Fallen Masters Page 12

  “Well, now,” Rae said, speaking as calmly and soothingly as she could. “It looks like Jeremy may be coming a few days early. I guess he just got tired of waiting.”

  Karen’s eyes opened, fluttered, then closed again.

  “Karen, honey,” Rae said. “Listen to my voice. Stay with me, dear, okay?”

  Karen’s eyes opened again, and Rae saw a flicker of recognition in them. “Rae, I was—it happened so quickly—I don’t know … Where’s Tyler?” she asked. “Where’s my husband. Please, can someone get Dr. Michaels?”

  Rae looked at the nurses’ assistant standing there in a state of shock. It was clear that he had never seen this much death, blood, and trauma. And now there was a woman in labor.

  “Go page Dr. Michaels and tell him that his wife is in labor down here—stat! He will want to know.” She even pushed the paralyzed kid. She didn’t like the way Karen looked, but she dared not say anything for fear of frightening Karen any more than she already was.

  “But Dr. Michaels is—,” Dillon started to say.

  Rae cut him off in midsentence. “Listen to me, and don’t give me any backtalk,” she said. “You go get Dr. Michaels, and tell him that his wife needs him!”

  When Karen looked away, Rae shook her head with a twisted look and squinted eye, as if telling Dillon that she understood Dr. Michaels was in surgery. What she wanted him to do was walk away and at least look like he was getting him. The reality was that this baby was coming—with or without Tyler Michaels.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Dr. Emory and his wife had been celebrating New Year’s at home with no more than half a dozen other professional couples, none of whom were doctors. They had not been watching television, so Emory knew nothing about the accident. He did not have his pager or his cell phone on, and though he didn’t realize it, the phone downstairs was unplugged.

  As a result, nobody heard the phone ringing in his home office, or the one upstairs in the bedroom.

  It was not until two o’clock when he and Millie, having told their guests good-bye, went up to go to bed that he saw the blinking red light on the phone. When he picked it up, he found four messages, all saying the same thing: There had been a major accident, and the hospital was swamped with injuries.

  * * *

  Henry Emory was an ex–U.S. Army surgeon who, during the Vietnam War, was stationed at the Third Field Hospital in Saigon. He was there during the TET Offensive of 1968, and could remember when wounded soldiers were brought in by the hundreds. Not since then had he walked into a hospital with such an aura of intensity as he encountered now.

  He had a sense of command authority about him that intimidated many of the younger people on the staff. Behind his back, they referred to him as Darth Emory, and he found out about it. The scary part was that he liked the title.

  He assessed every corner of “his” hospital as if conducting a military inspection, and he did not like what he was seeing tonight. Chaos seemed to be the order of the day, and in his position he had to worry not only about patient care, but about the hospital’s liability risk as well. The hospital already had four lawsuits pending, and one was just settled out of court.

  When young, idealistic high school and college students came to talk to him about becoming a doctor, anticipating his encouragement, they were often surprised to discover that he tried to dissuade them from entering the medical profession. In his opinion, you go to school for years, rack up a lifetime of student loans and personal debt, work for years for free, and unless you go into some high risk specialty, it takes too many years to realistically pay off one’s debts and actually make something of a living. One or two malpractice claims and the overpriced insurance could shut you down. “Drive a truck, sell insurance, open a restaurant,” he would tell wannabe doctors.

  This was a virtual war zone, but as he moved from patient to patient, reading and assessing charts and lab results, he was surprised to discover that there was some order in the chaos. And it was not his. When he looked through the glass doors and saw Rae holding the hand of one of the patients in such a compassionate way, at first glance it didn’t surprise him. This was Rae, after all. Then he took a second look and saw that she was with Karen. He pushed through the door and immediately started to assess what was happening.

  * * *

  He looked at Rae as if to ask where Dr. Michaels was, but she pretended not to understand the look, because she was hesitant to tell him. She could tell Emory was burning with anger.

  Tyler was on medical probation, and as such, was denied privileges in the OR, whether supervised or not. In light of the tragic accident, Rae hoped there would be leniency, but Tyler was such a badass and hot shot—a younger reflection of Dr. Emory himself—that their relationship could only go one of two ways. Either Emory would treat him like a son and take him under his tutelage or it could get much worse for Tyler Michaels. The expression on Emory’s face told her all she needed to know. It was going to get worse.

  Rae had Karen in the stirrups and prepped for delivery, and the contractions were coming fast. The portable ultrasound was being done by the tech, and that’s when they saw that the baby was in a breech position. The fetal heart monitor wasn’t detecting the baby’s pulse.

  Dr. Emory shook his head and looked at Rae. Despite his reputation as a hard-ass, Rae knew about his relationship with Karen’s family, and that Dr. Emory had known Karen from the moment she was born. And she knew that he was genuinely concerned about her.

  “Rae, call up to the OR and get it ready for a C-section,” he ordered.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Rae said.

  “Where the hell is Dr. Michaels?” Emory asked again. “Why isn’t he here with her?”

  “Dr. Michaels is in surgery, Dr. Emory,” the tech said. He was unaware of the restriction on Tyler, unaware that he had just betrayed a confidence.

