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  There was a huge whooshing sound followed by a bang, and that was when someone called an ambulance.

  CHAPTER

  38

  Atlanta

  Dr. Tyler Michaels sat at one end of the long conference table in the boardroom of St. Agnes Hospital. Jay Abernathy, the hospital administrator and chairman of the board; Dan Meyer, the hospital attorney; Dr. Emory and Dr. Peter Presnell from the St. Agnes medical staff; and Dr. Mel Gunther and Dr. Maxwell Urban from the Georgia Composite Medical Board were all sitting around the other end of the table.

  That left Tyler somewhat isolated. At least he was sitting, and not standing before them like a schoolboy summoned to the principal’s office.

  Abernathy sat with his hands folded on the table before him, and he began to speak in a cold, emotionless voice. “Dr. Michaels, after careful consideration, this board has found you in abuse of the standards of this hospital, to wit: You performed a surgery in violation of a temporary probation denying you OR privileges. In addition, the surgery you performed was not emergency surgery, and in so doing, you absented yourself from triage during a massive influx of emergency patients. Worse, you ordered antibiotics to be administered without a direct diagnosis, exacerbating their medical condition into what could have resulted in death had it not been for immediate remedial action by Drs. Emory and Presnell.”

  Worse than the cold, impersonal enumeration of the charges against him was the expression on Dr. Emory’s face. It was a cross between self-righteousness and smug victory.

  “Have you anything to say in your defense?” Abernathy asked.

  “There is no defense against the truth,” Tyler said. “And everything you said is true.”

  There was a subtle change in Dr. Emory’s expression. Clearly he had expected Tyler either to deny the charges or plead with the board for leniency. He was visibly disappointed that Tyler had done neither.

  “Very well, Dr. Michaels. It is the recommendation of the board of directors of St. Agnes, and concurred by the Georgia Composite Medical Board that you are to be put on professional suspension for two years. Your license is not being revoked, but you will not be allowed to use it for the next twenty-four months. In addition, you will be required to undergo a psychological evaluation before being reinstated officially.”

  “If I may, Mr. Abernathy?” Dr. Emory said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Tyler,” Emory said, “as far your surgical skills are concerned, you are the best I have ever seen. You have a God-given talent that is rarely equaled. But it takes more than touch and dexterity to be a good surgeon; you must also have the right mental and psychological mind-set. And that, you clearly do not have. Despite what you think of me, I took no joy in bringing you up before this board, and I take no pleasure in seeing these sanctions applied to you. My hope and fervent prayer is that you take these two years to reevaluate your priorities, and that you return to medicine a complete surgeon.”

  “Thank you,” Tyler said, not knowing what else he could say.

  CHAPTER

  39

  Atlanta

  Under other circumstances, the two-year probation the Georgia Composite Medical Board had just hit Tyler Michaels with would have been devastating. But now, in a perverse way, he was glad for it. He needed to be punished for having let Karen and his baby die. Tyler had once read about the members of strict religious orders, who in the Middle Ages practiced self-flagellation using a cattail whip that was flung over the shoulders repeatedly during private prayer. In his current state, the concept of self-flagellation did not seem all that absurd.

  During the weeks and months that followed Karen’s funeral and his expulsion from the medical community, Rae Loona became the only constant in Tyler’s life. Amid the grief and despair, she was a bridge, a connection to Karen and the baby.

  Rae had been with Karen in her last moments. She was there for her when he was not, and now Rae was there for him. So when Rae rang his doorbell, he was very happy to see her.

  “Mikey! Damn, you look like shit.”

  “Thank you, thank for saying so. I appreciate looking like I feel. Because I feel like shit.”

  “It’s been weeks. Do you plan on starting your psych program or are you going to let the bullies in the boardroom dictate your future? You know I implied that you needed to do that surgery, yet you and everybody else didn’t want to hear it when I testified. That is bullshit. You wanna throw a pity party?”

