“I know about it.”
“She suffered tremendously. After she died, I tried to be half as brave as she was and just carry on. I stayed in our house, I went to work every day, I called my in-laws every Sunday. I did that for a year. And then suddenly I just couldn’t do it anymore. I finished up or handed off what was on my desk. I tried to resign but my boss wouldn’t let me. He insisted it could only be an indefinite leave of absence and that my position would be waiting for me when I was ready.”
“Doesn’t it figure that we’d have that in common? Why didn’t you just admit you were a lawyer named California Jones right away?”
“The stages,” he said. “First, it’s because to tell one part invites questions that insist on answers. Why aren’t you a lawyer now? Why walk out on a great job at your age? Et cetera. I don’t talk to everyone about my wife, about her illness and the way she suffered. Then the next stage is this—I can’t give legal advice anywhere I’m not licensed. And I wasn’t licensed in California or here.”
“Really? Because I don’t have to have a medical license in the state of Michigan to advise a friend with blinding headaches to get a head CT.”
“There’s an argument that if I don’t get paid for the advice I’m not breaking the law, but it’s an argument that’s been challenged. Doctors and attorneys volunteering their services are still culpable for practicing without a license. Screwing it up could not only get me in trouble, it could compromise your defense. It wasn’t worth the risk.”
“Well, I can’t count the number of cocktail parties where I’ve been backed into a corner and asked if an eye twitch could be a brain tumor.”
“The problem for me was that I’d have to be so careful not to be involved—and you told me you were being sued. So instead of saying anything, I petitioned the state of Colorado for a license to practice. There’s reciprocity between our states. It was just a formality, but a requirement. Now, if you need me, I’m available. And...” He shrugged. “I wanted to tell you I was married before. That seemed like something you should know. It wasn’t important for me to share with anyone before, Maggie. It wasn’t important until it was you.”
“I’m sorry for all that, Cal. It must have been so terrible. So after a year, you just got in your truck and...”
“First, I packed up everything with Sedona’s help. I put a lot of stuff I thought I’d want again someday in storage and sold the house and most of the furnishings. And then I relived the odyssey of growing up, living in a different place every few months. I can’t explain why, Maggie. It makes no sense. The best time of my life was when I was settled, when I had a job, a house, a family even if it was only me and my wife. It was instinctive, I think. Reaching back in time to see if I could retrace my footprints.”
“That’s what I said to Sully,” she said. “That I wanted to go back to the eighth grade and rethink everything.”
“You should definitely try that debutante ball thing,” he said. “I bet you’d look like a regular princess.” Then he grinned at her.
“So...is telling me now significant in some way? Meaning you trust me?”
“It’s more than that. Whatever is happening between us is growing. For me, anyway, and I think for you.” He laughed but not out of humor. “I hope you’re a patient woman because...I’m probably fucked-up. I’m wound too tight. I’m working on that.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“That I’m determined to keep working on it until it’s fixed. At least fixed enough to have a life again.”
“Then you might not need me anymore,” she said.
“I don’t need you now, honey. It’s all want. It’s powerful want. It’s driving me forward.”
“Hmm,” she said. “So, you’re a widowed lawyer and I know your resources. You have access to court documents and you know how to research. You’ve studied my case.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to do that. I’m not even tempted to do that, although I do want to know. But I only want to know if you want to tell me.”
She sat up a little straighter and took a deep breath. “Have you got any idea how bad the mortality rate is in neurosurgery? There was a time, when Walter started practicing, that he could face losing half his patients to brain surgery but he put his personal feelings aside and took the emotional risk for the ones he could save. It’s better now but it’s still high. The suit against me alleges that I made a bad choice in a triage situation, that I left a patient to die by not taking him to the OR immediately.”
“So the lawsuit is for malpractice?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Malpractice charges have not been filed, though there was an investigation and it’s still possible. Not likely, the investigation returned no malpractice. It’s a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of a teenager who died in the emergency room. We were in triage hell after an accident that brought five teenagers to the trauma unit. The call I made was practiced, logical and routine protocol. I took the patient who was the most critical—unconscious with an obvious epidural hematoma—to surgery and sent the conscious patient with a head injury for a CT.”
He frowned as he listened. “How do you make the call?”
“Besides experience and sound medical judgment? The ABCs—open airway, breathing, circulatory function, conscious. My patient was unconscious and he had a blown pupil, classic epidural hematoma—bleeding between the skull and brain. We had to drill holes in the skull immediately to get pressure off the brain. Another patient we pronounced; his heart was still beating but there was gray matter all over the gurney. We put him on life support for possible organ donation. The patient we sent for a CT was crying, bleeding, conscious, coherent.” She stopped talking and looked away. “He had a fatal hemorrhage before we could get him to the OR.”
“If he’d gotten to the operating room first, would he have lived?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? I can’t control everything that happens during surgery. Sometimes we get a brain bleed, a reaction to anesthesia, any number of things can go wrong. It’s always a risk. Always.”
