Baby Doctors

by Janice Macdonald

  Carolyn Calhoun unfolded her arms. “One scenario comes to mind. I would have to check with our legal council and, of course, the internal-affairs department, but I seem to recall that we do have compassionate care funds for selected needy cases.” She allowed a faint smile. “It might make a nice human-interest story.”

  An hour later, he got a call from William Cone, a pediatric nephrologist with Compassionate Medical Systems in Seattle who agreed to discuss the case. “Does this town have a decent restaurant?” he asked Matthew.

  Matthew assured him that it did, but they ended up in the cafeteria anyway. “Show me a hospital anywhere in the country that has a better view than this,” Matthew said as they stood at one of the windows looking out at the glittering blue waters of the straits and the distant shore of British Columbia.

  Cone laughed. “I guess there’s not much else in this town but the view.” He made his way over to a far table and sat down. “Seems it would make more sense to move the hospital and build condominiums on this site. Patients don’t need million-dollar views.”

  “It’s part of the community,” Matthew said. “People in this town are proud of their hospital, even though it does need serious upgrading. That’s why CMS has had such a hard sell.”

  “No room for sentiment in medicine,” Cone said.

  “Let me tell you about Alli Kennedy.”

  “If I agree to see her,” Cone replied after Matthew had explained the details, including Sarah’s involvement, “she’s my case. I want to make that clear. I don’t take kindly to interference.”

  “HOW DID DINNER GO last night?” Elizabeth asked Sarah, trying to sound casual. They were having coffee in the consulting room between patients. Lucy had told her that morning that Matt said she could move in. If it was true and she wasn’t sure it was, she wondered what Sarah thought about it. “Lucy said she made lasagna.”

  “She did.”

  Elizabeth waited.

  “The lasagna was great. Me and Lucy?” She waggled her hand. “Not so great. Was she like this with other women he dated?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I don’t know about other women. If he saw any, he kept them away from Lucy.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Sarah said. “No offense, I know she’s your daughter.”

  “Hey, I’ll be the first to tell you, she can be a brat. But you just have to hang in there. Let her see who’s boss.”

  “I guess.” Sarah looked doubtful. “But Matthew and Lucy are happy together…well, maybe not so much lately. She’s only fourteen, right now she needs him. Maybe I came along at the wrong time.”

  The phone rang, Matthew for Sarah. From Sarah’s end of the conversation, Elizabeth figured that Matthew had managed to get a hospital bed for Alli.

  When the phone range again Sarah held up her hand as Elizabeth reached for it. “Unless it’s an emergency or Matthew, I’m not here for—” she glanced at her watch “—another ten minutes.”

  A man with an English accent asked for “Dr. Sarah.”

  “I can take a message for her,” Elizabeth said, looking at Sarah.

  “Right. Well, here it is. Please inform Doctor Sarah that I’m on to her game. She’s well aware that I have no faith in her Big Medicine treatment; she knows, too, that she’s a charlatan who has temporarily succeeded in brainwashing my daughter’s mother into—”

  “Hold on.” Elizabeth covered the receiver with her hand and looked at Sarah. “I thought I recognized that accent. It’s Curt Hudelson, rambling on like he did when we were out at the trailer.”

  Sarah groaned. “Oh, God, I don’t want him mixed up in this. Alli needs to be in the hospital. Matthew’s trying to set it up with CMS, I’m just waiting to hear from him. If Curt gets involved it could really mess things up.”

  “Curt.” Elizabeth spoke into the receiver. “Are you with Debbi and Alli right now?”

  “All you need to know,” he said, “is that I know exactly where to find them.”

  Elizabeth hung up the phone.

  “I don’t like this,” she said after she’d filled Sarah in on the converstion.

  “Neither do I,” Sarah said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Matthew had managed to arrange for one of Seattle’s top nephrologists to look at Alli. Before she left to see Alli herself, Sarah called the hospital security, explained the situation and asked if a guard could be posted outside the child’s room. The guy who answered the phone didn’t exactly laugh at her request, but did explain that there was only one guard on each shift to serve the entire hospital. If nothing else, Sarah decided as she left to walk over, she would stay in the room herself.

