Fatal Cure

10

Even though David and Angela had spent four years in Boston during their residencies, they hadn't truly experienced the full glory of a New England fall. In Bartlet it was breathtaking. Each day the splendiferous color of the leaves became more intense, as if trying to surpass the previous day's efforts.

Besides the visual treats, fall brought more subtle pleasures associated with a sense of well-being. The air turned crisp and crystal clear and more pure to breathe. There was a feeling of invigoration in the atmosphere that made waking up in the morning a pleasure. Each day was filled with energy and excitment; each evening offered cozy contentment, with the sound of a crackling fire to keep the nighttime chill at bay.

Nikki loved her school. Marjorie Kleber became her teacher and, as David had surmised, she was superb. Although Nikki had always been a good student, she now became an excellent one. She looked forward to Mondays when a new schoolweek would commence. At night she was full of stories about all she had learned that day in class.

Nikki's friendship with Caroline Helmsford blossomed and the two became inseparable during after-school activities. Nikki's friendship with Arni also grew. After much discussion of the pros and cons Nikki won the right to ride her bike to school provided she stayed off main roads. It was an entirely new type of freedom for Nikki, and one that she loved. The route took her past the Yansen house, and every morning Arni waited for her. The last mile they rode together.

Nikki's health continued to be good. The cool, dry, clean air seemed therapeutic for her respiratory system. Except for her daily morning therapy in her beanbag chair, it was almost as if she were not afflicted by a chronic disease. The fact that she was doing so well was a source of great comfort to David and Angela.

One of the big events of the fall was the arrival of Angela's parents in the latter part of September. Angela had felt a great amount of ambivalence about whether to invite them. David's support had tipped the balance.

Dr. Walter Christopher, Angela's father, was reservedly complimentary about the house and the town but condescending about what he called "rural medicine." He stubbornly refused to visit Angela's lab with the excuse that he spent too much of his life inside hospitals.

Bernice Christopher, Angela's mother, found nothing to be complimentary about. She thought the house was too large and much too drafty, especially for Nikki. It was also her opinion that the color of the leaves was just as good in Central Park as in Bartlet, and that no one needed to drive six hours to look at trees.

The only truly uncomfortable episode occurred at the dinner table Saturday night. Bernice insisted on drinking more than her share of wine, and, as usual, became tipsy. She then accused David and his family of being the source of Nikki's illness.

"There's never been cystic fibrosis on our side," she said.

"Bernice!" Dr. Christopher said sharply. "Displays of ignorance are unbecoming."

Strained silence ensued until Angela managed to contain her anger. She then changed the subject to her and David's quest for furniture in the neighboring antique and used furniture shops.

Everyone was relieved when the time of the Christophers' departure arrived midday on Sunday. David, Angela, and Nikki dutifully stood alongside the house and waved until the Christophers' car disappeared down the road. "Kick me next time I talk about them coming up here," Angela said. David laughed and assured her it hadn't been that bad.

The magnificent fall weather continued well into October. Although there had been some cool days in late September, Indian summer arrived and brought days as warm as those of summer itself. An auspicious combination of temperature and moisture preserved the peak foliage long after what the Bartlet natives said was usual.

In mid-October during a break in Saturday morning basketball, Steve, Kevin, and Trent cornered David.

"How about you and your family coming with us this weekend?" Trent said. "We're all going over to Waterville Valley in New Hampshire. We'd love to have you guys come along."

"Tell him the real reason we want them to come," Kevin said.

"Shut up!" Trent said, playfully rapping Kevin on the top of his head.

"The real reason is that we've rented a condo with four bedrooms," Kevin persisted, ducking away from Trent. "These tightwads will do anything to reduce the cost."

"Bull," Steve said. "The more people the more fun."

"Why are you going to New Hampshire?" David asked.

"It'll be the last weekend for foliage for sure," Trent said. "It's different over in New Hampshire. More rugged scenery. Some people think the foliage is even more spectacular there."

"I can't imagine it could be any prettier than it is right here in Bartlet," David said.