  “What?” Dr. Emory exploded.

  “What is it?” Karen asked in a weak voice. “What is wrong?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart, don’t you worry about it. Uncle Hank is here,” Emory said, patting her hand tenderly.

  “The surgery,” Emory said to Rae. “Was it life threatening?”

  “I—” Rae wanted desperately to say that it was, but she couldn’t. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know that Dr. Michaels was concerned about him. It was an old friend of his, a police officer who was hurt while he was working the accident.”

  As furious as Dr. Emory was about Tyler choosing to perform a surgery that was not life threatening, that was paling in his personal frustration that Karen’s family was in the Caribbean on a cruise and probably unreachable due to the weather and communications. She shouldn’t be dealing with this alone.

  * * *

  For her part, Karen was trying to do her breathing, she was trying not to push, but she was also having a hard time feeling connected to her body. As strange as it seemed, she was starting to lose interest in everything that was going on.

  That wasn’t right, was it? Labor should feel more intense, more painful, not disconnected.

  Her perspective shifted to being above her body looking down at those working on her.

  “What are you doing down there?” she said. “I’m up here.” She giggled. She found it hilarious to be suspended just below the ceiling, watching as they were working so feverishly on that woman on the bed.

  The woman on the bed did look like her. She couldn’t deny that. But that wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. She was up here.

  * * *

  Suddenly she was back in her body with her heart racing and adrenaline pumping.

  “Ty-ler!”

  Did she actually shout the word? Or did she just think it? She would have to …

  Karen’s world went black.

  CHAPTER

  30

  As Tyler was finished with the initial cuts on his friend, eliminating the swelling in his brain and stopping the bleeding, it became clear that this was not so bad a situati
on as he first had thought. Maybe there was a part of him that wanted to be the hero to this man who had been the hero quarterback, throwing the winning touchdown pass in the state finals. He wanted to save his friend, the friend to everyone. Tommy had always been the good guy. Everyone loved Tommy; that’s why they called him Buddy. He was the world’s buddy. Tyler had just saved everyone’s hero, and that made him a—

  “Dr. Michaels?” the OR tech’s voice buzzed through the intercom.

  “Yes?”

  “Dr. Sanford is prepping to come in and finish.”

  “Good,” Tyler called back. He was only too pleased to have one of the “old-timers” see the quality of his work.

  Dr. Sanford came in to assess the situation. “Looks like you have everything under control here,” Sanford said. “There’s an emergency C-section next door in OR-2. You want to stay here, or help with the C-section?”

  “If I want to see a naked woman, I’ll look at a skin magazine or go to a strip club,” Tyler replied.

  There were two female nurses in the OR, and the roll of their eyes showed that they considered that remark to be offensive. Realizing that he had committed a faux pas, he cleared his throat and looked sheepishly at them. “I beg your pardon, ladies, I had no right to mouth off like that. Dr. Sanford, if you don’t mind, I’ll finish, but I would appreciate your assistance.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Sanford said.

  Tyler didn’t need Sanford’s assistance, but he knew that he would be gold in Dr. Henry Emory’s eyes after Sanford told him what an amazing job he had just done.

  * * *

  Karen took her last breath after severe cardiac arrest on the operating room table. It was not detected that she had ruptured her aorta in the fall. The trauma had not only affected the baby, but had also caused severe internal bleeding. Nothing could be done now. Had she been treated an hour earlier, had Tyler been with her when the fall happened, both mother and child would have had a chance.

  Tyler was still in OR-1, totally oblivious of the fact that Karen and his child were twenty feet, and a lifetime, away from him. His world was changing forever.

  Even as Dr. Emory was losing her, he was weeping openly and unashamedly over his surgical mask. She was gone, and his only hope now was to save the child. But when Jeremy was delivered, it was clear that he had passed first.

  After Tyler finished with Buddy, he saw that there was still activity on OR-2, so he decided to step in and see if they needed him. He was still wearing his surgical mask, so the grin of achievement was obscured, but not the twinkle in his eyes.

  He saw Rae first, standing by the operating table with tears sliding from her eyes. He knew that Rae was a very compassionate nurse, but she was also the consummate professional. Then, when he saw who was on the table, his insides turned to hot molten lead and his head began spinning. Then his world exploded as he heard the words he would never forget.

  “Call it,” Dr. Emory said in a choked voice.

  “Time of death of the mother, 2:23 A.M.” It was not Rae who called the time, but one of the other nurses.

  Rae was crying harder now, and Tyler could see her body shaking as well as hear the sobbing.

  Again, with a choked voice, Dr. Emory said, “Call it.”

  “Time of death for the child, 2:24 A.M.”

  “No! No! No!” Tyler screamed, and he dropped to his knees, weeping loudly, banging his hands against his face. Rae came to him quickly, knelt beside him, and wrapped her arms around him, comforting him as she would a child, though her tears were as bitter as his.

  Dillon, the nursing assistant from the ER, burst in. “Dr. Emory, we have a problem in the ER. The two teens that Dr. Michaels triaged earlier, the ones whose parents died in the crash—they just coded, sir. Both of them. Apparently they were allergic to the antibiotic.”

