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“What happened to her?” He knew enough about medicine from his work in medical defense to know that healthy young women did not end up in the intensive care unit without a serious reason.
“We don’t know. Well, the doctors who worked on her know, but they are maintaining her right to confidentiality,” she replied, her frustration and despair obvious. She pulled the elastic band from her hair, allowing it to tumble around her shoulders in an effort to release tension. He reached out and drew her to him, wrapping his arms around her, and was comforted when she relaxed into him. He didn’t say anything, didn’t want to break this moment of respite between them. He moved his hand up to the base of her head and gently massaged the tense muscles beneath his fingers.
He didn’t know how long they stood together, but he savored every second. She finally pulled away and stepped back to look at him. “I need to check on Chloe, shower, and get to work.”
He placed his hands on her upper arms, not wanting to break their connection. “What can I do, Kate?”
“Nothing, there is nothing you can do. I have a change of clothes and toiletries here so I don’t need to go home. Tate is on nights this week, so between us one of us can always be with Chloe. I need to focus on her, Matt. She needs to be my priority.” There was a clear message in her statement, and Matt knew better than to try to change her mind. Kate would spend twenty-four hours a day at the hospital if that was what it took to do her job and be with Chloe. She had ranked her priorities, Chloe and then work. He wasn’t on her list, despite what had happened between them.
“Promise me you’ll call me if you need something, Kate. I would also like to know how Chloe does. She seems like a good person.”
“Yeah, she really is.” She sighed and then drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I need to go. Thank you for being here.” Then she broke free and walked away.
Matt left the hospital just as the sun was rising in the cold spring air. He stopped at his apartment to shower and change clothes and was in the office by seven. He knew that there was nothing he could do to help with Chloe’s recovery, but he could do the one thing he had been hired to do, and get Kate out of the lawsuit.
He had reviewed the file and after talking to Tate and Kate he had a clear understanding of the events of that evening. Tate and Kate had been together, and that night Tate had ended their relationship. Kate had been upset and had made several attempts to talk to Tate and he had ignored her calls to his cell phone. Kate had then been called back into the hospital, where she had been when she’d been consulted on Mr. Weber’s care. After the results of the CT scan had established the diagnosis, Kate had organized Mr. Weber’s care and made attempts to contact Tate Reed as the second on-call vascular surgeon. She had reached him via the switchboard within twenty minutes and Mr. Weber had been in the operating theatre within twenty minutes of that contact. All the medical experts agreed that Mr. Weber’s aortic dissection had not been survivable, based on the extent of damage seen on the CT scan images.
There was no way the Webers’ attorneys had not had the same medical opinion. It was the most consensuses Matt had ever had on a medical opinion, with all five of the firm’s retained experts plus an additional two independent consultants reaching the same conclusion.
So what was fueling this lawsuit? Was it Kate’s conversation with Mrs. Weber after her husband’s death? Was it greed? He didn’t think so. He had learned a lot about Mrs. Weber in his preparation and she didn’t seem like the type of woman who would sue for the purpose of undeserved financial gain. Was it love? The couple, by all reported accounts, had been devoted to each other, but, that being said, being in love and losing that loved one alone didn’t typically lead to multi-million-dollar lawsuits. That left guilt. Guilt could lead to just about any action, as he could attest to, based on his own past actions.
The question he had to answer now was what was there for Mrs. Weber to feel guilt about to the point she would want Mr. Weber’s death legally proclaimed the fault of Boston General and the medical staff responsible for his care?
Typically, this was the point in the case where the firm’s private investigators would take over and within one to two months would produce the report he needed. But he didn’t have that kind of time.
He read the file again and then picked up the phone. “Hello,” the voice of a woman answered on the other end.
“Mrs. Weber, this is Matt McKayne. I represent Boston General in the lawsuit that has been brought against them. I was wondering if we could meet? You are welcome to bring your attorney along, of course, if that would make you feel more comfortable.” Matt waited as there was no response other than the sound of her breathing.
“Why should I meet with you, Mr. McKayne?” she asked tentatively.
“Because I want to do the right thing, Mrs. Weber. For your sake, as much as that of everyone else involved in this case.” He was being sincere. Mrs. Weber would eventually lose this case and the longer it went on the more legal expenses she would have, with nothing gained except for more unresolved grief.
“I need to discuss it with my attorney.”
“Of course. Ask him to contact my office and we can meet whenever you are ready. I appreciate you talking to me today.” He had no anger towards this woman, despite that fact that she was responsible for the lawsuit that could destroy everything Kate had worked for. If the lawsuit was successful, everything he had given up would have been for nothing. But Mrs. Weber was also a widow. She had already lost her husband, the love of her life. She had lost enough. Matt couldn’t be angry with her, however misguided her actions had become.
