Every Fifteen Minutes (53 page)

“Thanks.” Eric smiled. He felt a bittersweet knot in his chest that he knew would be there forever.

Caitlin smiled back. “And you're a great father.”

“Thank you. You're a great mother.” Eric saw Caitlin's eyes brimming again, because he knew she didn't believe that about herself. “You
are
a great mother.”

“Well, anyway.” Caitlin cleared her throat, moving past the emotional moment. “As I was saying, I decided that the best thing we can do for Hannah, as her mom and dad, is to work together. We have to be able to talk to each other, too. We can do better than this, I know we can.”

“I know we can, too.” Eric felt his spirits soar. “So, no more lawyers?”

“No more lawyers. Present company excluded.” Caitlin smiled crookedly. “Do we have a deal?”

“Did you ask
her
?” Eric whispered, nodding toward Hannah, still shelving books.

“I SAID YES!” Hannah called back.

Caitlin laughed, and so did Eric, throwing his head back, happy and finally free.

“Then we have a deal, Caitlin.”

 

Chapter Sixty-five

The next morning dawned sunny, and Eric got to work at the regular time since Hannah hadn't wanted to miss any school. He crossed the parking lot with a slew of other employees, aware that heads were turning in his direction. Hospital employees were nodding to him, smiling at him, or trying to catch his eye, and Eric smiled back, though he was looking forward to the day when his every fart wasn't cause for celebration.

He hit the breezeway at the same time as Sharon McGregor from the Pharmacy Review Board, elegant in some kind of gold tweed suit. She waved him down, fell into step beside him, and patted him on the back. “Eric, my goodness! I can't believe what I'm hearing about you! What a nightmare that must have been. Is it finally over?”

“Hell, no.” Eric looked over, with a smile. “It'll continue at the next Pharmacy Review Board meeting.”

“Ha!” Sharon laughed, and so did Eric, but only he knew he wasn't kidding. They parted ways in the lobby, when he went to the elevator bank that led to Wright and hit the up button in front of an adoring audience. He climbed into the crowded elevator, accepting congratulations, answering questions, and generally feeling the love, though he suddenly realized that he didn't have his red employee lanyard, with the red W for Wacko. He made a mental note to get a new ID, though he didn't know how the rest of the hospital would view the psych unit, from here on out. The horror of what Sam had done would never be forgotten, and Eric could only hope that his deeds had redeemed the unit. Either way, he was proud of his team and he couldn't wait to get upstairs, pick up the pieces, and get back to taking care of his patients.

He got off the elevator on his floor and didn't have to look far to see the damage from yesterday's fire. The air still smelled burned, and there was the slightest haze. Water had damaged the floor tiles, causing some buckling at the edges, and rolling water buckets with mops were lined up against the wall, next to two folded yellow signs that read, Caution—Slipping Hazard.

Eric crossed to the unit, mentally gearing up. He'd gotten emails from three different hospital departments about cleaning up the water and fire damage, which would require a major effort. Fortunately, the HGH sprinkler system was zoned and the sprinklers on the north side of the unit hadn't been turned on, so most of the patient rooms had gone undamaged. It was the south side—the TV lounge, dining hall, and the nurses' station at the front—that were water-damaged.

He unlocked the first door to the unit, entered the airlock, then unlocked the interior door and entered the unit to find his staff milling around in confusion, amid the water puddling on the tile floor, smelly and slightly hazy air, and the waterlogged nurses' station with defunct computers, monitors, and telephones.

“Hey, everybody!” Eric called to them, and they turned their heads, Amaka, Jack, David, Tina, the other nurses, nurse's aides, psych techs, caseworkers, and a crew of janitors in blue jumpsuits.

“Eric!” “You made it!” “You're back!” everybody called out at once, surging toward him like a crowd of reporters, but in a good way. “Are you staying?” “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I'm back.” Eric threw open his arms, gave Amaka a big hug when she came forward, then waved for order. “Thank you for holding the fort in my absence. You've done an amazing job.”

“We're number two, we're number two!” Jack called out, but Eric didn't burst his bubble, just yet.

