Good Medicine

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Jordie, talk to me here, okay?” Garry’s voice dropped, and he assumed the wheedling tone she’d come to despise. “See, the thing is, I’ve got no money for a cab. I shot the whole wad on that fix. Could you maybe—? Please, honey?”

  Amazed that her legs worked, she hurried to the staff locker room and got twenty dollars from her handbag. She had to keep swallowing, and her hands were shaking so much she could hardly get her handbag opened or the door to her locker closed.

  Security had escorted Garry to the exit by the time she got back, and Jordan marched into the rain and wordlessly held the money out to him.

  He glanced at it and his mouth turned down petulantly before he snatched it, jamming the single bill into his pocket. “Twenty isn’t enough, not when I’m really in pain like this. I told you how bad it hurt this morning, Jordie, you could have given me something then and this wouldn’t have happened.” In one lithe motion, he twisted out of the guard’s grip.

  “C’mon, babe, don’t be chippy with me, surely you can spare another couple twenties?”

  She jerked her head from side to side and then turned her back on him, fleeing through the doors that led into Emerg. Inside, not one person looked at her, but their curiosity was like a scent in the air.

  She couldn’t remember anything about the rest of that shift except that the trembling and nausea grew more and more difficult to control. She felt disoriented, far away, watching herself go through the motions of treating one patient after the other, amazed that she looked and sounded so normal.

  When morning finally came, she had trouble driving home to the apartment. Fortunately the morning rush hour hadn’t really started yet, because she drove through a red light and sat through a green one. She scraped the side of her red Toyota against a cement beam when she tried to park it in the underground lot, and when she got out she didn’t even bother to check the extent of the damage.

  She took the elevator to the second floor and after three tries, unlocked the door. The apartment was empty; Garry wasn’t there. She hadn’t expected him home. She’d hoped he wouldn’t be.

  She knew he wasn’t at work, he hadn’t been all week. It was Thursday, and his secretary had left increasingly desperate messages for him every day. Up until this week, he’d managed to keep up a relatively professional facade at his law office. The partners had been lenient with him, blaming his erratic behavior on the accident. They’d covered for him the same way Jordan had, she mused as she walked through the rooms she’d painted and decorated with such care.

  It felt as if she were seeing her home clearly for the first time in weeks. A great many things had disappeared lately, and she’d tried to believe it had nothing to do with Garry, but now she forced herself to face the truth.

  In the living room, an empty CD holder stood beside the equally empty space where the expensive audio system had been. They’d bought it on their first anniversary. Several weeks ago, the apartment had been broken into while they were both supposedly at work. Her few good pieces of jewelry had been taken as well as all the electronic equipment—even the damned microwave.

  Garry had taken them. She’d known it even then, but hadn’t been able to face the fact that her husband was an addict who’d steal and lie and cheat to get drugs.

  Slowly and painfully as though she were old and brittle-boned, Jordan lowered herself to the dove-gray sofa and forced herself to look at what her life had become.

  It had started with that damned car accident. Garry had been driving home late, undoubtedly going too fast. The expensive little sports car he’d insisted on owning had been struck by a pickup truck at an intersection. Garry had come away with a compound fracture of the left arm and a concussion. He’d also complained of excruciating pain from torn muscles in his back, pain that nothing seemed to alleviate.

  Garry’s physician, Albert Mayborn, had finally prescribed morphine.

  Jordan blamed herself for not recognizing that Garry was becoming addicted. She ought to have known, the signs were all there. Garry complained of pain long past the time when any muscle strain should have healed. She’d finally seen the physical signs of drug abuse in her husband’s bloodshot eyes, his jumpiness, his inability to sleep, his hair-trigger temper.

  At last she’d confronted him about it, and of course he’d denied it. Until tonight, she’d managed to deny the extent of the problem herself.