“We’ll be in touch, Mr. McKayne. Goodbye.”
Forty-five minutes later, her attorney called and an appointment was made for the day after next. That gave him forty-eight hours to find the real reason behind the lawsuit and get the case dropped.
He was missing something. There were facts somewhere that didn’t add up, with the case and with Kate herself. For the first time in his career he felt inferior to the task at hand. His feelings and involvement with Kate had led him to change his approach, and his focus had been on her and not on the facts of the case. Not that he was succeeding with Kate. Physically, they connected. Emotionally he still felt like they were living two parallel stories.
He picked up the desk phone again and dialed his assigned paralegal. “Andy, it’s Matt. I want every piece of information we have on the Boston General case. I also want the security video from the emergency department waiting room and the triage area for the night in question.”
He didn’t wait for a response and hung up immediately. He needed to focus on the case and find the small thread that would lead him to the answer. Would getting the lawsuit dropped win back her trust? He didn’t think so. She wanted something more from him and he didn’t know what that was. He had already confessed to her the truth about his lie and why he had done it, but that hadn’t been enough for her.
Damn, he couldn’t think about the case without thinking about Kate and last night. He pulled at the tie around his neck and ran his fingers through his hair, squeezing the tense muscles at the back of his neck. Even with her preoccupation with Chloe’s illness, it was going to be impossible to stay away from her. Every part of him wanted to be with her again. It wasn’t just the physical desire. It was her letting him hold her that morning in the intensive care unit lounge and for the first time relaxing and not pulling away. It had been a small return to the way they had once been. He passed his hand over his face and straightened his posture. He needed to separate himself physically from her if he had any hope of finding out the truth.
Kate shifted uncomfortably in the bedside chair. It was nine in the evening and the toll of the stress and lack of sleep was building by the hour. She felt new compassion for the family members who “slept” in the chairs every night to be close to their loved ones. Her neck and back ached from the awkward positioning and her heart ached from last night.
So much for closure, she thought to herself. Making love with Matt had done anything but provide closure. It had brought her back to the way they had once been, the way she had once felt, and afterwards she’d had no doubts that she didn’t just love him, she was in love with him. Again. Still.
The monitor rang and a white tape was ejected from the machine. She looked at Chloe and her guilt was enormous. It seemed so wrong to be thinking about Matt when Chloe was lying in the intensive care unit intubated and unconscious while her body slowly recovered from the massive insult it had been dealt.
Her red hair made a sharp contrast to the pale hospital linen and the sterility of the room. Hours earlier Kate had brushed it and braided it to the side, trying to maintain some of her friend’s dignity in such exposing circumstances. Her face, on the other hand, blended in perfectly, her pallor severe despite all the blood she had received. Kate reached out and curled her fingers around Chloe’s. She was surprised at the small twinge she felt in response to the action, a reflex she hadn’t expected yet but was grateful for.
“Chloe, it’s Kate,” she said, though even if Chloe had been conscious she would be physically unable to answer her with the breathing tube in place.
“Chloe, I’m so sorry I let this happen to you. I should have been a better friend to you when you told me you weren’t feeling well, instead of focusing on myself and my problems. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
She understood family members more at that time than she ever had in her career. The ones who asked the same questions over and over again, so much so that she was late every morning on rounds, the ones who pushed and demanded for more testing and intervention than was being recommended, and the ones who never left the building, despite your assurances and recommendations to do so. She understood perfectly now that they did those things out of love, guilt, and fear; all in a desperate attempt to bring that person back to them the way they had once been.
The alarm rang out again and Kate’s focus shifted back to the monitor. Chloe’s heart and respiratory rates were elevated beyond the machine’s set parameters. She was breathing on her own above the ventilator. She looked back and saw Chloe start to move subtly, her head moving back and forth and her arms and hands testing their strength. The alarm had also triggered her one-on-one nurse to come into the room.
“She’s waking up and starting to fight the tube,” the nurse assessed quickly.
“Page the doctor on call and ask him to come and see if she can be safely extubated,” Kate ordered, temporarily forgetting her role as a friend and not as the physician giving orders.
She reached out and stroked Chloe’s hair away from her forehead. “Chloe, it’s Kate. Try to stay calm. You are okay. You are intubated and in the intensive care unit but, I promise you, you are okay. You just need to hold on for a few more minutes and I’m going to see if they will take the tube out. If you start panicking they are just going to give you more drugs and leave it in, so you need to stay calm with me for the next few minutes, okay?”
Kate hadn’t been sure how conscious Chloe was until her eyes slowly opened and they looked remarkably clear, like she had understood every word Kate had spoken. Kate reached out and squeezed her hand, in part as reassurance and in part to prevent Chloe from instinctively reaching for the tube.