  “Funny, I was just thinking about flagellation, and here you come, like Mighty Mouse, to save the day. Let me take off my shirt so you can get to my back.”

  Rae laughed. “Honey, don’t think I’m too old to enjoy seeing a good-looking man without his shirt. Say, my true sweetheart, Mr. John Travolta.” Tyler rolled his eyes at that. “But that’s not why I’m here. Now, go take a shower, shave, oh, and make sure you put on some clean underwear. You are so nasty lookin’, ain’t no tellin’ when you last changed drawers. Mikey, haven’t I told you: We are going places!”

  Tyler smirked and was about to say he wasn’t going anywhere, when Rae added, “Or I will strip you down myself and see what the Good Lord never intended for me to see. Now, do what I told you, and let’s go!”

  Half an hour later, showered, shaved, and in clean clothes—it actually felt good to be showered and in clean clothes—Tyler was ready to go to wherever it was Rae had planned. He picked up his car keys from the hall tree.

  “Huh-uh, honey, we ain’t goin’ nowhere in your old white man Volvo,” she said.

  “I haven’t driven the Corvette in two months,” Tyler replied. “I don’t even know if the battery is up.”

  “Honey, we are goin’ in my RX-8.” Rae drove a blue Mazda RX-8 sports car with a bumper sticker that read I DON’T DRIVE ANY FASTER THAN MY ANGELS CAN FLY. Her license plate said 1HOTMAMA. She was a little heavier than she liked to be, which she attributed to menostop, not menopause. She also had a daily ritual of double-stuffed Oreo cookies, “No more than I can hold in one stack between my thumb and forefinger” and iced milk for breakfast.

  “Get in, Mikey,” she said, clicking the remote to unlock its doors. “We are going places. We have a date with destiny.”

  “Destiny,” “fate,” “luck,” were words that, in Tyler’s mind were synonymous with angels, Santa, and God. He shook his head and smiled, but he didn’t want to be disrespectful to a woman who was only slightly younger than his mother, and much more of a friend than any he’d ever had.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Places, Mikey. We are definitely going places.” She laughed as she started the car.

  * * *

  An hour and forty-five minutes later, they were at Hartsfield Airport, boarding a flight for New York. Two and a half hours after that, they were summoning a taxi at LaGuardia. After getting hotel rooms at the Algonquin, they took a taxi to Pupin Hall at Columbia University, where they were to listen to a lecture by Dr. Emile Zuckerman.

  Rae got tickets in the second row, stage left. Tyler had no idea what to expect from this night, but he was feeling glad that she’d dragged him out. It was actually the first time he’d “felt” anything in months.

  According to the program Tyler was reading, Dr. Zuckerman had studied cellular psychology and wrote about his findings in multiple journals and a few books. One of the books Tyler had even heard of: The Universe as Organism and Source of Energy. Karen had read the book, and had tried to talk Tyler into reading it, though he kept putting it off. Maybe he would have to read it now, especially after attending the man’s lecture.

  Dr. Zuckerman began by speaking about the soul and the survival of consciousness. He talked about experiments with mediums and measurable data and findings and how he put his reputation on the line to show that, as he put it, there “just might be something else.”

  Rae looked at him and handed him an envelope. As he started to open it, she took it back and said, “Not yet. I’ll tell you when to open it.”

&
nbsp; Tyler listened to Zuckerman speak and was perplexed. Here was someone who seemed to be a respected scientist who was willing to take the path of science to examine the validity of the soul. At that moment, Tyler heard someone behind him, as if the person had leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

  “Dr. Zuckerman is not the first person to walk this path. Science and faith are two branches of the same plant, both needing water and sunlight to survive.”

  Tyler twisted around to see who was speaking so loudly in his ear in what he thought was a bad Swedish accent. His jumpy movement startled Rae, and the two of them started to giggle. That’s when he noticed two women seated nearby. Rae and Tyler looked at each other in disbelief. The famous singer, Charlene St. John, had taken a seat directly in front of them.