“Okay, everybody, please settle down. I have something I want to say.” Eric centered himself for a moment. “Consider where we find ourselves. We have been through hell this past week. We've seen the suffering of our patients. We've been betrayed by someone we held dear, yet we grieve his loss in many ways. The loss of who we thought he was. The loss of his presence and his contribution to our patient care, before he took his terrible turn.” Eric could see faces falling around him, his staff struggling with conflicted feelings over Sam, their anger, bewilderment, and grief. “We've seen gruesome violence and death. There has been fire, and a deluge. It has simply been an impossibly difficult and traumatic time, for all of us.”

Amaka clucked in agreement, heads nodded, and eyes filmed all around, including Eric's.

“Normally, we focus on the care of our patients, but we can't overlook or neglect our own care, not after what we've been through. It will take us awhile to process the events of this week, and we will discuss it, and overthink it, and analyze it every which way from Sunday. Our specialty is talk therapy, and we will talk until we're blue in the face.”

Amaka broke into a smile, and the nurses laughed.

“Going forward, we will
heal
this unit. We're trained to deal with trauma. In fact, we're the only service in this entire hospital trained to heal emotional trauma. So, as a matter of fact, it couldn't have happened to a better group of people. We didn't choose this test, it chose us. And we will get through it together, with flying colors. Are you with me?”

“Yes!” everybody cried.

“Thank you!” Eric said, feeling himself smile from the very depth of his soul. “Okay. The first thing we're going to do is have a quick morning meeting in the conference room, as usual. I want the same bad coffee and the even worse d
é
cor. I want Amaka to tell us how every patient spent last night, because they are our first priority. And then, we're going to roll up our sleeves, clean up this unit, and get it back in business. Ready, set, go!”

 

Chapter Sixty-six

After a long day of putting the unit back together, Eric parked in the visitor space in front of Laurie's garden apartment, walked up the front walk, and knocked on her door. He'd bought a bouquet of daises from the grocery store. He'd showered and changed. He'd put on aftershave he'd found in the bottom of his Dopp kit. He was about to have his first real date in over a decade, which was harder than breaching an armed police barricade at the King of Prussia Mall.

“Hey, hi.” Laurie opened the door and smiled. “Flowers, how nice!”

“I'm here.” Eric realized it sounded idiotic the moment he said it, though he saw that she had showered and changed too, into a soft blue work shirt and denim shorts, with her dark hair finally worn down, making thick rich curls around her chin. She was barefoot, which he thought was cute.

“Come in, thanks!” Laurie accepted the flowers, then kissed him on the cheek lightly, and Eric tried to relax as he stepped into the apartment, which smelled like something delicious was cooking, with cheese and tomatoes. The table was already set with another loaf of artisanal bread, a block of butter, and a wooden bowl full of arugula, avocados, cherry tomatoes, and onions. He remembered that Caitlin would never even kiss him if he'd had onions. At the end of their marriage, he found himself choosing the onions.

“What's for dinner? It smells great.”

“My specialty, eggplant parm. It's hearty and comforting, which is just what the doctor ordered.” Laurie went into the kitchen with the bouquet, opened the cabinet, and retrieved a glass vase.

“Can I help?” Eric followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. He stopped short of kissing her on the cheek. He was trying to slow his roll, now that he'd learned the expression. He watched Laurie put the bouquet in the sink, get a scissors from the drawer, and cut the twine around the wrapping.

“The eggplant's already in the oven, but you can make us both a drink.” Laurie nodded toward a bottle of Tanqueray, one of tonic, and two tumblers, next to a juicy lime on a small plate, which had been cut into perfect eighths. On the chopping board was a sliced mound of parsley and fresh green basil.

“Will do. How do you like your drink, light or heavy?”

“Light. So how was work?”

“Tough, you can imagine.” Eric crossed to the refrigerator with the tumblers, used them to scoop some ice out of the bin, and returned to the counter. “Lots of hugs and tears from the staff. Lots of nerves and worry from the patients. The logistics were a mess, trying to use humidifiers to get rid of the water, then we had to go begging for computers, phones, and new chairs. We tried to salvage what we could. My phone rang constantly, everybody had a million questions.”