"Waterville's fun," Kevin said. "Most people know it only for winter skiing. But it's got tennis, golf, hiking, even a basketball court. The kids love it."

"Come on, David," Steve said. "Winter will be here soon enough. You've got to get out and take advantage of fall as long as possible. Trust us."

"It sounds okay to me," David said. "I'll run it by Angela tonight, and I'll give one of you guys a call."

With that decided, the group joined the others to finish their basketball game.

That night Angela was not enthused when David mentioned the invitation. After the experience of the weekend at the lake combined with being busy around the house, David and Angela had not socialized much. Angela did not want to participate in another weekend of off-color jokes and sexual innuendo. Despite David's feelings to the contrary, Angela continued to wonder if their friends were bored, especially the women, and the idea of being together in such close quarters sounded a little too claustrophobic for her.

"Come on," David said. "It will be fun. We should see more of New England. As Steve said, winter will be here all too soon, and for the most part we'll be imprisoned indoors."

"It'll be expensive," Angela said, trying to think up reasons not to go.

"Come on, Mom," Nikki said. "Arni told me Waterville was neat."

"How can it be expensive?" David questioned. "We'll be splitting the condo four ways. Besides, consider our income."

"Consider our debt," Angela countered. "We've got two mortgages on the house, one of which is a balloon, and we've started paying off our student loans. And I don't know if the car will make it through a Vermont winter."

"You're being silly," David said. "I'm keeping close tabs on our finances, and we are doing perfectly well. It's not as if this is some extravagant cruise. With four families in a condo it will be no more expensive than a camping trip."

"Come on, Mom!" Nikki cried.

"All right," Angela said at last. "I can tell when I'm outnumbered."

As the week progressed excitement about the trip grew. David got one of the other CMV doctors, Dudley Markham, to cover his practice. Thursday night they packed to leave the following afternoon.

The initial plan was to leave at three P.M., but the difficulties of getting five doctors away from the hospital in the middle of the afternoon proved impossible to overcome. It wasn't until after six that they actually departed.

They took three vehicles. The Yarboroughs took their own van with their three children; the Yansens and Youngs doubled up in the Yansens' van; David, Angela, and Nikki took the Volvo. They could have squeezed in with the Yarboroughs, but Angela liked the independence of having their own vehicle.

The condo was enormous. Besides the four bedrooms, there was an upper loft where the kids could sleep in sleeping bags. After the trip everyone was tired. They headed straight for bed.

The next morning, Gayle Yarborough took it upon herself to wake everyone early. She marched through the house drumming a wooden spoon on the bottom of a saucepan, calling out that they were to leave for breakfast in half an hour.

Half an hour turned out to be an optimistic estimate of the time of departure. Although there were four bedrooms and a sleeping loft, there were only three and a half baths. Showers, hair drying, and shaving were a traffic control nightmare. On top of that, Nikki had to do her postural drainage. It was almost an hour and a half before the group was ready to go.

Climbing into the vehicles in the same order as the night before, they motored out of the valley with its circle of mountains and headed up Interstate 93. Driving through Franconia Notch both David and Angela were taken by the riotous beauty of the fall foliage silhouetted against stark, sheer walls of gray granite.

"I'm starved," Nikki said after a half hour of driving.

"Me too," Angela said. "Where are we going?"

"A place called Polly's Pancake Parlor," David said. "Trent told me it's an institution up here in northern New Hampshire."

Arriving at the restaurant, they were informed there would be a forty-minute wait for a table. Fortunately, as soon as they finally started eating, everybody said the wait had been worth it. The pancakes, smothered in pure New Hampshire maple syrup, were delicious, as were the smoked bacon and sausage.

After breakfast they toured around New Hampshire looking at the leaves and the mountain scenery. There were arguments about whether the fall foliage was better in Vermont or New Hampshire. No one won. As Angela said, it was like comparing superlatives.

As they drove back toward Waterville Valley on a particularly scenic stretch of road called the Kancamagus Highway, David noticed that high cirrus clouds had drifted over the vast dome of the sky. By the time they got back to Waterville the clouds were thicker, effectively blocking out the sun and causing the temperature to plummet into the mid-fifties.