“So a stroke was the cause of death?”
“The cause of death was five teenagers in a car traveling at a high rate of speed, lubricated by alcohol, hitting a guardrail and then a semi,” she said, almost defensively. She took a breath. “Yes. Stroke. With circumstances.”
“At least you got one to surgery.”
She sighed. “We lost him, too. He was the more critical. He was touch and go. Three teenage boys died that night. Two more were critical. It was devastating.”
“Aw, baby,” he said.
“You know, I don’t mind that they think I made the wrong call. I don’t mind that they’re angry and hate me. I don’t even mind if they sue me. But what I do mind is they think I don’t care. How could you do this job if you didn’t care? Sometimes I care so much it almost brings me to my knees. For the toughest of us there’s still an emotional cost.”
“I understand. As a defense attorney, I’ve faced people that think I want crime to pay or that it’s my intention to get bad people off. Neither being true.”
“I can imagine, though it’s unjust of them to judge you for your clients. But you must admit, with the unsavory element seeking your support, it’s at least understandable. You represent criminals. I save lives! I do everything humanly possible to save lives. That they’re not all savable isn’t my fault.”
Cal smiled patiently. “I don’t represent criminals. I represent individuals charged with crimes. Whether guilty or innocent is not up to me but decided by a judge and jury. The element I represent is the accused. The element I represent is you.”
Rather than love, than money, than fame,
give me truth.
—Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 12
Cal listened while
Maggie explained, this wasn’t the first time she’d been sued. She’d been sued before and even though she’d never lost a suit, never even gone to trial, once the insurance carrier settled, that alone had caused her malpractice insurance rates to skyrocket. There were endless, time-consuming interviews and depositions before a judge just threw out the lawsuit. Even with a lawyer provided by the insurance carrier, on the advice of Walter, Maggie hired her own counsel and the hours invested cost her money, cost the hospital money. The absence of a surgeon was expensive.
This was her third suit in four years and while anyone can sue anyone for anything, it was still more than the average neurosurgeon faced in such a short period of time. The first went nowhere. The second settled early, in the pretrial motions because the plaintiffs took the first offer from the insurance company. This one had legs. Because so many of her colleagues would be deposed or subpoenaed, they were cool toward her. Maybe angry, maybe frightened, maybe just sick of the inconvenience. All of it left her in a toxic work environment.
She was weary, discouraged, lonely and broke.
Maggie had shifted positions so she was leaning up against Cal and they floated aimlessly, talking.
“And yet, I feel robbed,” she said. “I love what I do and I don’t feel I can do it. Every day it’s swimming against the current.”
“You might feel a lot better about that once you’re through this lawsuit.”
“I feel so guilty, walking away like I did. I meant to take a couple of weeks off, then I had Sully on my mind and it stretched out. I don’t mean to paint myself as some kind of savior, but what if people died because I couldn’t step up? After all the years and all the educational funds, I should be more committed, but I ran out of gas.”
“It’s okay to get tired, Maggie. Life’s too short to live with unnecessary pain and frustration. I ran away, too.”
“I plan to testify, to defend myself,” she said.
“If I were your lawyer I would strongly advise against it.”
“Why? I’d tell the absolute truth! I have nothing to hide.”
“The plaintiff’s attorney will hand you your ass. In trial, we never ask a question we don’t know the answer to and we never make a statement that can be convoluted into an exaggeration or change the direction of the case. If I were suing you and you told your side of things, I’d draw attention to your many lawsuits—”
“Not that many! And they were frivolous! Even though the insurance company settled one I never admitted to any guilt! No guilt was ever proven.”
“I would never let you get to that explanation. I’d have the jury believing you’re sued every other week—that you’re incompetent and lack good judgment.”
“But why? What sense would that make? I want to save everyone.”
“As the plaintiff’s attorney, I would convince the jury you shouldn’t practice and that you should be punished by a big settlement. But, if you don’t speak, if you don’t open the door, I wouldn’t be able to lead you down that destructive path. Let your lawyer defend you.”
“It’s outrageous,” she said. “I can’t defend myself, I can’t say anything, I’m paying a fortune for representation and when I win, I can’t sue the plaintiffs for putting me through it. They’re barely existing as it is. They have nothing. The only thing that allows them to bring a suit is a contingency attorney who will either draw a large percentage of their settlement or take nothing as payment. I’m probably going to have to declare bankruptcy and they’re going to walk out of the courtroom with the same assets they brought in. They can afford to sue and I can’t. It is not a level playing field!”
“It is if you don’t hand them anything that can be used against you. You are a highly trained, impressively educated surgeon of sterling reputation with many next-to-impossible saves to your credit. Stand on that. Stand on it silently.”
“Oh, you’re as frustrating as anyone else I’ve spoken to. Do you have any idea how hard this is?”
