Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tabitha could really do without all the media.
Even though the hospital had a designated area for them, vans and journalists spilled into every lot, every empty space. Cameras everywhere. Microphones galore.
She supposed one of their patients could be considered high profile.
Politicians were treated like VIPs in many arenas, but at Seascape Shores General, every patient had equal rights and equal opportunities for treatment.
And it wasn’t like an assemblyman was the most famous person to walk through their doors.
With their relatively close proximity to Los Angeles, the hospital had treated many actors, directors, and influencers.
Assemblyman Taylor hardly registered on Tabitha’s radar.
And some of that had to do with his condition. Of the five men, he had the fewest injuries. Dehydration was his biggest battle at the moment. Oh, and the curious part where he couldn’t actually remember being on an illegal fishing expedition.
The original story that Mark tried to weave held little water, as Tabitha knew from the beginning.
Seemed like his staff also came to the same realization, because now the supposed tale was that Assemblyman Taylor hadn’t known the fishing charter had plans to hunt great whites.
He assumed everything was aboveboard and that they were merely on a sightseeing expedition where he had hoped to learn more about the at-risk-of-becoming-endangered creatures.
Honestly, it didn’t matter much to Tabitha what they told the media. The truth would come to light eventually. It always did.
Plus, she was much more interested in another patient from the missing charter: a man in his fifties that was dehydrated like the rest of the crew but also came in with blunt force trauma to his abdomen and a severe laceration on his left arm.
Scans and x-rays revealed multiple broken ribs, but it was another altogether unrelated discovery that had Tabitha even more concerned for her patient.
She looked at the scan again, then at Dr. Clement, the head of oncology.
“I would never suggest that an illegal boating excursion is a blessing in disguise,” the tall doctor shrugged. Her blonde hair skated along her shoulders as she shook her head. “But in his case, I think it just might be.”
Cancer presented itself in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it showed up as a dull ache. Other times as a swollen lymph node. Sometimes, it wasn’t until a patient was really sick that the tumor—or multiple tumors—was ultimately discovered.
Tabitha still couldn’t understand why this man hadn’t presented with any of those symptoms though, considering the sizable mass on his liver.
“What’s your plan of action for him?” Tabitha was curious.
She’d already sutured him up when he first came in.
He wouldn’t remain her patient for long, but she never liked it when she had to hand off a patient to another doctor for an altogether different sort of treatment.
Her goal was always to do the repairs and then send them home to recover.
“We’re going to see if he has family. He’s a good candidate for a living liver donation. It hasn’t spread to his lymph nodes, so that gives him some time.”
Tabitha trusted Dr. Clement’s judgment implicitly.
“I’ll be checking in on him in the next hour,” Tabitha said. “I’ll see what I can find out. You’ve already told him the prognosis?”
“Yes. We just got the pathology report back this morning and gave him the news. He’s handling it surprisingly well for a man lost at sea for three days.”
“He’s dodged death once already this week. We’ll make sure he can do it again.”
Shifts were never considered slow, not as a trauma surgeon, but today, the ER was calmer, something Tabitha was grateful for considering the drama that continued to surround the fishermen.
Some patients were easier than others, and this was definitely the case when it came to these men.
Not to anyone’s surprise, Assemblyman Taylor was a nightmare, making demands that the hospital just couldn’t fulfill.
He requested certain foods. Asked to switch rooms. Had way more visitors than was allowed and spoke at full volume on phone calls that disrupted hospital staff and neighboring patients.
But James—the patient with the recent cancer diagnosis—was what Tabitha referred to as low-drama. It was as though the man didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. He rarely pressed his buzzer, even when it was evident he was in pain and needed more medicine to take the edge off.
That afternoon, Tabitha came by to check on his bandage and found him gazing out the window, a wistful, faraway look in his eyes. It wasn’t from discomfort. She could tell the difference. She approached him quietly, not wanting to break his reverie.
“Oh.” He glanced her direction without startling. “Dr. Parker.”
“Hi there, James. How’s that arm feeling?”
He looked down at the bandaged arm held closely to his side with a sling. “Can’t feel it, so I suppose that’s a good thing. And you can call me Jim.”
“Can’t feel your arm?” She came closer. “Or can’t feel the pain?”
“To be completely candid, can’t feel much of anything. But I don’t think that’s all physical.”
The poor man had been through it. Lost at sea. Caught in a storm. Given a diagnosis that no one ever deserves to hear. All within the span of a few days. It was a lot to take in and enough to make anyone numb.
“I know that Dr. Clement has been in to talk with you, but I wanted to check in to see how you were doing with everything. And to ask a few questions.”
“She already did, and yes, I’ve got family. But none that would want to help me out in this scenario.”
Family was complicated. Tabitha understood that. But sometimes facing mortality changed things. Sometimes burned bridges could be rebuilt. Cut ties re-bound.
