The Associate Page 8

  Sarah’s blue eyes burned with fury as I berated her. “I just haven’t had anything to say to you lately,” she said. “And I don’t want to pretend anymore that I do. I haven’t wanted to come home. I’m sorry you can’t understand that. But there’s nothing at home that I’m interested in anymore.”

  I knew that this was coming. Obviously. It was a hard thing to avoid. I knew that she wanted out of the marriage – that much was obvious. I even knew why she wanted out of the marriage. She resented me for continuing Amelia’s treatment. She hated me for that. She constantly accused me of torturing Amelia when I should be making peace with Amelia’s impending death. That was a huge barrier between us. Apparently Sarah couldn’t take it anymore, and she had already checked out. Already checked out and John Gibson was there to pick up the pieces.

  “Fine,” I said. “Fine. If you want to divorce me, that’s just fine. But know this – I’ll fight for sole custody of our children. And if the judge awards joint custody, I’ll fight to be the primary caretaker. I’ll get the kids full-time and you’ll just be relegated to part-time parent status. And any judge will award me the primary custodian status over you, because you’ve been an absent parent.”

  “That’s okay with me,” she said. “We both know that Amelia won’t be around much longer, so it’s just going to be you and Nate together. And that’s fine. He needs his father more than he needs his mother.”

  Her words struck me like daggers. She was so cold about losing Amelia. So matter of fact. Amelia was fighting for her life in a hospital room, and Sarah apparently couldn’t care less. I had never struck a woman in my life. Had never hit a woman. I had hit plenty of men, but never a woman. But, right at that moment, I had never wanted to punch anyone’s face so much as I wanted to punch Sarah’s face at that moment. If it weren’t for the fact that we were out in public and there were people watching us, I probably would have hauled off and hit her.

  I realized that my fist was clenched at my side, and I loosened my fingers so that they hung down at my waist. I turned my face, not wanting to see Sarah’s eyes. I once thought that she was so beautiful. And she was. Objectively, she was. Perfect features, creamy skin, gorgeous blonde hair, a fit and curvy body. She really kept up her beauty routine with regular facials, manicures and pedicures, waxing, and massages. She worked out all the time, going to the gym and lifting weights and riding her bike around town. She spent so much time on her outward appearance but so little time on her soul. She was ugly inside, and, because she was so ugly inside, she no longer appeared beautiful to me.

  “Sarah,” I said, trying to be as even as possible. “Please move out as soon as possible. I’ll help you find an apartment. But I don’t want you in the house anymore. I can handle the children on my own. You can go to your boyfriend, I would imagine your boyfriend is John, and you and he can be very happy together. I’ll be at Amelia’s side while she battles for her life. I’ll be there for Nate as he has to live through Amelia’s illness as well. I can be mother and father to both of our kids. I don’t want you around either of them and I don’t want you around me.”

  Sarah opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll move out. I already have an attorney. I’ve already consulted a divorce attorney. I know what property I’ll be entitled to. He’s already drawn up a settlement decree. All you have to do is have your lawyer look at this document and you can sign it, and I guess we can be done. I won’t fight you on custody issues. Nate needs his father. I won’t take that away from him.”

  I once again wanted to hit her. She didn’t even mention Amelia. She apparently just assumed that Amelia wasn’t going to be around. “What about Amelia? She’s a girl. She needs her mother. What about her? She needs her mother. She needs her mother. She needs her mother.” I couldn’t stop repeating that last line. It just came out, again and again, and every time I said it, I saw Sarah flinch. I guessed that was why I kept saying it. I wanted to see the pain on Sarah’s face. I needed to see that she wasn’t the cold bitch that she was coming off as right at that moment. “What about Amelia? Are you really just going to abandon her right when she needs you the most?”

  “She’ll get over it,” she said crisply. “Are we done here?”

  “Yes. We’re done.”