  The awful scene in the E.R. kept replaying in her head, and Jordan’s humiliation and shame grew. She drew her knees up to her chest, trying by sheer force of will to impose control over her shaking arms and legs.

  She couldn’t get a deep breath. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She began to cry, deep, tearing sobs that scared her. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop them. Soon her stomach and chest hurt, her lungs felt as if they were on fire, and still the wrenching sobs went on and on. She was completely alone.

  Hours passed. The phone rang, and she couldn’t answer it. She couldn’t move. She was thirty-two today, and she didn’t want to live. She began to think of the many ways there were to die.

  And then the physician in her recognized that she needed help.

  She forced herself up off the sofa, dialed the telephone and ordered a cab.

  Sweating and shaking, still gulping back sobs, she found her handbag and made her way outside.

  The Native driver gave her a concerned and wary look. “You okay, lady? Where you want to go?”

  “St. Joseph’s Medical Center,” she gasped.

  St. Joseph’s was an old building, and she knew every inch of it, having interned there. She dragged herself up a set of stairs at the back of the building to the third floor. It was the only place she could think of to get help.

  The psych ward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE INTAKE NURSE WAS both intuitive and gentle. Jordan managed to choke out her name, adding that she was an Emerg physician, and without even asking her to fill in any forms, the nurse guided Jordan to a tiny private room with a cot and a chair. She helped her lie down, covering her with a blanket.

  Jordan curled into a ball, too exhausted and spent to resist the emotions coursing through her. After a time, the door opened and Helen Moore, the resident psychiatrist, came in. Jordan knew her slightly, and had always liked her kind smile and forthright manner.

  “Hi, Jordan.” Helen sat down beside the cot and reached for one of Jordan’s hands. She took it gently, cradling it between both of hers. “Can you tell me what’s made you so upset?”

  Jordan tried, but it was impossible to talk through the tears. Helen reached for a box of tissues and handed over a fistful. “Try to take deep breaths.”

  After a few moments, Jordan was able to put words together. “My hus-husband is—is a drug addict,” she began. Once she’d said the words aloud, it became easier to tell the rest of the story. She began with the car accident, the morphine, the prescriptions she’d written him and, when she’d refused to supply him, how the apartment was ransacked. Amid fresh bouts of weeping, she managed to recount what had occurred the previous night in the E.R.

  “What—what about—about—Garry? What am I going to do about him? How—how can I—help him?”

  “This is not about him,” Helen said firmly. “This is about you, Jordan. What are you going to do about you?”

  Helen’s words shocked Jordan out of her tears. For so long, she’d exhausted herself worrying about Garry and his problems, believing that if only she could help him stop taking drugs, their life together might work.

  “Garry is an adult, making choices about the way he lives his life,” Helen continued. “Do you want to go on allowing him to make those same choices for your life? You’re an exceptional physician with a great reputation at this hospital, Jordan, and I know you to be a good and caring person.” Her kind face broke into a mischievous smile. “Lord knows you’re good to look at. I’ve seen men fall over their feet like schoolboys when you’re around.”

  Jordan started to cry
again. It had been so long since anyone had complimented her. When she’d first met Garry, she’d felt confident and even pretty. Now she felt gray and old. And ashamed, so ashamed of not being able to control herself.

  Helen gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “I think you need to value your own worth, Jordan, and go from there. The scene last night in the E.R. was hard, but sometimes it takes a hard lesson for us to see we’re on a path that isn’t the most beneficial for us.” Helen smiled again and released Jordan’s hand. “I’ve had my share of those tough lessons, I know how much they hurt. But they also help us heal. Right now I’m going to give you a sedative because you need to rest. We’ll talk again.”

  “I feel so—so stupid,” Jordan admitted, her voice trembling. “You’d think I could cope with this on my own. It’s humiliating to admit that I can’t.”

  “We—all of us—are only human, Jordan. Being doctors means we start out with a higher level of daily stress, and then we have our own personal stuff on top of it. As a profession, medicine carries the highest rate of alcohol dependency, drug addiction, divorce and suicide. Coming here shows good judgment and common sense. And no one needs to know you’re here.”