“What family do you have around, Jim?”
“A brother, but he’s not really what I’d call around.”
“I think it would be worth reaching out. Did Dr. Clement talk to you about living liver transplants? They can be incredibly successful, with five-year survival rates close to eighty percent.”
He winced. Tabitha didn’t believe it was from pain, though.
“I’ll just have to take my chances that I can beat this without a transplant.”
Tabitha pulled in a breath. “Can I speak to you openly for a moment, Jim? I’m a trauma surgeon, so I’ll leave the specifics to Dr. Clement, our head of oncology.
But I do know that if you plan to wait around for a liver, it could be a very, very long time before you make it to the top of the list. To put it frankly, you’re just not sick enough yet.
But if you can find a living match that is willing to donate a section of their liver to you, your odds are going to increase exponentially,” she explained, pointblank.
“Don’t you think it’s worth a phone call?
When was the last time you saw your brother? ”
Jim had been looking out the window, but the moment Tabitha asked the question, he cut his eyes back to hers. “When he was trying to kill me. Right before he was thrown in jail.”
Tabitha couldn’t do this.
She looked at the text again, guilt swimming through her stomach.
It was nice of Camille to invite her and Ben over for dinner, but there was no way she could comfortably sit at a table across from Foster, not when she had news that could completely upend his entire life.
She usually didn’t have trouble keeping her patients’ identities to herself. Most of the time, she didn’t know them personally. And while she didn’t truly know Jim, she certainly knew of the man.
The way he’d ruined so much of Foster’s life. How he’d fallen into drugs, fallen in love with Foster’s wife, and intentionally placed Foster’s children in harm’s way.
From what Tabitha could make of it, Jim had cleaned up his act over the years. Obviously, he’d come into money in some way, since he was able to join an expensive fishing expedition that only a man with some sort of wealth could participate in.
But this brother was the sole reason Foster found himself imprisoned as a younger man, and those demons were ones Foster still battled. His anger. His response to that anger. Tabitha knew it all stemmed from that fateful day when Foster took things—and Jim—into his own hands.
Was there any way Foster could overlook all of that now? This was a big ask. A huge ask. It was one thing to donate an organ to a loved one. Another thing entirely to undergo surgery, recovery, and everything that went along with it for someone you hated. Someone you very nearly attempted to kill.
Tabitha knew forgiveness was a powerful force, but was Foster even there?
Probably not.
She punched out a text reply, declining the invite to dinner but thanking her sister all the same.
Tabitha arrived at Ben’s apartment later than planned, the typically quick commute made longer due to the disagreeable weather.
Continuous rain made the streets slick and drivers more cautious, and it made Tabitha’s mind run a mile a minute as she tried to work through this scenario in her head.
Because that’s where it would have to stay.
Tucked away in her own brain to deal with.
She wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone about it, and that was a cross she typically bore with ease.
But not when it involved the people she loved.
She let herself into Ben’s apartment with the key he’d given her for emergencies a while back, and only recently she found herself using it much more casually.
“I’ve already got a glass of wine ready for you.” Ben met her in his kitchen, zinfandel in hand. He obviously picked up on something on her face because he halted the moment she stepped into the room. “But it looks like maybe you could use the full bottle? More of that drama with the assemblyman?”
She could pretend that was it. It was all over the media. But truth be told, she hadn’t given Assemblyman Taylor a second thought since her conversation with Jim that afternoon.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” She eagerly took the glass of wine. That first sip was heaven. The second burned deliciously going down. And the third warmed her entire body, all the way out to the tips of her fingers.
“I hate all of the exposure that guy’s getting.
” Ben cocked a hip against the counter and poured himself a glass of the late harvest into crystal Tabitha recognized as a wedding present.
Had he really kept that set from so long ago?
She figured it would have been sold at a garage sale by now, or at least made its way into a donation pile.
“It’s almost as though they forget that there were four other guys on the boat. ”
Tabitha hadn’t forgotten. She coughed softly to combat the acid from a large gulp that tried to drown out more than words.
“Do you think they’ll end up releasing their identities?” Ben asked. “I mean, they’ll have to if there is any sort of criminal investigation, right?”
“To my knowledge there isn’t going to be one. They weren’t actively hunting the sharks, and they have little proof that that was even their intent.”
“Well, I’m just glad the boat was found and that, from the sounds of it, their injuries and ailments were pretty minor.
” He stepped closer to his ex-wife, picking up on something.
Her stress, maybe? His tender gaze searched her out without landing on the true reason for her tension.
“But I know it’s been chaos at the hospital, and that environment is never fun to work in.
Hopefully in a few days all of the excitement will die down and things will get back to normal. ”
There never truly was a ‘normal’ to the ER, but Tabitha would gladly welcome moving forward from this particular emergency.
She just had a sneaking hunch things were about to get more chaotic, not less.