  She nodded her head and then disappeared into the crowd. I saw her go through the front door and I felt hollow. I just couldn’t believe that I had ever loved her. She was such a weak person. Such a shallow person. I didn’t know what happened to the Sarah who was such a happy person, the Sarah who would explode into peals of laughter at my stupid jokes. Amelia getting sick exposed the fissures. Now those fissures just exploded into a chasm. Right there at the bar.

  I went back to my table, where Garrett was still sitting. I sat down and he patted me on the back. “It’s tough,” he said. “You’ll get through this, buddy. God knows, you’ve gone through much worse than this. Any dude who can spend five years in prison for something he didn’t do, and live to tell the tale without so much as a scratch, isn’t a dude that I would ever count out.”

  I smiled, not feeling the smile at all. “I need to finish my drink and go home,” I said. “I have a long drive ahead of me.”

  “Sarah doesn’t. That guy, that prick with the slick hair, he lives around here. In Hyde Park. In one of those remodeled mansions.”

  “Oh?” I chuckled. “And how do you know this?”

  He shrugged his shoulders as he took a sip of his drink. “It’s my business to know stuff like that.” Then he grinned as he lifted up John’s wallet. “And I got his wallet.”

  At that, I laughed out loud and patted him on the back. “You do know that you’re going to have to turn that into the bar, don’t you?”

  “I know. I just lifted it from him because I wanted to see where he lives. At any rate, he lives around here if you want me to do some stake-outs for you.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “At this point, I don’t really care if they’re together. I just need to move on with my life.” I finished my drink. “Find out what you can about Austin Ward’s case. And follow up on all the leads you have on Shelly McMason. Those are the two people I care about right now. Them and my two children. Other than that…” I shook my head. “I’m all out of fucks to give.”

  Garrett finished his drink and we stood up and hugged. “I’ll see you later, buddy,” he said.

  “Later.”

  And we left.

  But not before Garrett went to the bar and turned in John’s wallet.

  Chapter 10

  I decided that I needed to pay Betsy Ward a visit, so I did. I wanted to see how she was doing, and I also wanted to reassure her that I was on Austin’s case. I didn’t yet know how things were going to go on Austin’s case, but I wanted her to know that I was going to work on it.

  Truth be told, however, I was somewhat reluctant to commit to Austin’s case. While I knew that there was medical malpractice involved in Austin’s death, I just didn’t think that actual damages would ever cover the cost of trying the case. If I couldn’t come up with some way to stick punitives on the case, I didn’t really know if I could go forward. So, part of the reason why I was going to speak with Betsy was to see if she could tell me anything that I could hang my hat on. Anything that would perk up my ears, make me think that the case wasn’t a lost cause. Make me think that there was a chance that our recovery on this case would be large enough to make it worth everybody’s while. The last thing that I wanted was for the jury to come back with $50,000 damages, which wouldn’t touch our cost of bringing the case to trial. Our firm would only recover about $20,000 if the award was $50,000, because the contractual obligation was that our contingency fee was 40% of the total award. We would end up way in the hole on any award that was less than a half million.

  I went to Betsy’s house, which was a Tudor home in the Armour Hills area, not too far from where I lived. I knew that Betsy now lived alone. Her husband, Austin’s father, had p
assed away from the same type of cancer that struck down Austin – leukemia. From what I understood, Betsy and her husband Robert were newlyweds when Robert was diagnosed. She was already pregnant by that time, even though she didn’t know it yet. Robert lived for five years after his diagnosis, going through chemotherapy, blood transfusions and finally a bone marrow transplant. Betsy told me that losing Robert that way was the toughest thing that she had ever done. Seeing him waste away before her eyes was something that she wouldn’t ever forget.

  “He was 225 pounds when we met,” she said. “A big, strong guy. All muscle, really. By the time he passed, he was only 120 pounds and too weak to even get out of bed. Nobody should have to go through that. Nobody.”