She didn’t break eye contact with her for what seemed like hours, but was actually only minutes, before the on-call intensivist arrived.
“Dr. Spence, I’m going to ask you to step out while we go through our extubation check list to make sure it is safe to do so.”
She still didn’t turn to look at the voice, not wanting to break her connection with Chloe. “Chloe, you heard that. I have to leave for a few minutes while they evaluate you. No room for big dumb surgeons on these occasions. I’m not going to be far away, though, and I’ll be back here as soon as they let me, okay?”
She waited for a sign of understanding and felt relieved as Chloe slowly moved her head up and down on the pillow. She squeezed her hand one last time and then let go, leaving the room quickly before she changed her mind and tried to force them to let her stay.
Back in the family waiting room she dug into her bag for her cell phone. She needed to call Tate and tell him about the change in Chloe’s condition.
“Tate Reed,” he answered instantly, as though his phone had never left his hand.
“It’s me. I was just with Chloe and she has regained consciousness and is looking appropriate to extubate. They kicked me out, but the ICU doctor is with her now, so I’m hopeful that they’ll take the tube out and she’ll be well enough to leave the ICU.”
“Is she in pain?” he asked, and Kate was impressed that he seemed to have more surgical sense than she did. She had almost forgotten about the six-inch incision that spanned Chloe’s abdomen and which had remained well covered beneath the bed’s sheets.
“No, Tate, she didn’t seem to be in any pain. She actually seemed just like Chloe, surprisingly beautiful and understanding, even intubated with all the other tubes and wires all around.”
“When do you think we can see her?”
“I think these things take about an hour by the time they assemble all the equipment and appropriate staff in case she doesn’t do well. But I really don’t think she is going to run into a problem.”
“I have to start another case in the operating room and it’s too late to find someone to cover for me. Can you let me know how she is as soon as you see her again?” Tate was a meticulous and in-control surgeon. He had to be. As a vascular surgeon, his target was everything from the largest to the smallest of blood vessels, with many of his cases being the difference between life and death.
“Of course, but, Tate, I’m really sure she is going to be okay. It’s Chloe. I mean, who else goes directly from work to the intensive care unit? I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to take a shift tomorrow,” she tried to joke.
“That’s not going to happen.” Her attempt to lighten the conversation hadn’t worked.
“I know, Tate. Go and do your case. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
“Thanks, Kate.”
She glanced again at the phone in her hand, thinking of Matt. A sense of déjà vu passed over her and it was not a welcome one. No messages and no missed calls. Nothing to reassure her she had not just made the same mistake twice.
“Kate.” Her thoughts were broken by the sound of her name. Erin Madden was standing in front of her. She glanced at her watch and was surprised to find that an hour had passed and it was almost eleven o’clock. Her fellow resident was dressed as though she had just come from home, in jeans and a casual long-sleeved shirt.
“The intensivist paged me to let me know that Chloe had regained consciousness and had been safely extubated. I need to do her assessment and talk to her and then you can see her.”
She had never respected gynecology as much as she had learned to in the past twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the roses-and-sunshine specialty the other surgeons thought it was. They really did save lives, this time her best friend’s life, and she would be forever grateful. “Okay. Thank you, Erin, for everything.”
“It’s our job. Kate, I’m probably going to be at least a half an hour if not more. Why don’t you get something to eat or take a nap in one of the call rooms? I’ll page you when I’m done.”
Kate nodded, appreciative of Erin’s concern for her well-being and also for the time she was spending on Chloe’s care. She watched the petite blonde walk away and decided to take her up on her advice. She walked from the intensive care family lounge to the operating room and found Tate in the recovery room, writing post-operative orders.
He noticed her instantly and she smiled warmly at him, trying to convey the good news before she reached him. “She’s been extubated and is doing well. They paged Gynecology as her attending service and Madden is in with her now. It will be another hour before she can have visitors.”
“Thanks, Kate.”
“Don’t thank me. I should have known something was wrong when I saw her the other day and she complained about feeling unwell. Instead, I was too distracted by Matt to notice what was going on with my best friend.”
“Kate, you are one of the most important people in Chloe’s world. She knows how much you love her and how important she is to you, just as You are to her. You two are inseparable. So stop feeling guilty about a situation you had no involvement in or control over. You know that she would hate that, even more than I do.”
“You’re right. You know us both really well.”
“Yeah…” He paused. “I need to get these orders done and the operative note dictated. I’ll go and see Chloe in a few hours after you two have had some time together.”
“Thanks, Tate. I’ll see you later.”