  Jordan blew her nose. “Thank you. That would make things easier.”

  “I’ll have a word with the staff. Now, I think rest is the best restorative at the moment.” She gave Jordan a sedative and gently tucked the blanket around her. “I’ll be in this evening to see how you’re doing. Relax now.”

  As the medication gradually took the edge off her panic and her muscles loosened, Jordan was able to think more clearly than she had for weeks.

  Garry was a junkie.

  As an E.R. doctor, she’d seen enough junkies to know that no one could help them unless they chose to help themselves.

  He wasn’t making the slightest effort.

  Her eyelids were heavy, and she knew that within a few moments, she’d be asleep.

  What are you going to do about you, Jordan?

  The answer floated to the surface. It made her terribly sad, and it frightened her as well, but it was the right thing for her. The only thing.

  As soon as she felt able, she was going to see a lawyer about a divorce.

  “THE VERY LEAST you could have done was tell me you wanted a divorce before you saw this—this scumbag of a lawyer.” Garry’s face was scarlet with rage and disbelief. “How could you do this to me, Jordan?” He threw the copy of the proposed separation agreement she’d just handed him to the floor and stood glaring at her, hands knotted into fists. The pages scattered, landing at her feet.

  His voice rose. “You know I’m not well. I’m not over the accident yet! You could help but you won’t. What about the marriage vows you made?” Sarcasm dripped from every word. “I could swear there was something in there about in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Have you thought about my parents? They’ve treated you like one of the family, and now you’re doing this to me—to them.”

  Jordan’s heart was hammering. It was true, Meg and Edward had been good to her. She hated the thought of hurting them. She kept her expression impassive and did her best to convince herself that the problems Garry was throwing at her weren’t hers to solve.

  This was all his stuff, as Helen would phrase it. And Meg and Edward had witnessed Garry’s recent tantrums. Surely they would understand her decision when they accepted the reality of their son’s addiction….

  It was helpful to remember Helen’s advice. Jordan now viewed the two days she’d spent in psych as an intensive training seminar.

  Right now she noticed that everything Garry said related only to himself. Lordy, how could she have missed how self-centered he was? She’d known him two and a half years, and yet she felt that during the past week, since she’d come home from the psych ward, she was seeing him as if he were a stranger.

  And it surprised her to realize she didn’t even like him anymore. His addiction had turned him into a bully and a whiner, not exactly a sexy combination. There hadn’t been any sex for months now, anyway.

  He was hollering at her again. “What kind of bull-shit is that dyke of a doctor pumping you full of, Jordie? You never acted like this before. What’s between us should stay between us. I don’t like you dumping your guts to some stranger.” His voice grew softer, and he tried to reach out and take her into his arms. “You’re my wife, babe. Shouldn’t you be talking to me about stuff that bothers you?”

  Jordan held up both hands, palms out, and moved away.

  He swore a long stream of curses, and then she could see him consciously turning on the charm again. “C’mon, Jordie. Honey, baby, don’t be this way,” he wheedled. “I said I was sorry for what happened in the E.R. I just couldn’t take the pain in my back anymore, and you wouldn’t give me anything for it, remember? I’m not good with pain, honey, you know that.”

  She moved farther back, out of his reach. She remembered everything. He sickened her.

  The second day of her stay in psych, Jordan had called home and left a message for Garry, telling him where she was. Hours later, he’d come to the ward, and on Jordan’s instructions, Helen and the staff had conveyed the message that she didn’t want to see him. High, he’d become verbally abusive. Helen had threatened to call security, and finally he left.

  Now Jordan looked at him, and she couldn’t even summon pity.

  “I won’t prescribe drugs for you ever again, Garry. So don’t bother asking.”