  Her words struck me like daggers as I thought about Amelia in her own hospital bed, awaiting her own bone marrow transplant. She had a different kind of cancer than did Robert and Austin, but her treatment had much in common with their treatments. Chemotherapy, blood transfusions and bone marrow transplants. It was crazy that Austin got his leukemia 16 years after Robert got his, and the treatment protocol hadn’t really changed all that much in all those years. Yes, there were clinical trials where they were trying different things. But the overall protocol hadn’t changed significantly in all those years. Where was scientific research? What was the government doing with all those scientific grants? All those brilliant scientific minds – why haven’t they come up with a less barbaric way of dealing with the dread disease of cancer?

  I knocked on Betsy’s door, and she answered it. I was astounded when I looked at her. She looked like she hadn’t showered in days – her hair was greasy and matted. She had enormous bags under her blue eyes and she had lost a considerable amount of weight just since the last time I saw her. She had a blank look on her face, almost as if she didn’t quite recognize me as I stood in front of her.

  A cat came up and wrapped itself around her leg, and two dogs had bounded to the door to bark at me. Yet she made no move to let me in the door.

  I had called her to arrange this appointment. I wondered if she remembered that. The way that she was acting right at that moment told me that she didn’t remember that I was coming over. She probably didn’t remember things from minute to minute.

  I wondered if this was my fate, too. If I lose Amelia, would I be a depressed mess with no will to live? I had to think that wasn’t going to happen to me. I had Nate to consider, and a hectic and stressful job. Lots of clients who needed me. I didn’t know about Betsy’s job – all that I knew was that she was on FMLA leave of absence from wherever it was she worked, and, from the looks of things, she hadn’t yet gone back to work.

  She finally opened the screen door without a word and I stepped into the home. One of the little dogs scampered onto the porch and ran out onto the lawn, and I finally heard Betsy speak. “Sparky, come back. Come here,” she yelled as the dog ran safely back into the house. “You know better than that.”

  Somehow, the dog running onto the lawn brought Betsy back to life. “Excuse my mess,” she said, her hand waving around her living room. I saw that there were empty pizza boxes on the coffee table – three of them, all from Dominoes – and untold boxes of Kleenexes strewn along the floor. On the fireplace mantel were three Chinese takeout boxes stacked up, the top one half-full with shrimp and vegetables in a light sauce. There were magazines and newspapers strewn all around the floor. On the big-screen TV there was a Netflix series playing – I recognized it as Orange is the New Black. It was paused on the scene where the lead character gets served a bloody tampon in her English Muffin, and my stomach turned. I couldn’t stand that scene the first time around, and having it paused there made me want to get sick, so I turned away.

  She shook her head. “I’ve been doing nothing but binge-watching shows for the past week,” she said. “This is my second time on this show. I just got finished with binge-watching Game of Thrones,” she said, “and before that, it was Lost. Which pretty much sums up my state of mind these days – I’m lost.”

  “I hated that show,” I said. “Because of the way it ended. So many questions left unanswered.”

  “I know, right?” she said with a smile. “The ending made about as much sense as the series did, but that’s okay. It was a good series anyhow. Anyhow, those aren’t the only series I’ve watched this past week. I haven’t been sleeping. All I’ve been doing is watching shows and ordering takeout Chinese and pizza. As you’ve probably been able to tell.”

  She cleared off a spot on the couch by throwing some magazines on the floor, and I sat down.

  “I would offer you something to drink,” she said. “Which is another thing I’ve been doing, pretty much non-stop. I have to go back to work on Monday, and I don’t know how I’ll ever manage it. But maybe it will be good for me. Give me something to do other than drink, eat shitty food and watch shitty television. Shitty Netflix, that is.”

  I put my hand up. I tried not to drink alcohol during the day. I was a social drinker, anyhow, not one to drink until I got drunk. “Thank you for the thought,” I said. “But I don’t drink during the day. I will take some water, though.”

