Sophie's Path. Catherine Lanigan
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up-to-date studies and research, handle something like this? Did they take it personally? Even if there was nothing more they could do, this had to feel like a failure. Did it affect them emotionally?
As far as Jack could tell the rest of the staff went about their work as if nothing had happened. Except for Nate, Jack hadn’t seen one iota of remorse from the other doctor or the nurses. He told himself they had work to do. Serious work. But it still stung.
Jack felt hollow. He glanced at the bed and wondered how he’d make it back under his own steam.
“Mr. Carter,” Sophie addressed him professionally as she rushed toward him. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be walking around yet. It’s dangerous. You have to stay in bed.”
She put her hands on his shoulders, and with more strength and force than he’d thought possible, she led him to the bed and pressed him into it. He sat on the edge, refusing to lie down.
“What happened to Aleah?” he asked.
“Cardiac arrest.”
Jack felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Aleah’s heart was young, but that wasn’t enough to keep her alive. He lifted his eyes to Sophie.
She was composed and self-assured. Yeah, she was good. He had to give her that.
He felt hollow, yet his insides burned with the unfairness of it all.
He balled his fist. Flexed it. Balled it again.
She bent over and grabbed his ankles, favoring his sprain, and spun his legs up and onto the cot. “We have to get that CT scan. Dr. Hill is concerned...”
Jack pounded the gurney with his fist.
“Concerned? About me? He should have been concerned—” Jack nearly spit the word out “—when he had a chance to save Aleah. Maybe you should have been, too. You left her to go to that monster...that addict who killed her.”
Sophie’s jaw dropped. “How did you know he was an addict?”
Jack jerked his head toward the ER entry doors where two policemen stood talking to Dr. Hill. “Cops. They said they have to get a statement from me.”
“Not yet. You have to rest.”
“I’m not taking orders from you—”
She placed three fingers over his lips. “Shh. Don’t say something you’ll regret,” she whispered.
“Regret? I’m not the one with regrets. You let Aleah die,” he growled.
Sophie’s eyes widened with shock. “That man, that patient—” She stumbled.
Jack could see her ire rising as she continued. “He’d gone into cardiac arrest. At that very same moment, Aleah was holding on. My colleagues were stabilizing her. My judgment was that we had a chance to save them both.”
“Well, your judgment was incorrect. Your judgment was skewed.” Now that Jack’s anger was ignited, he couldn’t stop himself. “Frankly, I don’t know where your priorities are. An addict who nearly killed all three of us and did kill Aleah, made the choice to drive high. He didn’t deserve your concern, or Dr. Hill’s.” Jack was so filled with rage that he felt light-headed. He wasn’t sure if he’d made his point, so he balled his fist again and slammed it against the bed. The plastic beneath him crackled.
Jack felt woozy as he stared at his hand. How practical of hospitals to put plastic under the thin sheets. Plastic. So that the blood wouldn’t ooze through when a person bled out. Plastic protected the mattress but did nothing to save the patient. Plastic, like the black bags they used to take bodies to the morgue.
“Plastic,” Jack mumbled as he dropped his head back onto the pillow.
“Mr. Carter? Jack? Can you hear me?”
He knew his eyes were rolling around because the room was spinning.
He heard Sophie dash over to the nurse’s station.
“Doctor Hill. Stat!” she yelled into the intercom.
Jack hated that his head injury was getting in the way of his tirade. That’s exactly what it was, he realized. He was accusing the hospital and its staff of bad practice. He didn’t know if it was malpractice, but he blamed them all the same.
Aleah was dead. A terrifying fact that he knew he still hadn’t come to grips with.
“Doctor Hill, I think he’s in shock,” Sophie said, though he couldn’t see her anymore. Where did she go? She was just here a minute ago. Now the room was dark. Vacant. Like that drainage tunnel he’d been in before. That was it. He’d gone back to the place where it all started.
Maybe he’d find some answers there. Perhaps even solace.
* * *
SOPHIE TOOK JACK’S blood pressure while Dr. Hill examined him.
“He’s asleep. I would be out cold myself if I’d been through all that he has tonight. Take him down for the CT scan. He’ll wake up once he’s there.”
Sophie chewed her bottom lip as Dr. Hill straightened. “What?”
“Jack—er, Mr. Carter thinks we were negligent with Aleah. He thinks we should have let the other patient die in order to treat her.”
“Good thing Mr. Carter doesn’t run this hospital. We used our best judgment. We’re not divine. We do the best we can.” Dr. Hill touched Sophie’s shoulder. “Besides, Mr. Carter here should be singing your praises. If it hadn’t been for you getting that glass out of his eyes, he could have been severely impaired.”
“He doesn’t know that. He thinks I was simply cleaning him up.”
Dr. Hill raised his chin and peered at her. “I don’t mind setting him straight. Be glad to do it, especially if he’s accusing us—”
She put up her hand to interrupt. “Not us. He’s questioning me.”
Dr. Hill squeezed her shoulder gently and smiled. “Don’t take it so hard. He’s had a very rough night. You know as well as I do that irritability is a sign of concussion. He’s confused and has complained to Bart Greyson of both double vision and sensitivity to light. Oh, by the way, I’ll order an EEG, as well.”
Sophie was surprised because an EEG was only required when the patient had been having seizures. “Yes, Doctor.”
“I realize it’s overly cautious, but just in case this fellow is more than simply irritable and decides to follow through with a malpractice suit, I want our examination to be as thorough as possible.”
Sophie hated how the medical world had been forced to adapt to the tort wars. Extraneous tests were performed as a standard course of action in even the simplest cases. A broken toe, if not properly x-rayed and treated, followed up on, double-checked and documented could cost the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits. Sophie despised the whole system. The paperwork and extra steps she had to perform for the administration, which, rightfully, was trying to keep the entire hospital safe, took time away from her patients.
Her eyes dropped to Jack. Patients like Jack.
When she’d been tending him, she’d felt a pleasant and approachable energy that instantly caused her to like him. He’d looked at her with the anguish and wariness she often saw in patients. She’d sensed she was his link to the world in that moment. It wasn’t the first time Sophie had seen that deep pleading, felt the clutch of fingers around her wrist or witnessed a tear slide down a lonely cheek. But there was something else...
When she’d placed her fingers over his lips, she’d intuited his tenderness. She didn’t actually know anything about him except his blood type, blood pressure, height and weight, but she believed he was a gentle man.
That was why she’d been quite shocked when he’d turned on her. He was an enigma and that fascinated