I lost myself in work. That helped, at least a little bit, and I didn’t have time to sit down and chat with Mary until mid-morning rolled around. I sighed as I relaxed into my chair, feet already beginning to ache, when Mary leaned forward, gave me a strange look that was somewhere between pity and confusion, and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Dr. Coarse got fired this morning,” she said, squeezing a little. “I’m sorry.”
I stared at her, blinking in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
She dropped her hand away. “I heard it through the grapevine, you know. People saw him escorted out of the lobby, and one of the nurses stopped him and asked him what was happening, and he said he got fired. I know, it’s crazy, right?”
I sat up straight, heart racing. “That can’t be true.”
“It’s true. I mean, there are a bunch of witnesses.” She hesitated. “You two know each other pretty well, right? I mean, I’ve seen you talking a lot. Do you know what happened? You don’t have to tell me, but—”
I pushed back from the desk and stood. “It has to be some mistake.”
“Sweetie, I don’t think—”
I shook my head and walked toward the hall. “Cover me, okay?”
“Fiona, please, hold on.”
“Sorry, Mary. I’ll owe you one. Hell, I’ll owe you two, but it’s a mistake, okay? Just cover me.” I walked away, head spinning, feeling like I might walk off the edge of the earth.
I couldn’t imagine Dean getting fired, not for something real at least. This was Maria’s doing, she pulled strings and made this happen somehow. I didn’t know what she did, who she bribed, but if Dean truly was fired, I could only guess how he felt.
This place was his life. Mercy had a way of hooking itself into you and making you believe there was no world outside of its tile halls and constantly beeping monitors. Mercy was an ecosystem in itself and most people couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.
I was sure Dean felt that way. He was a star in the hospital, had his own damn office, got to do more or less whatever he wanted—picked his own patients, skipped clinic duty more often than not, more or less had the run of the place. If he got fired, I could guess the sort of things he was feeling, and I couldn’t let him feel that way all alone.
I hit the street and caught a lucky cab right out front. The driver took me to Dean’s place, and I got out and stormed up to his front door. My heart was pounding when I knocked and the cab drove away behind me. I pictured a broken man, wrecked by his own sorrow, torn asunder by his pain—and instead Dean opened the door, looking freshly showered, a smile on his face.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.”
I stared at him. “I heard. About you getting fired.”
“Come inside.”
I followed him into the kitchen. He cleaned up against a counter and sipped a half-empty glass of whiskey—probably why he seemed to happy.
“Are you okay?” I asked, lingering near the table.
“I’m fine. Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming.”
I shook my head. “It’s messed up, Dean. She can’t fire you. I mean, does she even have that power?”
“Apparently. Security escorted me out.”
I grimaced. “God, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s really okay.” He put the glass down. “We have another job to do.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“The accounting firm that does Mercy’s taxes has an office out in the suburbs. We’re going to break in and—”
I held up my hands. “Hold on, Dean, wait, hold on. What the hell are you talking about, accountants?”
“We need documents to prove that Maria’s been moving money around. The only place that’ll have those documents that haven’t been altered in some way is this accounting firm. I already called them and pretended to be working for Maria, and they said they have the files in the Doylestown office, and—”
“Dean,” I said, my voice harder than intended, but I couldn’t let him keep going. “You got fired. Why are you still talking about this?”
He blinked, surprised, and tilted his head. “Because Maria’s still in power at Mercy, whether I work there or not, and I’m going to make sure she’s stopped.”
I stood there, trying to understand. When he worked at the hospital, he had a thousand reasons to want to put himself on the line to get rid of a corrupt official like Maria. That sort of thing got people killed, even if only in incidental ways, but still, it was dangerous and any doctor would want to root it out. But he didn’t work at Mercy anymore, and going after Maria wouldn’t benefit him.
“You can’t let this go, can you?”
He shook
his head. “I really can’t.”
“Even if you have no stake anymore.”
“I always have a stake. Maybe I don’t work there anymore, but I’m still a doctor, and I care about those patients. Plus, fuck Maria for firing me.”
I smiled a little at that. “So you’re really okay?”
“Really. I’m going to find a new job somewhere else. And in the meantime, I’m going to dedicate myself to making sure Maria burns.”
I nodded slowly and felt a strange excitement bubble in my stomach. “So, uh, about this whole breaking and entering thing.”
He finished his drink and set it down. “It’s a pretty small accounting firm, maybe fifty clients in all, and Mercy is probably their biggest. I doubt they’ll have state of the art security.”
“You plan on, what, breaking in through the front?”
“Pretty much.” He grinned at me. “I’m going to break a window and climb in that way.”
My eyes went wide. “Dean—”
“Just kidding. I convinced the secretary to fax them over to the neurology department at Mercy. All you’ve got to do is walk inside, find the papers, and bring them out.”
“You’re insane. That’s insane. What if someone realizes what they are?”
He gave me a look. “You work in a hospital. You really think anyone’s going to look at a bunch of paperwork twice?”
“Fair point,” I said, shaking my head. Hospitals were notoriously inefficient and outdated, and I’d seen my fair share of important-looking papers lying around randomly, and never once bothered to inspect them. He was probably right, nobody would think to check them out, and yet it wasn’t an enormous risk to take. “When is she sending them over?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Apparently she needs the day to get it all together.” He shrugged and came toward me.
“How much paper are we talking about?”
“Financial statements from the last three years. Can’t be that much.”
I rubbed my temples as he stopped right in front of me. I looked up into his eyes and I wanted to call him crazy, wanted to push him away and storm out of here—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