  She went into the kitchen and brought back a bottled water. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “I actually have plenty of bottled water. That’s the only thing in my fridge, really. I haven’t gone to the store in God-knows-how-long, but I always buy my bottled water at Costco, which means that I always have a shit-ton of it in my fridge.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. “How are you?”

  “How do you think?” she asked. “Seriously. Austin was the only thing I had. At one time, I had a family – I had a husband and a son. And a dog. Not these current dogs, but another dog. His name was Toby. He was a beautiful German Shepherd, very protective and very loving. Now I don’t have Robert, I don’t have Austin, and I don’t even have Toby.” She hung her head and put her thumb and forefinger on the bridge of her nose. “And I’m pissed. So pissed.”

  She got up off the couch and then got a piece of paper that she handed to me. “Here,” she said. “I got results back from my son’s genetic test. It turns out that he had a certain gene that caused leukemia. I would imagine that Robert had the exact same gene. It’s called the BCR, and I’ve been looking it up on the Internet. I’m really angry because my doctor didn’t even think to have Austin genetically tested. I just had this done because a friend of mine told me that I should try to figure out if Austin’s leukemia was genetic, because he had the same type of leukemia that his father had. Why didn’t my doctor advise me to get Austin genetically tested? He could have been treated with gene therapy. That probably would have helped him much more than what they were doing to him.”

  I looked at the paper that went through Austin’s genetic profile. It did seem that he had that gene. I was going to have to do my research on it and find out more about it. If what Betsy was saying was correct – that Austin might have responded to genetic therapy – then that might be significant in terms of our case. I was searching for some way to show that Austin might have lived a long and prosperous life if he wasn’t killed by a drug that he was clearly allergic to. That was my main sticking point – the fact that Austin’s life expectancy was a matter of months, not years, and certainly not decades. That the bone marrow transplant he received was something that was a last resort and certainly wasn’t a sure thing. We were going to have dueling doctors on this case as it was – my doctor was going to have to testify that Austin could have lived many years if he wasn’t given Propofol, and their doctor was going to testify that Austin was on death’s door, and nothing was going to change that.

  But could this genetic testing have changed things? Could Austin have been saved by genetic therapy? That might make a difference in the jury’s eyes. Austin might have had a chance for a complete cure, but-for him dying on the operating table. It was certainly an argument worth a shot.

  I sighed as I thought about the fact that this genetic test was a shot, but
just barely. This case was still risky. It was a risky strategy to try to hang my hat on the possibility that Austin could have been cured with gene therapy. Plus, it meant that I was going to have to hire one more expert – I was going to have to hire a geneticist to explain to the jury about gene therapy and why Austin could have been helped by it. That just made my case even more expensive to try.

  “Does this help?” Betsy asked me. “That Austin had that genetic marker, does it help? Can you sue his oncologist for not recommending the test?”

  “I’ll have to inquire with my expert about that one,” I said. “I’m not sure if not recommending a genetic test would be a breach of the doctor’s duty to his patient.”

  “If it’s not a breach of his duty, then what happens?”

  “There’s not a negligence suit against your oncologist,” I said, “Dr. West. For a negligence case, you have to show duty, breach, causation, damages. So, you have to show a duty, and you have to show a breach of that duty. The standard for a breach is reasonable standard of care. If a doctor’s actions were somehow outside the reasonable standard of care, we possibly have a negligence action. If they aren’t outside the reasonable standard of care, then we don’t. That part is pretty simple. So, my expert will have to tell you whether or not Dr. West breached his duty to Austin by operating outside the reasonable standard of care. I’m not quite sure if he did or not. I’ll have to ask Dr. Kaur about that.”

  “And that means…”

  “That means that we can’t bring a suit against Dr. West. The state of Missouri is pretty strict about that. If my expert witness doesn’t sign off, then I can’t bring a suit. Dr. Kaur has to find a breach of the standard of care.”