Chapter 12
ANNA
Anna regretted the argument as soon as Victoria fled her office.
Not that it had happened, exactly; they both had emotions that had needed an outlet.
But it shouldn’t have been so volatile. She should have done something to deescalate it, that was her job, wasn’t it?
Shouldn’t something she had trained in, practiced regularly with patients, shouldn’t that have been her first instinct when it came to her relationship… or whatever it was?
She sank back down onto the office sofa and cradled her head in her hands. Not only was she a therapist with shaky ethical boundaries, she was a lover with awful communication skills. Was there anything she could get right?
Well. Yes. There was one thing.
Anna lifted her head and gazed sightlessly out of her office window, her mind a million miles away.
She couldn’t go after Victoria; their emotions were running too high, and Victoria needed to come down on her own.
And as much as it pained Anna to even think about it, the best path was to allow Victoria to process things and, if she wanted to talk to Anna again, she would find her.
And if she never came back, Anna would have to process that for herself.
What Anna could do at this moment was manage her own responsibility for the mess they found themselves in now.
Getting to her feet, she checked her appearance in the mirror.
What little makeup she wore was slightly smudged around her eyes from crying, so she found a tissue and tidied that up.
Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, so she took it down and smoothed it all back into place.
When she was as put back together as she was going to get, Anna set off to look for Elaine Martin.
She didn’t have to look too hard. Elaine’s office door in the Cardio wing was cracked open, so Anna peered in to see her at her desk, her white-haired head bowed over a patient file. Gingerly, she knocked on the door. “Elaine?”
Elaine’s head jerked up, and an almost comical variety of expressions flashed over her face in a matter of seconds—shock, guilt, a touch of anger, disappointment, exasperation.
Just as rapidly, they were all smoothed away into a bland mask of polite welcome.
“Dr. Monroe. Please do come in. We need to have a talk.”
“Ah.” Anna slipped through the door and closed it behind her. “I take it you’ve heard something then.”
“I’ve heard an earful from Marcus Kinkade, to start with.” Elaine gestured for Anna to sit down. “He’s a jackass. So you can imagine how that conversation went.” As Anna took her seat, though, Elaine’s face was set sternly, her eyes narrowed. “All that said, you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Anna shrugged. “There’s really not all that much to tell.
Yes, Victoria and I kissed in a stairwell.
It wasn’t something either of us planned.
She was crashing out after that mass casualty event.
I had been assisting nurses in the ER, I saw her come out from a surgery she’d been pulled into and saw right away she was not doing well. ”
Elaine steepled her hands in front of her, gaze opaque but steady. “I see. Go on.”
“I began to guide Victoria through a grounding exercise. At the end of the exercise, she kissed me.” There seemed no point in evading or obfuscating what had happened, not now.
“I admit, I leaned into it, but then I broke it off and left the area.” She lifted her chin high.
“I did not see Victoria again as a patient after that. Within a week or so, I had her care transferred to my colleague—you’ll remember that from our conversation. ”
“If I’m reading between the lines correctly, I’d have to say that there were feelings on your side of some kind, and you knew about them.” Elaine’s keen gaze was unwavering. “Is that right?”
“I had felt an attraction, yes,” Anna admitted.
“For some time. But I had no intention of acting on it at all. Victoria was my patient. I had a duty of care to treat her, and I did. I worked with her, gave her tools to help manage her issues. And when things got out of hand, I found her the best alternative care provider I could. My understanding is that things have been going well between them.”
“Mine as well,” Elaine confirmed. “I do wish you might have transferred that care earlier, when you realized there was some sort of emotional connection.”
“I thought it was one-sided,” Anna said frankly. “I really thought she hated me. So there would be no danger. And it was a challenge, trying to get through to her and make her see why she needed help.” She offered a wry half-smile. “I’m Alaskan. It’s not in me to back down from a challenge.”
“I can see that.” At last, Elaine’s face relaxed, ever so slightly, with a hint of a smile of her own. “Well, it’s a very, very narrow thing, but I think you have more or less avoided an ethical dilemma here. What I don’t know is how this will all affect Marcus Kinkade’s crusade.”