  One advantage of having the consulting room in Rose’s house, Sarah reflected, was that she could just walk over to the hospital after she’d finished seeing patients. That, of course, had been her grandfather’s idea when he started the practice. A windstorm had blown in from the north, chilling the air and whipping tree branches and scouring the sky. The stars were out as she struggled against the wind to cross the road, the Olympics black shapes against a darker sky.

  In her grandfather’s time, the hospital had been housed in a two-story wooden structure which had gradually been expanded over the years. The latest word was that most of the original structure would be pulled down to make way for a state-of-the-art facility. No room in medicine for sentiment, she guessed. Still, she averted her eyes from the Compassionate Medical Systems logo that now ran across the front of the hospital.

  In the front lobby, she smiled at the gray-haired woman in the pink volunteers jacket, took the stairs up to Matthew’s office, learned he was in surgery and headed straight to the pediatric floor. Alli’s bed was at the far end of the room, and as Sarah approached, she could hear a child’s loud wailing. The curtains were partly pulled around the bed and she could see Debbi seated in a chair, Alli sobbing as a nurse tried to administer medication.

  It was several minutes before she saw Curt sitting quietly in the shadows. He’d spotted her first and he slowly smiled at her startled gasp.

  “Well, well, Dr. Sarah. Long time no see.”

  “Curt.” Debbi frowned at him from across the room. “I’m warning you.” She turned to the nurse. “She’s not tolerating it. She’s been crying and spitting up and gagging for more than an hour. Can’t we just give her a break?” Then she, too, saw Sarah. “I told him that stuff would give her diarrhea, but he just ignored me.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” Curt muttered.

  Sarah looked at the nurse. “Let’s hold off for now.”

  The nurse seemed doubtful. “Dr. Cone ordered—”

  “I’m Dr. Benedict, Alli is my patient. I’ll talk to Dr. Cone,” Sarah said.

  The nurse hesitated for a moment then, clearly disapproving, left the room.

  “You didn’t tell me they would want to do surgery,” Debbi said accused her. “You said this was just for tests.”

  “Oh, my poor naive child,” Curt said softly. “Will you ever learn?”

  Sarah glared at him before addressing Debbi. “Who said anything about surgery?”

  “Dr. Cone. He said they needed to do surgery right away so that they could connect her to a dialysis machine when the time came.”

  “Clearly, the good doctor divined the need,” Curt said. “Doctor God, and all that. Is that not true, Doctor Sarah?”

  “Listen, buddy.” Sarah walked over to his chair, leaned down and poked her finger in his chest. “This is your daughter we’re dealing with. Go play your smart-ass games somewhere else, or I’ll have you thrown out.”

  Debbi started crying. “I feel bad complaining after all you’ve done, Dr. Benedict, but I don’t like this guy. He’s talking about way more tests than I thought she was going to need and I don’t feel comfortable with it. Can’t we just wait and see what happens?”

  “Maybe you should tell Dr. Sarah what you told me just before she arrived,” Curt said, and paused. “Right, then I will. Debbi said she wishes she hadn�
��t let you talk her into bringing Alli in.”

  “You had no choice,” Sarah addressed Debbi. “Dr. Cameron said this guy is the best nephrologist in Seattle—”

  “What else would he say?” Curt scoffed.

  “He talked to us like we were stupid,” Debbi said.

  “Tell you what—” Sarah looked from Alli, who was sleeping fitfully, to Debbi “—I haven’t met Dr. Cone yet, but I’ll have a word with him and see what’s going on, okay? And I’ll also talk to Dr. Cameron. We’ll get things straightened out.”

  She left the room, started down the corridor and almost ran into a small man with sparse, colorless hair and complexion the color of putty. Talking on his cell phone, he glared at Sarah after their near collision and then she caught the name embroidered on his white coat. William Cone, M.D.

