Lori, p.20
Lori, page 20
Then Priscilla came home to stay and all hell broke loose.
That's what Priscilla really was, a hellion. A spoiled brat, and man-crazy to boot. Only you couldn't boot her, not with Roy there to protect her. He had a temper of his own, and perhaps that's who she'd inherited hers from, but when it came to dealing with his daughter Dr. Fairmount was a wimp.
That's the word they use today, but back when it all happened Clara had used other words, and plenty of them, trying to talk some sense into Roy Fairmount for his own good. Maybe this is where she had made her mistake. For a little while, after the two of them got on a first-name basis, it almost seemed as if they might have a thing going, but Priscilla spoiled any chance of that.
It wasn't as if they actually quarreled over her, just that he wouldn't listen to reason. Here was his daughter, his only child, getting ready to graduate with honors, then dropping out of school without so much as a word of explanation. The least he could do was insist that she tell him why.
But he didn't, even when he had an opportunity to talk to her, which wasn't often. Most of the time she was off and running in that fancy little overpriced Jaguar he'd given her last Christmas. Of course Her Highness never bothered to tell Daddy where she was going, but Clara just happened to have walked into his office once or twice when Priscilla was on the phone. From what she heard it was her guess that the girl was making regular trips back to the college. Her current steady, Rick Corey, was still enrolled there, at least for the first five days after she came home.
Five days? Hard to believe that's all it had been, but thinking back, it checked out. Priscilla showed up on Friday, with her luggage and without an explanation. If Dr. Fairmount was too chicken to insist on one he could call the school for information, but not over the weekend. So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday she was home free. Monday too, because Roy had to fly to Scottsdale and testify in some kind of insurance case for one of his former patients. He probably would have called first thing Tuesday morning, only that's when Priscilla got the news.
Actually it had happened sometime late Saturday night, but Rick Corey's parents waited until the day beforehand to phone and tell her there was going to be a funeral Wednesday, a quiet one just for family.
Clara never did find out any details; Rick's father was a state senator who must have had a lot of clout because there was never anything in the paper or on the air. From what Priscilla said, it sounded like the kid was the victim of one of the earliest drive-by shootings. Hard to believe, but there wasn't much of that going on back in those days. What he was doing in a Chicano bar in the first place was none of Clara's business of course, but nobody could blame her for thinking that maybe he wasn't alone and that somebody with wheels and a weapon was waiting for him when he came out.
Whatever the cops ended up figuring, it never made the news. And neither did the funeral.
Priscilla was still crying when she drove off to the cemetery on Wednesday afternoon, but when she came back just before dark the tears had dried.
Clara didn't remember the exact time, but it must have been after five because the last patient had already left. It had been a busy day, with three separate surgeries in the little operating room upstairs, and that was probably a good thing. Both Roy and Dr. Chase were very uptight since hearing the news about Priscilla's boyfriend and seeing how she reacted; at least they had other things to think about while working.
Now there was nothing to distract them. Dr. Chase was in back, washing up and getting ready to go out; there was some kind of medical association dinner over in Santa Monica. But Dr. Fairmount was waiting at the front door when his daughter came in, and from that moment on Clara remembered everything that happened quite distinctly. Too distinctly.
How Priscilla had marched right past her father and gone upstairs without saying a word. The stony, set look on her face. The stricken look on his, and then the way it changed as he turned to follow her. Clara had been coming down the hall when it happened and she arrived the very moment the front door opened. Something told her to stop and so she just stood there behind the staircase without being noticed.
That's when she saw Dr. Fairmount's expression change from the stricken look to a hard, angry stare just like Priscilla's. As he followed his daughter up the steps Clara realized that this time there was going to be a showdown.
Sounds echoed down the stairwell. A door slammed. Fists pounded on the panel. Even now she could recall the anger in Roy's voice. "Open the door! Do you hear me? Open the door-"
There was no telling how long it went on; Clara had stood frozen at the foot of the stairs and from that moment on, time seemed frozen too.
All she knew was that Priscilla finally did open the door and it must have been Roy who slammed it shut again after he entered. Clara had no hearing problem then, but the bedroom door was a sound barrier; voices rose behind it but she couldn't make out the words.
Neither could Dr. Chase. Clara remembered how surprised she'd been to find him suddenly standing beside her in the hall, dressed and ready to go out for his dinner meeting.
"What's going on up there?" he asked.
"I don't know," Clara told him.
And she didn't, not until later. If she had, the two of them would have gone running up those stairs instead of standing there like idiots and listening to that muffled shouting match behind the closed bedroom door.
Then all at once the door swung open. All the way, because you could hear the sound of the doorknob hitting the wall. You could hear them screaming at each other too. At the top of their lungs, and so fast you could scarcely make out one voice from the other.