“I bet. How was Perino?”

“I spent some time with him, talking to him and his wife. It will take him some time to come to terms with this.” Eric untwisted the cap off the gin and poured them both a light drink.

“The poor guy. It's traumatic.”

“I also looked through his file. Perino was on risperidone and fluoxetine, and I suspect Sam was dosing him with Ritalin, too. Sam had an expertise in ADHD and Ritalin, Vyvance, and that family of drugs. They would've wound Perino up and made him aggressive, and it would explain why he wasn't responding to treatment.”

Laurie groaned. “Why would he do that?”

“I think he used people, as pawns. My sense is that he would use Perino as another kind of weapon against me, or maybe even to set Perino up to attack me. I learned today that Perino has a lot of delusional beliefs about me and I'm betting that Sam filled his head with them.” Eric cracked the cap off the tonic bottle with a satisfying hiss and filled the glasses.

“That's horrible.”

“I know.” Eric squeezed in some lime juice, relaxing as he realized that it was completely possible to go from being friends to maybe being lovers. The two of them always talked shop when they ran, and this was like that, only stationary. He felt natural around Laurie, and he liked the whole scene: the aromas of the food, her easy way with him, how nurturing she was. Eric had always heard the expression that you didn't know what you had until it was gone, but he suddenly had a different insight—that you didn't know what you were missing until you had it. It looked like he was going to have it, and he felt good inside.

“Everybody's saying the wife is going to sue. That's all anybody ever worries about in administration.”

“I know, right?” Eric handed Laurie her drink. “Here we go. Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Laurie raised her glass, then took a sip. “Perfect.”

“Really?” Eric sipped his drink, which tasted tart and great. “Not bad.”

“No, it's perfect.” Laurie smiled, more warmly. “Everything's perfect, really.”

“That's just what I think,” Eric said, touched and happy. He leaned over and was about to kiss her when his phone started ringing. “Damn it.”

“Saved by the bell.”

“Very funny.” Eric slid the phone from his pocket, and the screen showed the hospital's number. “I should take this.”

“Go ahead. Dinner's in ten minutes, but I can lower the heat if I have to.”

“Thanks.” Eric touched the screen to answer the call. “This is Eric Parrish,” he said, but all he could hear was static, and the voice on the other end was breaking up. “Hello? Hello?”

“Eric, go to the hallway,” Laurie called to him. “Remember, the reception's bad lately.”

Eric hustled from the room and into the hallway. The phone call was still breaking up. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Dr. Parrish…” a woman started to say, but static swallowed her sentence.

“Hello? Hello?” Eric kept moving to get a signal, passing the bathroom and walking toward the two rooms off the hallway, Laurie's home office and her bedroom. “This is Eric Parrish. Hello, hello?”

“Dr. Parrish? Are you there?”

“Hold on, can you hear me now?” Eric ducked through the open door to Laurie's office, which he'd never seen. It was small, cozy, and characteristically cheery. White shelves full of books ringed the room, ending in a white metal file cabinet. A white desk and a black ergonomic chair sat next to the door, against a wall covered with colorful art posters by Chagall, Miro, and Rothko.

“Yes, hi, this is Julia Meehan. I got your number from the directory.”

“Julia who?” Eric heard her clearly but didn't recognize her name. He sat down at Laurie's desk.

“From IT, at the hospital. Anyway, remember you asked me to look up who accessed Ms. Teichner's file after her discharge?”

“Oh, yes. Hi.” Eric remembered.

“Sorry I freaked out when you came in yesterday. It's so spooky working near the morgue. I hate when I'm the last one to leave work, that's why I lock the door.”

“That's okay. Sorry I didn't give you my real name.” Eric eyed the things on Laurie's desk, a silver laptop, and a row of windup toys—a bright yellow chick, a blue robot, and a tiger that did backflips.

“No worries. My boss told me it's okay to give you the info.”

“Go ahead.” Eric knew the name would be Sam's, but it would be good to have it verified.