  CHAPTER

  31

  Atlanta

  “Oh, she looks so lovely, Dr. Michaels,” Hiram Welch said. “You will be quite pleased, I think, when you see her.” Welch was the funeral director.

  “I don’t want to see her,” Tyler said.

  “What? But of course you will want to see her, to tell her the final good-bye.”

  “I don’t want to see her! I want the casket closed! Do you understand that?” Tyler shouted the words so loudly that some people came from other parts of the funeral home to see what was going on.

  “Well, yes, of course—if it is your wish, the coffin will be closed. I assume you mean for the child as well.”

  Tyler glared at him with such anger that Welch cleared his throat nervously. “Both of the coffins will be closed,” he said.

  On the day of visitation Tyler stood up front alongside the two closed Eternal Cloud caskets, described by Welch as “stainless steel, blue-mist, brushed caskets, allowing the natural steel finish to show through, providing a dignified and peaceful presentation.” One of the coffins was full sized, the other very small. They were pushed very close together, as if Karen were holding her child.

  Tyler saw his mother and father come into the back of the visitation room. He had talked to them on the phone, but this was the first time he was seeing them since Karen had died.

  Dr. Paul T. Michaels, always quick to point out that he was a Ph.D. and not a medical doctor, and his wife, Margaret Elaine, both lived in Atlanta, so they didn’t have far to come. They were both atheists, but not the run-of-the-mill, quiet, “you believe what you want and I’ll believe what I want” kind of atheist. They were what Tyler liked to call, “in your face, practicing, proselytizing” atheists.

  In fact, Tyler’s father had recently written an article for Atheism Today magazine, beginning with the words: “Our existence is human centered, not God centered, nature oriented, not deity oriented.”

  “You know, Tyler,” Paul said to his son as he came up to speak to him. “Both your mother and I have buried our parents, and others that we cared about, and we take comfort in the knowledge that death, like birth, is the natural order of events. There is no need for the false comfort of a ‘hereafter.’ We say a respectful good-bye, then we get back to our lives.”

  Tyler nodded but said nothing.

  “So I need to ask you. Do you have this all under control?”

  “Sure, Dad. It’s been two days,” Tyler said. “How could I not have it under control? Let’s go golfing next week,” Tyler had replied in as sarcastic a tone as he could, and was glad to see, by the sharp intake of breath and narrowing of his eyes, that his father caught the sarcasm.

  “Yes, well, we are here if you need us,” Paul replied.

  * * *

  There were six folding chairs under a canopy alongside the green-carpeted open graves at the cemetery. Tyler sat in the first chair, his parents sat next to him, then came Karen’s parents, and finally Dr. Emory. During the graveside service in the cemetery, Paul and Margaret Michaels sat there with detached expressions as prayers were said, and when the “sure and certain hope of resurrection” was promised they looked on their fellow mourners patronizingly. Unlike many of the other women, his mother did not weep. She and his father wore what they imagined were appropriate expressions of sadness.

  Karen’s parents were always there for her in life, and they were there for her and for him in death. They had taken that cruise excited to come back and be grandparents, only to learn that they were coming back to bury their daughter and her child.

  They had been very solicitous of Tyler, looking at him with sadness and pity. He didn’t want that. He wanted their anger. He wanted them to blame him for the death of their daughter and grandson. He wanted them to look at him in the same way that Dr. Emory did, with disdain and disgust. He wanted them to hate him as much as he hated himself. They did not. They looked at him with love and pity because he had nothing now, no family and no faith. Tyler was isolated and alone.

  When the graveside services were over, everyone but Tyler started to leave. He stood there alongside the open graves with tears streamin
g down his face as he stared down at the two, as yet, unclosed graves. He heard people talking quietly as they walked away. He didn’t hear well enough to understand all the conversations, but he clearly heard someone say, “If he had been there with her, she would still be alive.”

  Car doors slammed, engines started, and the cars began to leave the cemetery, but still, Tyler stood by the open grave.

  Karen’s mom walked up to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He shook his head as tears continued to slide down his cheeks. “No, I’m not okay,” he said quietly.

  “It’s time to leave now, hon. They have to close the graves. It’s time to let them rest in peace.”

  Tyler looked at her, then in a moment of pure selfish need, lashed out at her. “I could have saved her, you know. If I had been there for her, this would not have happened. But I wasn’t there, because I chose to abandon her and play the hero—I was being the hotshot, performing surgery—as it turned out, not even emergency surgery! Do you understand that? She is dead because of me! Jeremy is dead because of me!”

  Karen’s mother looked shocked for a moment, then processing what he was really saying, realized that he wanted to punish himself.

  “Tyler, there are forces greater than you and a scalpel at work here. There is a master plan, and I don’t begin to try to understand it. Sure I question it, but I don’t doubt its existence. God has a purpose for you, one that is far greater than you ever have known. Please don’t let Karen and Jeremy’s passing be for nothing.”

  As she got to the last part of it, Tyler could see the anger and pain whirling in her eyes and voice. She hugged him and walked away. Karen’s dad nodded, and they turned together to walk toward their car.