  “Dr. Cone.” Momentarily forgetting he was on the phone, she put her hand on his arm. “Just the person I need to talk to.”

  He muttered something impatiently into the phone before hanging up, then eyed her through clear plastic framed glasses. Under his white coat, he wore tan slacks and a white shirt with a beige tie. “May I help you?”

  “I’m Sarah…Dr. Benedict. Alli Kennedy is my patient and—”

  “Are you on staff here?”

  “No, but Dr. Cameron—”

  “Anything I have to say about the patient I’ll say to Dr. Cameron. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Shocked, Sarah stood there for a moment. By the time she’d recovered, Dr. Cone had turned the corner out of sight. She fought the urge to run after him, before deciding that Alli’s continued care and treatment was her primary consideration and, hospital politics being what they were, silence might be the best response. But she was still fuming when she stormed toward Matthew’s office a few moments later.

  MATTHEW RUBBED his eyes with his knuckles. If he’d had worse days, he couldn’t recall them right now. They never used to see cases like this at the Port Hamilton hospital. Traffic pileups with multiple injuries. Two ambulance deliveries from a crash on Highway 101, a sixteen-year-old kid with a gunshot wound. Even with Compassionate Medical Systems the teen would have been airlifted to Seattle, but the winds prevented the helicopter from taking off.

  He had three messages from Lucy on his desk, the last marked urgent. And the director of social services had just given him an earful, which he was trying to digest when Sarah burst into his office, eyes blazing, spots of color on her face.

  “What an insufferable jerk.” She plonked down onto the chair by his desk. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “How come you didn’t tell me Debbi Kennedy doesn’t have custody of her daughter?” Matthew blurted, his mind still on the call from the social worker. “She’s been legally in the custody of state child protective services since the middle of March when I stopped seeing her.”

  “Maybe because I didn’t know she didn’t have custody?”

  She was glaring at him and he glared right back at her. She probably didn’t know, he decided, but he felt ambushed and Sarah was a convenient target for his anger. “You didn’t know Debbi was treating her with herbs?”

  Sarah’s eyes flickered. “She might have said something about it. It’s one approach. Maybe something else is needed now. That’s the whole concept—openness to other approaches.”

  Matthew nodded, his anger abating somewhat. Kidney disease in young children could be tricky to diagnose without tests. He hadn’t been convinced himself that that’s what they were dealing with. “According to the social worker, the treatments were putting Alli at risk.”

  “One, that’s not necessarily true. And two, the fact that alternative treatment might be valid for Alli doesn’t negate the fact that even if Debbi had chosen to go the conventional route, she couldn’t afford to take her to a doctor.”

  “There’s a free clinic in Port Hamilton,” Matthew said, “but Debbi chose to move her daughter out to the middle of nowhere.”

  “Because she couldn’t pay her rent,” Sarah answered, her voice rising. “That doesn’t give Cone the right to act like an asshole. I just ran into him in the hall and he informed me that anything he had to say about Alli, he would say to you.” She got up from the chair and began pacing his office. “Debbi was in tears; she said he made her feel like an idiot.”

  Matthew thought of something Cone had said when they’d been discussing Alli Kennedy’s case. There are times when we ask parents to make decisions. This should not be one of those times.

  “Look, I wasn’t thrilled with Cone’s personality, either,’ Matthew said, “but he’s still the best in his field. If he decides Alli needs surgery, then I think we have to take his word for it.”

  Sarah sat down again and leaned forward in her chair. Her elbows on his desk, face cupped in her hands, she looked at him. “I’m sorry for yelling at you, Matthew.”

  He reached for her wrist. Her nose had reddened and she looked on the verge of tears. “You’ve been yelling at me for most of your life. If you stopped now, I’d be confused.”

  She smiled faintly. “There’s more at stake this time. I know you went out on a limb for me and…it’s just that I hate being condescended to.”

  “If it’s any reassurance, I’d trust Cone if it was Lucy.”