“I’m not her therapist anymore, but I think I have a way to get him to back down,” Anna mused, rubbing her chin in thought. “We have that evaluatory board meeting in a couple of days, where I officially discharge her from my care and into Cam’s. I have… an idea.”
“Should you let me in on it?” Elaine asked. “If there’s anything I can do to help…”
Anna pondered. “No. I don’t think so. I think I want to keep your hands as clean as possible here.
That can only help Victoria.” Her mind was racing as she got to her feet.
“I need to go review the hospital policies around terminable offenses… fraternization as well, I think. I suggest you and Steve refresh yourselves, too.”
“You’ve got it.” Elaine looked concerned, but nodded as Anna left.
She had two days to prepare.
She’d been so nervous at the first evaluatory panel. So frightened of misstepping, of causing Victoria real harm. Sitting outside waiting, clutching her folder, frightened as a schoolchild.
Today, Anna stood outside of the conference room, calm and poised. She did not flip through her portfolio, did not pace the floor, did not sit and bite her thumbnails. She simply waited.
Elaine poked her head out of the door. “Dr. Monroe, please join us now.”
Anna strode confidently into the room and stood before the panel. The usual suspects. Elaine, Steve Sundstrom, Marcus Kinkade, and Heather from HR. Elaine and Steve were regarding her warily; Heather blandly; and Marcus?
Well, he was smug, like a man who deserved a swift kick in the teeth. Anna bolted a pleasant smile onto her face and resisted the urge to bring her portfolio down on his head, Anne of Green Gables style. Redheaded like Anne Shirley she might be, but Marcus Kinkade was no Gilbert Blythe.
Ew.
“Thank you for joining us again, Dr. Monroe.” Elaine was again heading up the proceedings. “We appreciate you making the time today.”
“You’re very welcome.” Anna dipped her head in a gracious nod.
“Dr. Monroe is officially discharging Dr. Victoria Ellis from her care,” Elaine announced to the panel. “She’s turning the case over to Dr. Cameron O’Shea, PsyD.”
Steve opened his mouth to say something, but was beaten to the punch by Marcus Kinkade. “Would this have anything to do with the fact that Dr. Monroe was seen kissing Dr. Ellis on hospital grounds?” The man looked positively diabolical with glee as he asked the question in his slimy, oily voice.
Elaine, Steve, and Anna all stared at him as if they’d just watched him step in dog poop. Even Heather from HR, who had been his silent little ally last time, had an incredulous look on her face. Anna gathered herself together. So. This is how you want to play? All right.
She had prepared well for this, anticipating that Kinkade would be a gross human being.
Anna flipped open her portfolio and consulted her notes.
“As we discussed in our previous meeting, Dr. Victoria Ellis lost a patient during what should have been a routine coronary artery bypass surgery. This, coupled with being aggressively confronted by a patient’s family, triggered flashbacks to a previous patient loss Dr. Ellis was still unable to cope with fully.
” Anna took a deep breath. “The previous loss, occurring following another routine CABG procedure, was a patient with whom Dr. Ellis had a personal connection; this connection was known only to the patient and to Dr. Ellis.”
Elaine sat up very straight, surprised. “What? Why didn’t she disclose this?”
“That, she did not tell me,” Anna admitted. “But the patient had been a close childhood acquaintance, so the loss was catastrophic, and she didn’t deal with it. The second loss and subsequent confrontation compounded the issues.”
“In other words, she cracked up,” Kinkade said, twirling his ink pen between his fingers.
Anna leveled her best imitation of Victoria’s haughtiest Ice Queen stare at him.
“Mr. Kinkade, I find the language you use about a hospital employee’s mental state inappropriate and, frankly, surprising given that there’s a representative from Human Resources in this room with us.
” She turned her gaze onto Heather the Flunky, who said nothing, but had the grace to look abashed.
Kinkade rolled his eyes. “Fine. Go on.”