Once they were back at the condo, Kevin was eager for a game of tennis. No one was interested, but he managed to talk David into playing. After driving most of the day, David thought that some exercise would do him good.

Kevin was an accomplished player, and he usually beat David with relative ease. But on this particular occasion, he wasn't up to his usual game. To Kevin's chagrin, David began winning.

With his keen competitive nature, Kevin tried harder, but his intensity only caused him to make more mistakes. He began getting angry at himself, then at David. When David called a shot out, Kevin dropped his racket in a show of disbelief.

"That was not out," Kevin yelled.

"It was," David answered. David circled the mark in the clay with his racket. Kevin walked all the way around the net to look.

"That wasn't the mark," Kevin said angrily.

David looked at his officemate. He could see the man was angry. "Okay," David said, hoping to defuse the tension. "Why don't we play the point over?"

When they replayed the point David won again, and in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, he called out: "Cheating shows."

"Screw you," Kevin called back. "Serve the ball!"

Any enjoyment that David derived from the game was destroyed by Kevin's poor attitude. Kevin got more and more angry, contesting almost all of David's calls. David suggested they stop. Kevin insisted they play to the bitter end. They did and David won.

Walking back to the condo Kevin refused to talk, and David gave up trying to make conversation. A few sprinkles urged them on. When they arrived Kevin went into one of the bathrooms and slammed the door. Everyone looked at David. David shrugged. "I won," he said and felt strangely guilty.

Despite a cheerful fire, plenty of good food, and lots of beer and wine, the evening was overshadowed by Kevin's gloom. Even his wife, Nancy, told him he was acting childish. The comment sparked a nasty exchange between husband and wife that left everyone feeling uncomfortable.

Eventually Kevin's despondency spread. Trent and Steve began to lament that their practices had fallen to a point where they had to think seriously of leaving Bartlet. CMV had already hired people in their specialties.

"A lot of my former patients have told me they'd like to come back to me," Steve said, "but they can't. Their employers have negotiated with CMV for health coverage. If these patients see me they have to pay out of their pockets. It's a bad scene."

"Maybe you're better off getting the hell out while you can," Kevin said, speaking up for the first time without having been specifically spoken to.

"Now that's a sufficiently cryptic comment to beg an explanation," Trent said. "Does Dr. Doom and Gloom have some privileged information that we mortals are unaware of?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Kevin said while staring into the fire. The glow of the embers reflected off the surface of his thick glasses, giving him an eerie, eyeless appearance.

"Try us," Steve encouraged.

David glanced at Angela to see how she was faring amid this depressing evening. As far as David was concerned he found the experience much more disturbing than the one at the lake in August. He could handle sexual innuendo and crude jokes, but he had a lot of trouble with hostility and despondency, especially when it was openly expressed.

"I've learned a little more about Randy Portland," Kevin said without taking his eyes away from the fire. "But you people wouldn't believe any of it. Not after the way you responded to my suggestion that maybe his death wasn't suicide."

"Come on, Kevin," Trent said. "Stop making such a damn production out of this. Tell us what you heard."

"I had lunch with Michael Caldwell," Kevin said. "He wants me to serve on one of his innumerable committees. He told me that the chairman of the hospital board, Harold Traynor, had had a weird conversation with Portland the day he died. And Traynor related what was said to Charles Kelley."

"Yansen, get to the point," Trent said.

"Portland said there was something wrong with the hospital."

Trent's mouth dropped open in mock horror. "Something is wrong with the hospital? I'm shocked, just shocked." Trent shook his head. "Good gravy, man, there's plenty wrong with the hospital. If that's the payoff to this story, I'm not exactly impressed."

"There was more," Kevin said. "Portland told Traynor that he wouldn't take the blame."

Trent looked at Steve. "Am I missing something here?"

"Was Portland referring to a patient when he was making these claims?" Steve asked.

"Obviously," Kevin said. "But that's too subtle for a surgeon like Trent to pick up. What's clear to me is that Portland thought that something weird was going on with one of his patients. I think he should have kept his mouth shut. If he had, he'd probably still be around today."

