False accusations

CHAPTER 7

Three Months Earlier

Saturday, August 30

The noise level was threatening to break records. Out of desperation, Madison finally put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The dog turned and looked at him, Elliott was shocked into attention, and Jonah stopped screaming.

Leeza came running down the steps of the three-story home, her wavy brown hair bouncing wildly above her shoulders. Dressed in a pearl-colored silk shorts outfit, she walked into the kitchen with a look of concern on her face. “What’s going on down here?”

“Scalpel saw a cat in the yard and began barking,” Madison said. “Elliott wanted to go to the zoo and Jonah wanted to watch Wall-E. I said no, and they both threw a fit simultaneously.”

“In other words, a normal morning in the Madison household,” she said with a smile.

“Exactly.” He leaned over, gave her a kiss, and then tickled her ear with his lips. “You look very hot,” he whispered. “I love that outfit on you.”

Just then, his cell phone vibrated. Madison glanced at the number and sighed. “It’s the hospital.”

“What a surprise,” Leeza said.

He sat at the kitchen table, dialed in and identified himself, then listened to the explanation while trying to avoid Leeza’s angry stare.

“How much was he given?…And he’s still in pain?…Have them run another EMG-they did? What were the results?” Madison ran his fingers through his hair. “Damn.” He listened for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t agree with Dr. Rinaldo. If we wait, he may never regain feeling in his leg, and his drop foot won’t resolve. He’d have a permanent motor deficit.” Madison closed his eyes. “Call Dr. Oliver and prep the patient. I’ll be right over.”

Madison hung up the phone and looked at Elliott and Leeza. Leeza’s arms were crossed over her chest; Elliott was resting his head on his hands. Even Jonah understood. “Zoo, I want the zoo,” the three-year-old said, his large brown eyes focused on his dad’s face.

Madison sighed. He moved over a seat next to Elliott, looked at his son’s delicate, nearly perfect features-a dead ringer for Leeza-and brushed back the boy’s thick black hair with his fingers. “I know I said I’d take you guys today, but there’s a patient-”

“A patient,” Leeza said. “There’s always a patient. When do we count? When do you drop everything for us?”

“Leeza, please-”

“That’s what I keep saying. Please make time for us. Please cut back. We need you. Your kids need their father. I need a husband, a husband who’s home some of the time.”

“What am I supposed to do, turn my back on my patients?”

“Why can’t somebody else do this surgery? I thought there’s a doctor on call…John Ingersoll. It’s his weekend, isn’t it?”

“Leeza, this is a highly specialized procedure. The surgeon on call can’t do it-”

“They’re all special procedures.”

“Yes, they are. That’s why I am who I am. That’s why we live in the house that we do, the neighborhood that we do. Live the lifestyle that we live. There are only a few surgeons in northern California who can do what I do. When I get a case like this, there’s no one else who can take over for me.”

“And who takes over for you with your family? Am I supposed to?”

“I haven’t figured that one out yet. I’m working on it. I’m trying to schedule things differently. I thought this guy could make it till Monday, but he’s already had more morphine than he should’ve had, and his EMG’s degraded-he’s going to have permanent nerve damage if we don’t operate soon. We can go to the zoo another time. But for this patient, delaying his surgery another couple of days will have long-term effects on his life.”

“How long will this surgery take?”

“Probably twelve hours. It’s a bad one.”

“Twelve hours,” she said. “There goes the whole day. And evening. We had plans with the Fentons tonight.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Daddy, you’re going to work again?” Elliott said.

“There’s a man who’s sick and I have to take care of him.”

“My tummy hurts. You have to stay home and take care of me.”

Madison felt a punch of guilt slam him in the stomach. He took Elliott’s small hand in his own and squeezed gently. “I promise, champ. Tomorrow we’ll do something very fun. Marine World or something like that, okay?”

“That’s what you said the other day,” Elliott whined. He looked over at Leeza. “ Mom, will you take us somewhere today?”

“Sure, honey. We’ll go to the zoo, okay?”

Elliott leaned against his mom’s shoulder. “Okay.”

“You keep making promises you can’t keep, Phil. It isn’t fair to the kids.”

“Look, I would hope that if one of you were seriously ill and I wasn’t around, that your doctor would put you first and come in on his day off-just like I’m doing for this patient.”

“You know as well as I do that all he’ll say after the surgery is how high your bill is. You think that once he’s up and walking again he’ll care that he ruined your day off, a rare day off you were supposed to spend with your kids?”

Madison shrugged. “I can’t think about it that way.”

“Do you realize that you spend more time in meetings for the Consortium than you do playing with your kids?”

Madison held up a hand. “I’m going to cut back as soon as we get the staffing situation straightened out.”

Leeza shook her head. “One day the kids will be grown up and you’ll say, ‘Where have all the years gone?’ You can’t get back these times. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.” She looked at him, awaiting a response. But he just sat there.

“And you see all these great things we have? This house, our Mercedes, the stocks, the furniture, the artwork…none of it’s going to matter, because when you have a heart attack and die from working too much, I’ll collect the two million in life insurance and enjoy all of it with another man-one who’ll put me and the kids first and his career second. We’ll be playing with the money and material things you worked so hard for, because you won’t be around to enjoy them.”

“I’ll only die from the heart attack if the cardiologist on call decides to spend the day with his family and not answer his page to report to the hospital.”

“Phil, you’re impossible.”

“That’s why you married me.”

She sighed, stood up and walked over to him. “One day,” she said, draping her arms around his neck, “you’ll realize how important we are. I just hope it won’t be too late by then.”