  Tyler listened to the speech, fascinated by the points Zuckerman was making. He was a man who believed strongly, almost devoutly, in the primacy of science, and yet this man was attacking Tyler’s doubt—enough to make him begin to question his own belief, or rather his own skepticism.…

  Suddenly in front of him, Charlene St. John’s head rolled back, and she fell from her seat. Instinct and training took over, and Tyler and Rae went to her aid.

  “Whoa, mister. Hey. You ought not to touch her, if you don’t know what you are doing,” one of the other members of the audience said.

  “He’s a doctor, and I’m a nurse,” Rae said authoritatively.

  “Cardiac arrest,” Tyler said. He and Rae positioned Charlene in the aisle, flat on her back, then he banged his fist on her chest, then leaned down to listen, then banged his fist again until her heart resumed beating.

  Rae had already dialed 911, and she and Tyler stayed with Charlene until the ambulance arrived. Had they not been there at that moment, one of the greatest singers in the world would have died.

  Tyler and Rae had saved her life.

  CHAPTER

  40

  New York

  A few hours had passed since Charlene’s attack. Pam was hoping that it was simply exhaustion and dehydration. Paul Maxwell, Charlene’s business manager for the past twenty years, was in the ER with Pam. The expression on his face was beyond worried. It was sick.

  And why not? Pam thought. After all, Charlene was his golden goose. Just his percentage of what Charlene was earning had made Paul a millionaire many times over.

  No, that was mean of her. Pam knew that Charlene was much more than a meal ticket for Paul. She knew that Paul could not love her any more had she been his own sister.

  “Tell me again what happened?” Paul asked.

  “I’ve told you.”

  “Tell me again, I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. She was hypnotized? I’ve read about things like this, mass hypnotism at these cult events. What were you attending, a séance?”

  “It was not a séance, and she was not hypnotized,” Pam insisted. “I told you, Emile Zuckerman is one of the most respected men in his field.”

  “Yeah, well, if you’ve got a kooky field, then it doesn’t take a whole lot to be one of the most respected kooks, does it?”

  “He is hardly a kook. He has consulted with presidents of the United States.”

  “Really? With the last bunch of presidents we’ve had, that doesn’t say a whole lot for him, does it?”

  “Paul, I know you are upset and worried. I’m upset and worried as well,” Pam said. “But I resent your implication that because I took her to the lecture, I am somehow responsible for this.”

  Paul ran his hand through his hair and looked earnestly at Pam. “Forgive me, Pamela,” he said. “I know you would do nothing to hurt her. God knows, you have almost single-handedly brought her through these last two years since Ryan died. You’re right, I am not myself, but I have no right to take it out on you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Pam said. “We are all in this together.”

  Charlene made a sound then, and Pam stepped to the door and called out to the attending physician.

  “Dr. Vaill! Dr. Vaill, come quickly, please!” Pam said. “I think she is waking up.”

  Dr. Elyse Vaill, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a white coat, was a mature woman with a dignifying gray at the temples who exuded calm professionalism. Pam had made the comment when she first saw her that she looked like a doctor out of central casting; she could have played one on a soap opera.

  * * *

  Charlene was fully conscious now and she looked around, a little surprised to find herself in a bed, in a hospital emergency room.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked. “What happened?”

  “You’ve had a mild myocardial infarction,” Dr. Elyse Vaill said.

  “A mild myocardial infarction? What is that?”

  “In layman’s terms, a small heart attack.”

  “A heart attack? But isn’t that something that only old people have? I’m in the prime of life,” Charlene said.

  “Not necessarily. But unfortunately, while we have procedures and medicines to deal with a heart attack, that isn’t the real problem.” The doctor cleared her throat and looked not only at Charlene, but at Pam and Paul as well.

  “In doing the tests to discover what might have led to the attack, we have discovered a tumor behind your heart. It is constricting the blood supply to your head and your lungs.”

  “A tumor? You mean, as in cancer?” Pam asked.

  Vaill nodded. “I’m afraid so,” she said.