  “Yeah.” She reached for a tissue on his desk, blew her nose. “I’m concerned about Debbi, too. Her mother died during surgery and she’s scared to death something will happen to Alli.”

  “Something could,” Matthew said. “We have to be prepared for that.”

  “But this whole thing about her not having legal custody makes it worse, doesn’t it? I mean, they could overrule her objections anyway.”

  He nodded. The social worker had said as much. “The wheels were essentially set in motion when she came into the hospital,” he said. “Now I think the best thing we can do is accept that even though Cone isn’t going to win any personality contests, he will do what’s best for Alli.”

  Sarah sighed. “You’re right, I know.”

  “Wait! Say that again, I’m not sure I heard…”

  “Shut up, Matthew.”

  But she was smiling now and things were okay between them again. It had been hours since he’d eaten and he was about to suggest they go find something other than cafeteria food to eat when his eyes fell on the pink slips with Lucy’s messages. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  “Right now, I’m going to talk to Debbi. Then back to the apartment. My mother has essentially relinquished custody of Deanna.”

  “Deanna?”

  “That ugly old tomcat. I know,” she said when he grinned. “You’d be ugly too with a name like that, but what can I say? Rose always said to keep him in a cage, but I felt sorry for him so he has the run of the apartment. If I don’t get home, he’ll start ripping up the sofa.”

  “Think Deanna would mind if you had some company?”

  “He probably would, but I’ll stick him in his cage.”

  He got up and walked around to where Sarah was sitting and held out his hand. “I’ll see you as soon as I can leave this place.”

  “Don’t eat,” she said. “I’ll make something yummy. Any requests?”

  He grinned. “Surprise me.”

  After Sarah left, he dialed Lucy’s cell phone.

  SARAH RETURNED to Alli’s room to find her sleeping peacefully. The nurse who had been trying to administer the medicine earlier said Debbi and Curt had gone home.

  “Dr. Cone will be in to see Alli first thing in the morning,” the nurse said. “So I told the mom the best thing she could do for herself and her child was to get a good night’s sleep.”

  Sarah thanked her and headed downstairs. She could use a night’s sleep herself, although Matthew wouldn’t exactly guarantee that. Not that she was complaining, of course. She walked through the lobby and out into the parking lot. The winds were still howling and, as she walked along the row of parked cars to her car, she huddled into her parka. She would make some
thing that could be eaten out of one dish. One dish, two forks, in bed.

  Smiling, she unlocked her car. And then someone tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she turned to see Debbi’s boyfriend. Curt wore an army-surplus jacket, a woolen cap pulled down low on his forehead and seemed amused by her reaction.

  “Not a good idea, sneaking up on people in a dark parking lot,” she said, her heart still pounding. “You might get surprised yourself.”

  He smirked. “Oh, Doctor Sarah, you frighten me.”

  Sarah glanced over his shoulder. Did security patrol this lot? Her car keys still in her hand, she geared herself to gouge them out if she had to. “I just stopped by to see Debbi. The nurse said she’d already left.”

  “Her asthma was troubling her. Stress tends to do that. I took her to her mother’s where she’s sleeping like a baby.”

  “Well—” she moved to open her car door “—I’ll see you both in the morning. Dr. Cone—”

  “Your betrayal infuriates me.” In the darkness, his features under the knit cap were shadowy and indistinct, except for his eyes. They glimmered. “How in good conscience could you do this to her and our child?”

  Sarah said nothing, suddenly on alert again.

  “If she dies, the fault will be entirely yours. We were fine, all three of us. Debbi’s asthma was under control. Alli was a healthy two-year-old. If she had the occasional upset stomach, it was nothing that couldn’t be easily remedied. I can’t forget how earnest you seemed that day at the farmer’s market. I believed you—”

  “Curt. There is no one right, absolute approach. Alli had reached a point where more had to be done.”

  “You don’t know that. You act as though you’re certain, as though you have all the answers, but you don’t.” He moved closer. “I want her out of that hospital,” he said in a low voice. “So does Debbi.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sarah said. “I don’t have the authority—”