  He tightened his mouth and narrowed his eyes. Taking a step closer, he shook his trembling finger under her nose. His breath was foul.

  “You go ahead with this divorce shit and I promise you I’ll ruin you financially. I am a lawyer, in case it’s slipped your mind. Any judge would award me ongoing support when they hear about the accident. And I’ve got the firm behind me—it isn’t going to cost me anything.”

  He’d already tested his firm to the limit, but she resisted the urge to tell him that. She was grateful that Helen had given her the name of an attorney she liked and trusted, Marcy Davis. Marcy had handled Helen’s own complex divorce several years ago. It made it easier to withstand Garry’s bullying, knowing Marcy would deal with all the legal issues.

  “And I’m not moving out of this apartment, either,” he said. “You want a separation, you move out, lady.”

  “I already have.” He hadn’t even noticed that her clothes, some of the furniture and the few personal things she cherished were gone. She’d packed up that morning, called a moving company to put the furniture in storage, and rented a housekeeping room at a motel across the street from St. Joe’s.

  “You’re welcome to everything that’s left here. But I’d like to put the apartment on the market as soon as possible, Garry.” Her lawyer was well aware that Jordan had been making the mortgage payments since Garry’s accident.

  She could tell by his expression that he hadn’t expected any of this.

  “My lawyer will handle the details,” she said in a quiet voice. “Call her if you have any questions.” Exactly what Marcy had told her to say. She’d practiced so that now it came out smoothly, without revealing the effort it took her to speak.

  “Where the hell are you going? You come back here!” She heard the panic in his voice as she headed for the door. “We haven’t finished talking yet. What if I need you for something? You could at least give me your new address, Jordan.”

  It was tragic to recognize that the only thing he’d need her for was money. Prescriptions and money were all he’d needed from her for months.

  “You have my cell number.” And Marcy had already suggested she get that changed if his calls became too frequent or abusive. “And I’d rather you didn’t come to St. Joe’s again, Garry.”

  “Last I heard it was a free country,” he snarled. “I can go wherever the hell I choose.”

  “Okay, then I’ll alert security.” She prayed she wouldn’t have to carry out the threat. She opened the apartment door. “Goodbye, Garr
y.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, you dumb bitch!”

  She closed the door and hurried to the elevator. Her legs were shaking as she made her way down and out of the building. She was crying when she climbed in her car. Some of the tears were for the dreams she’d forfeited, but mostly they were tears of relief.

  She’d taken a first and much-needed step toward finding out who Jordan Burke really was, and she was learning fast what she didn’t want in her life anymore. If that was a negative positive, so what? She’d take what she could get.

  She blew her nose hard and for the first time in days, she smiled wryly. But the smile went just as quickly as it came.

  Now she had to figure out what it was she did want.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS THE FOLLOWING WEEK when the notice on St. Joe’s computer bulletin board caught Jordan’s eye.

  Resident GP wanted for isolated First Nations village, Vancouver Island’s west coast. Ahousaht, Clayoquot Sound, Flores Island. Applicants must be willing to work with Tribal Community Services. Access by boat or floatplane only.

  There was a Web address and a phone number, and Jordan scribbled them down. She wasn’t sure why. She knew nothing about native villages, and not much about First Nations people. The ones she was most familiar with were the ones who ended up in the E.R., most of them unfortunate residents of Vancouver’s troubled Lower East Side.

  She was on the early shift, and when she was finished work she had an appointment with Helen, who once again asked the question that was becoming a mantra between them.

  “What is it you really want, Jordan?”

  “I want to move away.” The words came of their own volition, surprising her. “I’ve always lived in Vancouver. I grew up here, went to university here, trained at St. Joe’s. This is the only hospital I’ve ever worked at. I think I’d like to leave the city, go somewhere where no one knows me, maybe give general practice a shot. Make a fresh start.”

  Somewhere Garry isn’t. She didn’t say the words aloud. She didn’t have to. Helen understood.