  Pam grabbed Charlene’s hand and began squeezing it as her eyes welled with tears.

  “How bad is it?” Paul asked.

  “It’s not good,” Vaill said. “It appears to have been there for some time, and has already grown quite large. More than likely this is what has been contributing to the lethargy that your friend here says that you have been having.”

  “Is it growing?” Charlene asked.

  “From the results of the test, it is quite possible that this tumor will continue to grow and, I fear, quite rapidly.”

  “You haven’t said the word yet,” Charlene said.

  “What word?” Dr. Vaill asked.

  “Don’t play games with me, Doctor, please,” Charlene said. “I’m not afraid of the word, I heard it used with Ryan. The word is ‘terminal.’ What I have is terminal, right? How long do I have to live?”

  Dr. Elyse Vaill did not, at first, give a verbal response. Then she said, “Other than an increasing tiredness and weakness, you probably won’t experience much pain. And what pain you might experience, we will be able to control. For how long, that I cannot say for certain.”

  “Thank you, Doctor, for being up front with everything,” Charlene said.

  “I wish I could give you better news,” she said. “I’ll—uh—go now and let the three of you talk. If you need anything, please let me know.”

  A long silence descended over the room after Dr. Vaill left.

  “We’ll have to tell Sue,” Charlene said. “She’s at home.”

  “No, she is here,” Pam said. “She is calling your mother.”

  “Does she know?”

  Charlene shook her head. “I don’t think so. None of us knew until a moment ago. I called her when you were in the ambulance.”

  Even as they were talking about her, Sue came into the room. “I called your mother,” she said. “She’s taking the first flight out of Miami that she can get.”

  “Thank you, Sue,” Charlene said.

  Sue saw the tears sliding down Pam’s cheeks and a drawn expression on Paul’s face. “What is it?” Sue asked. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

  “She…,” Pam started, but she choked up and couldn’t finish the sentence. She waved her hands and shook her head. “She…,” she started again.

  “It’s terminal, Sue,” Charlene said.

  Sue had been through the diagnosis and quick demise of Ryan.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “No, please God, no.”

  “Are there news people here?” Paul asked.

 
“Yes. There were too many people at the auditorium when Charlene passed out,” Sue said. “Also, the EMS people tweeted the news to the local gossip rags that she was being brought in to the hospital.”

  “What do they know?”

  “Nothing, so far,” Sue said. “I told them that Charlene had been feeling low about Ryan, and hadn’t been eating, and that was what caused her to pass out.”

  “I don’t know how long that story will hold up,” Paul said. “I mean, now that she has been diagnosed. And there were witnesses at the lecture who watched Tyler get her heart started again—and the EMTs who helped.”

  “Dr. Vaill won’t tell anyone anything,” Pam said. “We were talking earlier; she knows the importance of Charlene’s privacy and doctor–patient confidentiality. She’s bound by privacy laws, as are all hospital staff. If they value their careers, they won’t say anything. There’s really nothing we can do about the EMTs and audience except hope none of them run to the media.”

  “Of course, when we cancel the show in Mexico City, there will be more questions asked,” Paul said.

  “We aren’t going to cancel the show in Mexico City,” Charlene said.

  “What? Of course we are. You can’t do a show now. Not in your condition,” Paul said.

  “Oh, but I can, and I will,” Charlene said. “I have been grieving for almost two years. I did the pay-per-view event only because I didn’t have to tour and it gave me something to do. Likewise with the albums. It was only the devastation of millions in Turkey that finally roused me to do a public concert at all. You heard Dr. Vaill, and really, when have I not been tired after a show?”

  “That was because you work so hard preparing for your shows. And the shows themselves are a drain,” Paul said. “And that’s when you were healthy.”

  “But I wasn’t healthy,” Charlene said. She put her hand over her heart. “I’ve had this time bomb ticking inside me now for a long time. Maybe that is what was making me so tired then. And if I was able to do the shows then, I can do this one now.”