“Well, just lie back and relax awhile,” he said. He pulled off her straw hat and began to massage her scalp. He just talked to her, said things that required no response. “They’re not really suing you. They’re suing the injustice of it all. Sixteen-year-old boys shouldn’t die, even stupid sixteen-year-old boys who take foolish risks. The brokenhearted parents only want to strike out and feel some sense of relief. It won’t bring relief, of course, but it will keep them busy until relief eventually begins to come. I always try to walk in their shoes, see the world from their perspective, understand what they hope for. There are two kinds of plaintiffs I’ve never understood—the kind that can forgive immediately, forgive without any struggle or hint of hate or rage. And the kind motivated purely by profit. And the lawyer, even the contingency lawyer doesn’t know if you’re exceptionally gifted or if you’re a silly klutz who shouldn’t be allowed to hold a scalpel. He is an expert on your credentials by now but those can be manufactured just as realistically as a highly credentialed surgeon can be accident-prone. Both lawyers will seek the truth in the court. The court seeks the truth in the lawyers, charging them with the responsibility to produce honest and powerful cases for their clients so that there’s evidence to show a decision that serves the truth. The plaintiffs, however, will be disappointed no matter what. Oh, they might cheer with a win. They might even give a press conference and say that justice was served and their son’s death was vindicated, but they’ll go home to find his room empty and the photographs of him will bring gut-wrenching tears. They can’t win, Maggie. No matter how hard they try.
“The attorney for the accused will show them that the boy had the best possible care, though the outcome was destined to be tragic. Hopefully the attorney, the smart attorney, knows how to do that with compassion—it always wins more points. Cruelty toward the bereaved just never works. Sensitivity toward the parents is particularly essential since their beloved son made such a disastrous mistake. My gut tells me the plaintiff’s son was the driver—possible, since they’re not suing the parents of the driver, all victims being minors. They’re not suing whoever provided them with alcohol. But of course, as you know, you might be the most logical defendant, the one with the deep pockets.
“The most important thing to remember is this—no matter the outcome, the plaintiffs will always have the greater suffering. You can’t help them. It’s impossible. So you must save yourself. A good defense attorney can help with that or, at the very least, lessen the damage.”
They floated for a while, not talking, but Cal continued to play with her hair. He noticed an early strand or two of silver that he was smart enough not to mention, but it made him happy. Every woman should have the luxury of growing older, growing into her skin, settling her emotional debts.
“Did you learn that in law school?” she finally asked him.
“Sort of, yeah. I mean, that’s what we do, right—we’re seeking justice. But that stuff about understanding the other guy—that came from Atticus Finch. I grew up wanting to be him. Partly because he was the most fair-minded man on the planet and partly because he was so sane, so stable. I had to contend with a crazy father, remember. If I couldn’t have a father like Atticus, then I’d like to be a father like Atticus.”
“Atticus?”
“To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“Oh. Right. Sure. So...you wanted to be a father?”
“I did. I wondered if I was being ridiculous, given the dysfunctional family I came from. But my sister forged ahead, fearless, and had a family. A perfectly normal family. They have all the usual issues—she fights with her husband sometimes, the kids drive her bat-shit crazy, she’s overworked, underpaid, running around trying to be a professional woman and a full-time mother, and she’s happy. I think for us, for kids raised in so much uncertainty and occasional deprivation, being grounded in relationships and having relatively stable homes is reassuring.”
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“Do you still want a family?” she asked bravely.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think so. If it’s not too late.”
“Men can have families forever,” she said. “They can have ’em so old it’s like having their own grandchildren. I worked with a guy who’s on his third wife and just had a baby at the age of sixty. He’s happy as a pig in mud.”
Cal laughed. “God bless him. Men are all a little obsessed about when it goes away—the erection. Is it at sixty? Sixty-five? Didn’t Groucho Marx or someone reproduce at ninety?”
“Really? Men never let on, do they...”
“Never. But hardly anything trumps erections. I guess brain tumors and heart attacks, but...”
“So do you think about whether you’d actually be alive to raise them? These children you’ll have if it’s not too late?”
“If I’m pushing that envelope, I won’t have them. On purpose, anyway. But, Maggie, I think there’s still time to consider this. I fully intend to be at least ninety. And I’m not just being ridiculous. That’s completely reasonable for a healthy male my age.”
“Huh,” she said. “I never think about that. How long I want to live. I wonder why I never think about that. Especially since I had this crazy, irrational fear of dying alone.”
“You did? When was that?”
“Oh, right before I came here. I’d been under a lot of pressure. I certainly wasn’t the only one—the whole hospital was under a lot of pressure. We had a new administrator, a change in chief of staff, a scandal, a tragedy followed by a lawsuit... I was hardly the only one affected. I think I was the only one who’s looking at bankruptcy. But while I was trying to figure out how to proceed I suddenly felt completely isolated. Well, Andrew broke up with me. Dumped me when I was inconsolably depressed. That probably contributed.”