"Sounds like Portland was just getting paranoid," Trent said. "He was already depressed. I don't buy it. You're trying to make a conspiracy out of nothing. What did Portland's patient die of, anyway?"

"Pneumonia and endotoxin shock," Steve said. "That's how it was presented in death conference."

"There you go," Trent said. "There's not a lot of mystery about a death when there's a bunch of gram-negative bacteria running around in the corpse's bloodstream. Sorry, Kev, you haven't convinced me."

Kevin stood up suddenly. "Why do I bother?" he said, throwing up his hands. "You're all blind as bats. But you know something? I don't give a rat's ass."

Stepping over Gayle, who'd sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, Kevin stomped up the half flight of stairs to the bedroom he and Nancy were occupying. He slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the bric-a-brac on the wooden mantel.

Everyone stared into the fire. No one spoke. Rain could be heard hitting the skylight like so many grains of rice. Finally Nancy stood up and said she'd be turning in.

"Sorry about Kevin," Trent said. "I didn't mean to provoke him."

"It's not your fault," Nancy said. "He's been a bear lately. There's something he didn't tell you. He recently lost a patient himself-which isn't exactly a common occurrence for an ophthalmologist."

The next day they woke to gusty wind, a heavy mist, and a cold, driving rain. When Angela looked out the window, she cried out for David. Fearing some catastrophe, David leaped from the bed. With heavily lidded eyes he looked out. He saw the car. He saw the rain.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" he asked sleepily.

"The trees," Angela said. "They're bare. There are no leaves. All the foliage has vanished in one night!"

"It must have been the wind," David said. "It rattled the storm windows all night." He dropped onto the bed and burrowed back under the comforter.

Angela stayed at the window, captivated by the skeletal remains of the trees. "They all look dead," she said. "I can't believe what a difference it makes. It's hard not to see it as an omen. It adds to that feeling I've had that something bad is going to happen."

"It's melancholia left over from last night's conversational requiem," David said. "Don't get morbidly dramatic on me. It's too early. Come on back to bed for a few minutes."

The next shock was the temperature. Even by nine in the morning it was still in the thirties. Winter was on its way.

The gloomy weather did not improve the general moodiness of the adults, who'd awakened with the same sullenness they'd taken to bed. The children were initially happy, although even they started to be affected by their parents' ill humor. David and Angela were relieved to get away. As they drove down the mountain David asked Angela to remind him never to play tennis with Kevin again.

"You men can be such children with your sports," Angela said.

"Hey!" David snapped. "I wasn't the problem. He was the problem. He's so competitive. I didn't even want to play."

"Don't get so riled up," Angela said.

"I resent you implying I was at fault," David said.

"I wasn't implying anything of the kind," Angela said. "I was merely making a comment about men and their sports."

"All right, I'm sorry," David said. "I suppose I'm a bit out of sorts. It drives me crazy to be around morose people. This wasn't the most fun weekend."

"It's a strange group of people," Angela said. "They seem normal on the surface, yet underneath I'm not so sure. But at least they didn't get into any sexual discussions or start acting out like at the lake. On the other hand they did manage to dredge up the Portland tragedy again. It's like an obsession with Kevin."

"Kevin's weird," David said. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I hate to be reminded of Portland's suicide. It makes going into my office an ordeal. Whenever he brings it up, I can't help but picture what the wall must have looked like behind my desk, splattered with blood and brains."

"David," Angela said sharply. "Please! If you don't have any concern for my sensibilities, think about Nikki's."

David glanced into the rearview mirror at Nikki. She was staring ahead without moving.

"You all right, Nikki?" David asked.

"My throat hurts," Nikki said. "I don't feel good."

"Oh, no!" Angela said. She turned around and looked at her daughter. She reached out and put the back of her hand to Nikki's forehead.

"And you insisted on going on this stupid trip," Angela muttered.

David started to defend himself, but changed his mind. He didn't want to get into an argument. He already felt irritable enough.