She hurried downstairs towards the hospital coffee shop, happy to have made it before its midnight closing. Too many nights confined to the hospital’s vending machines had made their contents completely unappetizing. After getting a cup of tea and a sandwich prepared earlier in the day by the hospital’s ladies auxiliary, she made her way back to the intensive care lounge, knowing that she would be more disoriented after thirty minutes of sleep than she would be after none.
She ate the sandwich quickly, having failed to notice how hungry she was until she actually had food in her stomach. She sipped the cup of tea slowly. It was almost a full hour before Erin Madden emerged.
“At least you went for something to eat,” she said, smiling and gesturing at the wrapping. “Chloe’s doing well. They are going to move her to the obstetric ward in the morning.”
“The obstetric ward?” Kate repeated, her confusion clear in her tone.
“Chloe and I both agreed that that would offer her more privacy than any of the other surgical wards, where she might have known or interacted with some of the patients,” Erin answered, unfazed by being questioned about her medical decision-making.
“Do you think the nurses there are experienced enough to handle her postoperative care?” Kate asked, still feeling wary of the choice of ward. She had rarely been to the obstetric ward and felt anxious about Chloe being somewhere she didn’t know.
“Kate, if there is one thing Obstetrics is good at, it is management of bleeding.”
“Okay,” Kate agreed. She couldn’t dispute the quality of care Chloe had already received and had to trust the team taking care of her. Particularly as she still didn’t know what exactly had happened to Chloe.
“I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow. Try not to totally exhaust yourself, Kate. I promise you, if anything changes you’ll know as soon as I do.”
“Thanks, Erin. Have a good night.”
She walked back to Chloe’s room and found her asleep in her bed. She no longer had the breathing tube and without the sound of the ventilator, the room was much quieter. Chloe opened her eyes as Kate moved back towards the bedside chair.
“Hey,” Chloe croaked, her throat still raw from the irritation of the tube.
“Hey, yourself,” Kate replied, unable to keep herself from smiling at the joy of just being able to have this conversation.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Chloe whispered.
Kate reached out and took her hand, fighting for control of her emotions as she said the words that had been repeating in her head since the call. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you.”
“Kate, there was nothing you could have done.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Kate asked gently.
“Not tonight. It’s too complicated and I’m too tired and sore to understand the situation myself. Is that okay?”
It was a complete role reversal. Chloe was asking for understanding without explanation, the same thing Kate had wanted when they had first met.
“Of course it’s okay, Chloe. Anything you want.”
“Anything I want?” she replied. A little flicker of her usual self in her eyes, as one eyebrow arched upwards.
“Anything you want,” Kate reaffirmed. She was ready and willing to agree to anything for Chloe.
“Go home, Kate, you look almost as bad as I must.” She laughed and then had to brace her stomach because the movement caused her pain. Then laughed again at her action.
“Nice, Chloe.” Kate laughed quietly. “Are you sure? I don’t mind staying.”
“I know. And you also know that all I’m going to do tonight is sleep, so you should go home and do the same.”
“I hate it that you are so selfless and reasonable, but I’ll do as I’m told. Tate is working nights this week. He’s going to stop by in a couple of hours to check in.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Behave yourself while I’m gone. Can’t have you cheating on me with any other surgeons, now, can I?”
Chloe laughed again, clutching her stomach. “Get out of here before I need more pain medication just for the laughter.”
“’Night, Chloe. I love you.”
“’Night, Kate. I know you love me and I love you too.”
Kate got home shortly after midnight, exhaustion seeping through her the moment she opened her apartment door. Her eyes immediately fell on her black sweater and bra, which were still strewn on the living-room floor. The ones she had pulled off herself the night before.
The bed wasn’t made. The sheets were tangled and she could still see Matt lying there, the memory strong in her mind. She changed quickly into her pajamas and walked out of the room back to her couch. She curled up on its familiar comfort, shut her eyes, trying to block out the events of the past thirty-six hours, and begged for sleep.
It didn’t come and she lay exhausted, her mind refusing to quiet or slow down and think rationally. She oscillated between anxieties at not being with Chloe, to pain from not hearing from Matt. Why hadn’t he called?
She officially gave up hope at around four in the morning and went back to the hospital. Quietly she retook her place at Chloe’s bedside, assuaging at least once source of torment. At exactly eight in the morning she couldn’t take the waiting any more and called Matt’s firm. The main receptionist put her through to Matt’s office.
“Hello, Matt McKayne’s office, this is Andy.” Disappointment ricocheted through her as she realized it was not Matt himself answering.
“It’s Dr. Kate Spence, I’m looking for Mr. McKayne.”
“Mr. McKayne has returned to New York. Can I pass on a message?”
She felt her breath leave her but was incapable of taking in more air. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening, could it? Would Matt really leave? Now? After everything? After they had made love? Her mind and her heart both knew the answers to her questions.
“No message, thank you.”
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