"Where do you think you're going young lady I'm not going to tell you oh yes you will get out of my way you're not leaving this room until I get an explanation let me go damn it you come back here- "
But Priscilla didn't obey because now you could see her on the upper landing, moving toward the stairs. You could see the purse strapped over her shoulder and the way the little overnight bag she carried banged against her right leg as she walked.
It was Roy who stopped her just as she got to the head of the stairs. You remember it now, how could you ever forget?
"I won't let you go do you hear me get out of my way not until you tell me the truth don't touch me I'm your father I have a right to know take your hands off me you bastard I take your hands off me-"
You saw it happen then. Saw her jerk free. Saw her stumble, saw her pitch forward down the staircase head' first, then toppling over and over and over. You would always remember it happening over and over and over again.
Strange, that part was so clear and the rest was just a blur. Went into shock, that was it. Automatically picking up the stuff that had spilled out of the overnight bag when it landed at the bottom of the stairs. It was Dr. Chase who lifted Priscilla, carried her in his arms. Even then Clara guessed what had happened because of the way the girl's head was twisted against her right shoulder.
Blur. Dr. Fairmount gasping, "Oh my God!" Dr. Chase calling to her to come up, we need you, we'll have to get her into surgery at once.
A blur, all a blur, until she felt the sting of pain against her left cheek and realized that Dr. Chase had slapped her face.
But it worked, and she worked, they all did.
Roy was frantic. "We've got to save her." He kept saying it again and again, all night long. It was Dr. Chase who really took over, gave the orders she and Roy carried out. And by morning it looked as though they had saved her, or what was left of her.
A broken neck was responsible for the paralysis, and that was something which could not be surgically corrected. Priscilla had suffered cardiac arrest and though vital signs might stabilize she was in a coma. Her brain had stopped functioning. It was hooking her up to mechanical life support that kept the heart and respiration going.
More blur now, probably due to fatigue. Thinking back Clara realized that the three of them probably didn't get any rest at all during the next thirty-six hours, because it took that long a time to make an accurate diagnosis of Priscilla's condition. Meanwhile, of course, appointments were canceled, except for patients coming in for shots or medication, things which could be routinely handled by the part-timers and trainees.
Thirty-six hours without rest. Had they even stopped to grab a bite to eat? They must have, somewhere along the line, but she couldn't recall. By the time Friday night came around and the clinic could legitimately close its doors for the weekend, she'd been completely drained. So much so that it took a minute for her to comprehend what Dr. Chase was telling Roy now.
"Pregnant."
"No-" Roy's voice was shrill.
"A little over three months, give or take a few days. It's a miracle she didn't miscarry when she fell. But the fetus is alive-it seems undamaged, normal. We'll get in a qualified man to come up with a precise determination."
"No!" This time the reply was firm. "What good would it do? We've both got to face facts. The brain damage is irreversible, which means it's only a question of time. In a few days or a few weeks she's going to die, so why prolong things? I don't want to sit here and watch. The best thing is to pull the plug right now. Legally, she's already dead."
"But the fetus is still alive."
"That's not my concern."
"It better be. Under the law, if you pull that plug now you could be charged with murder."
Thinking back, Clara realized he'd probably told the truth; there were such laws twenty years ago and she'd known of cases where physicians faced charges and prosecution.
"I wish now that you hadn't reported the accident," Roy said. "I didn't."
That was news to Clara, and to Dr. Fairmount too. "But I distinctly remember telling you to call-"
"I decided against it," Dr. Chase told him. "You decided?"
"Neither of us was in any condition to think things through clearly when it happened. If I'd made that call we'd be in the middle of a police investigation right now. Instead of caring for Priscilla you and I would be spending our time down at headquarters making depositions."
"But what happened was accidental, we both know that!"
"Then why does anyone else have to know, as long as our consciences are clear?"
That's where Clara should have spoken up; she realized it now, but the knowledge came too late.
Besides, Dr. Chase hadn't given her any time to think. "Nobody knows what happened except you and I and Clara here. Let's keep it that way, at least for a few days. Meanwhile I suggest we put this area off-limits-nobody knows Priscilla is here and there's no reason they should. As far as staff is concerned, we took in an accident case over the weekend on a private-care basis. If people ask, tell them she quit school because of her health, and she's away on vacation-something like that."
Dr. Fairmount shook his head. "But why? Sooner or later-"
It was then that Chase asked Clara to leave the room, and she did, because a good nurse follows doctor's orders. But there's nothing to prevent a good nurse from standing outside in the hall and listening to what goes on behind a closed door. Or trying to listen.
Today, after the fact, Clara could pretty well piece together exactly what had been said. But at the time all she caught was bits and pieces.
