Do No Harm

Chapter 51

The ER bustled. Broken legs, hemorrhaging wounds, a Rorschach blot of vomit on the tiled floor of Exam Seven. Don had been called in to provide double coverage in the rush, and he and David spun from room to room, pushed, prodded, and pulled by residents and nurses. David didn't have time to check on Security, but he knew they were working double-time outside, fending off the almost constant influx of media. The flurry of press surrounding the hospital over the past week made him feel increasingly claustrophobic.

At one point, David had tried to go up to see Diane, but he'd been pulled into a food poisoning case by an anxious medicine intern. It was already past lunch, and neither he nor Don had had a moment to sit down. A college kid who'd been in a motorcycle accident came in DOA, and Don was walking a medical student through the gestures with the defibrillator.

Stepping on a pedal to turn on the sink, David rinsed his hands and shook them dry before sliding on another pair of gloves and stepping back into the hall. He pivoted quickly, dodging a cooler that a smiling orderly wheeled past him from the ambulance bay-probably a heart on ice. When he stuck his head in the CWA, he saw the board was filled, a Magic Marker tribute to bad doctor scrawl.

"Someone call the blood bank and get a few units on the way for Jefferson in Fifteen Two," he said to a passing nurse. "Where's Carson? Has anyone seen Carson? Someone call him and get him in here. And get urology on the phone again-they're dragging their feet on Kinney in Four because he's MediCal." He glanced down Hallway One and saw, through the small windows atop the swinging doors, Don speaking to a man in his forties. Don held a hot dog in one hand and was chewing between words; the man's face was lowered and he held his head, as if in great pain. It took a moment for David to put it together-the man was the father of the student who'd died in the motorcycle wreck, and Don had just informed him of his son's death. While eating a hot dog.

His temper flaring, David stormed down the hall. He forced himself to calm down, knowing that it would make matters worse for the father if he made a scene. Instinctively, David thought to grab Diane to see to the father, before remembering why she wasn't working.

Don was finishing as David approached. "So, again, I'm really sorry to have to bring you this news."

David struggled to keep his rage from finding its way into his voice. "Dr. Lambert, would you mind if I had a word?"

"Not at all." Don gave the man's elbow a cursory squeeze before following David back into Exam Fourteen.

David closed the door and took a moment to get his breathing under control while Don watched expectantly, hot dog in hand.

"Do you think, Dr. Lambert, that you could refrain from eating while informing people of deaths in their families?"

Don popped the end of the hot dog in his mouth. "Sure. Whatever."

"This is not a whatever issue. I know you do this every day, but he doesn't." David jabbed an angry finger in the direction of the father outside.

"Oh come on. Look, Dave-"

"David will do just fine."

"Let's not make a big deal out of this. I've been on my feet all day. If I'm hungry and cranky, that doesn't help anyone, least of all my patients."

"So eat in the doctors' lounge."

"I would, but I haven't had time to get back there."

Someone rapped on the door. "Be there in a minute!" David said. He turned back to Don. "Then wait to eat, or if the agony is too much for you to bear, come get me, and I'll take care of dealing with the family members."

"That man just lost his son. Do you really think my not eating a hot dog is going to make things easier for him? I doubt he even noticed." He crossed his arms. "Look, you brought a bunch of shit down on yourself lately. The press is beating you up. The board's on your ass. Don't take it out on me. This is preposterous."

"No, Don. It's shitty care."

"You are always on my ass. What are you worried about? Do you think if I'm gone for an extra ten minutes, or I'm eating a hot dog, that someone's gonna sue your precious department?" He shook his head. "Well, rest assured. Everything I do can hold up in a court of law."

"Since when is that the gauge by which we judge our level of treatment?"

Don did not respond. On his way out, David grabbed a roll of gauze from the counter and tossed it at him. "You have mustard on your lip," he said.

He found the man sitting stunned in a chair in the lobby, people bustling around him in all directions. His face had reddened and he was breathing hard, as though fighting down a panic attack.

David crouched and looked up into his face. "Mr. Henderson? Robert Henderson?"

The man's eyes flickered, but there was no look of recognition in his face.

"Why don't you come back with me for a minute?" David said. "We can find a private room."

With a hand in the small of Henderson's back, David guided him back to Fourteen. The sleeves of Henderson's yellow Carhartt jacket extended down over hard, calloused hands. A white outline, the shape of a tin of tobacco dip, had been worn into the back pocket of his jeans.

Henderson sat on the bed, paper crinkling beneath his legs. He turned his hands over before his eyes, as if checking to see if they were real. His face, slightly sunburned, was wrinkled beyond its years from hours spent working outside. His face quivered, as though he were about to cry, then stiffened again. David sensed that Henderson did not cry very often.

David slowly became aware of his own discomfort in the face of Henderson's suffering. He was inadequate at this-the comforting. As a diagnostician, as a technician, as a scientist, he was exceptional, but in this department he was lacking. There was nothing for him to do-no action to take, no medicine to administer, no test to run. If these past few days had driven anything home, it was the fact that people suffer from events beyond their control. Often, they make all the right choices and suffer anyway. Again, he found himself wishing Diane were here to console Henderson.

"Kevin was gonna be the first one on my side of the family to graduate college," the father said. "Was making good grades too. His mom's been working double shifts to help pay. I been trying too-to work steady. He was a good kid. A good fucking kid." He swiped angrily at a tear with his cuff. "Don't know how I'm gonna tell his mom."

"Do you live with her?" David asked.

Henderson shook his head. "She's up in Seattle. Remarried."

"Would you like me to call?"

Henderson shook his head. "I should do it." He sighed, puffing out his cheeks. "You have kids?"

"No."

"Well, if you do, have mean ones. Good kids, good kids are the ones that die. You get a fuckup like me, I'm gonna live forever." He lowered his eyes into the fork of his thumb and index finger. "That kid was the best thing I ever did in my life. I hope I told him. I hope I told him enough."

David sat quietly, uncomfortably. "I don't know a single person who gets everything said to those they love. It sounds like you said so much more than most of us do." His pager went off-a text message to pick up a package at Sandy's office-and he felt a quick flare of necessity. His desire to leave Henderson to jump back on Clyde's trail shamed him. He turned off the pager and sat with Henderson for a few minutes, glad he had chosen to remain.

"You have to go?" Henderson asked.

"No."

Henderson lowered his shoulders, his hands twitching on his knees. Receptive. Needing. He looked up at David, his face starting to come apart. "Can I?"

David moved over and embraced him, and Henderson keened openly for a while. It took him a few moments to raise his head again, then David sat by his side, the stain of Henderson's tears drying on the front of his coat. The two men stared at the wall.

"Me and my old man, we never talked much. All growing up, we never talked about anything, like… you know. He was a man's man. When I got divorced, I was hurting, you know, something awful. Peggy's a great gal-she just finally figured out what she deserved, I guess. But when she left me, I decided I wasn't gonna fuck around no more. I was gonna tell people how I… you know, how I felt. So I took a whole weekend and wrote a letter to my father. Told him how much I.. how much I loved him, what he meant to me, all that stuff. I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it. Spent the whole goddamn weekend at the kitchen table. And finally I finished it-eight pages-and I went over there and gave it to him. He read it, right there with me standing there watching him, then he handed it back to me and you know what he said?"

David shook his head.

" 'Nice letter.' " Henderson laughed, a genuine laugh. " 'Nice letter.' " Grief washed through his eyes again. "I hope I told my boy enough," he said.