"Don't you understand-think there's a definite possibility-keep her alive and save the child-"
"-crazy to even suggest such a thing-won't use my daughter as a guinea pig-"
"-think it over-least a chance if we give it a try- either that or we call the police-choice is up to you-"
There was no question about what Roy had chosen, no question and no rest in the days that followed. Somehow the story about round-the-clock care wasn't challenged; if anything, it was bolstered after the delivery of all that fancy extra equipment Dr. Chase ordered. It must have cost a small fortune, but Roy didn't object, any more than he objected when appointments began to fall off because he and Chase were spending their time upstairs behind locked doors.
Clara was busy too, and that was a good thing; at least her duties kept her apart from the staff and made it easier to brush off questions. She was only getting five or six hours' sleep a night, and aside from meal breaks she spent most of her time in the locked room.
But she was in her own room, sound asleep, the night Roy had his fatal coronary.
To this day she didn't know exactly what happened, but she could guess. Seeing Priscilla in a coma, hooked up to all that machinery, had been too much for a father's eyes to bear. So there'd been another quarrel, and again Clara had a pretty good idea of what Nigel Chase told Roy.
The reason she felt certain was that Chase used the same tactics on her later, when he announced that he was keeping Priscilla on life support.
All that business about this being a chance to make medical history was true enough, but apparently it hadn't convinced Roy and it didn't persuade her now that he was gone-dead and buried after a quick and quiet funeral, complete with a death certificate signed by Nigel Chase, M.D. He'd handled the authorities and the funeral arrangements very well, but he hadn't realized there'd be a problem handling Clara.
"I'm not interested in medical history," she told him. "And I'm not going to be a part of this any longer."
"Does that mean you intend to notify the police?"
"No, all I want is out. I gave you my word not to tell them anything."
"But I didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if you leave here against my wishes I'll go to the police myself. I'm willing to testify that Priscilla's condition is not the result of an accident-that I witnessed a quarrel between you two, a shoving match which ended when you pushed her down the stairs."
That must have been how he threatened Roy and brought on his attack; she couldn't prove it but she was almost certain.
"You can't scare me," she said.
But he had scared her and he knew it, because he didn't lean on her any harder. "There's nothing to be frightened about," he told her. "We're both in this thing together. All I'm asking from you is your cooperation."
Cooperate or else, that's what he meant. If he carried out his threat, they both knew what the results would be. His word against hers.
Words. One of the things that still remained vivid in Clara's memory was how Chase talked to the girl in the coma, just as if she was a normal expectant mother. That was what he was trying to do, he explained; see to it that the fetus was treated according to normal procedures. When he wasn't present there was always the sound of soothing music from the stereo speakers.
One of Clara's biggest jobs was tube-feeding the special diet, hormone-enriched, to supplement the sugar, protein, and fat in the I.V. Dr. Chase was very concerned about the hormones because brain damage had affected the pituitary.
Priscilla's respiration was monitored around the clock, adjusted to maintain the proper oxygen supply for the baby's blood. And it was a baby now, alive and moving in the abdomen which Chase stroked as he murmured soothing words. On the monitor you could see the baby's heartbeat increase in response to outside sound.
How Dr. Chase managed to keep going was almost more than Clara could fathom. Almost, but not quite, once she realized how obsessed he was. Somewhere along the line he must have gotten his hands on the cash share of his investment in the clinic, because he didn't seem to care about the fact that the caseload dwindled down over the passing weeks. Actually he had been referring the few new patients and most of the regulars to other physicians. By Memorial Day weekend it seemed perfectly logical for him to let everybody go with severance pay and some vague talk about forming a new partnership and reopening in the fall.
Clara should have left with the others, even if it meant risking trouble with the police. Even if he'd managed to carry out his threat and place the blame on Clara, it wouldn't save him. By now anyone could recognize, just as she had, that Chase was in the grip of a compulsion that had gotten out of control. It was about this time that he put a cot into the room and started sleeping there, and most of his waking hours were spent monitoring and observing.
Clara didn't really care what he was doing, just as long as he was there. Because during his absences she had to take his place, keeping watch over a woman who was clinically a corpse.
That's how Clara remembered Priscilla-as a corpse. Even now there were times when she felt haunted by those memories. The worst was how Chase had insisted that she apply fresh makeup to Priscilla's waxen face every day and comb her hair. Combing the hair of a corpse, a dead woman whose body contained a living being.
It seemed to go on forever but forever lasted just eleven weeks. On the seventy-seventh day the ultrasonic scan confirmed that the baby's growth had slowed to a point where the inevitable could no longer be delayed.
The tiny infant daughter was delivered by caesarean, two months premature and weighing just a trifle over three pounds. Dr. Chase put her on the respirator and she survived.
But there was no respirator that could save Priscilla; she was dead before delivery.
And the cat was scratching at the door.
The sound was faint, but it drowned out the voices of the past. Clara blinked, eyes peering into the present. How long had it taken her to remember? Perhaps only a few seconds-isn't that what they say about drowning, how your whole life passes in review?
