Michael Palmer - The Society

Thirty-five minutes.

“Dr. Hollister is one of my partners. You’ll really like her.”

“Now I don’t want her to be my doctor.”

“Why? You said you haven’t even met her.”

“I want you, Dr. Grant. If I had known you were here, I would have insisted they refer me to you.”

“But-”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re in a hurry. I’ll just cancel this appointment and reschedule with you. We can talk then.”

“Grace, we make it a point in our practice not to switch patients.”

“I’m sure Dr. Hollister will understand when I tell her that I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Thirty minutes.

Will sighed inwardly. “Why don’t you and your husband come into my office,” he said.

“There is so much about me and my upbringing and my life that I would never let you or anyone else at the soup kitchen know,” Grace said as Will held her mammograms up to the window. As she predicted, the cancer was quite easily discernible-a marble-size density in the upper outer quadrant of her left breast. If the adjacent lymph nodes were cancer free, the lumpectomy to remove it would be quite routine. “You and some of the others at the soup kitchen were incredibly kind and nonjudgmental,” she went on, “but you were the only one who really pushed through my anger and denial to talk with me. Even when I was filthy and acting abominably, you kept trying. Then one night you told me that it was horribly difficult for you to see so many patients who wanted to live but had terminal illness, then to have to come to the soup kitchen and see me systematically killing myself. You gave me the name of a priest. Do you remember?”

“Father Charlie,” Will said wistfully. “I remember now. He was a patient of mine, sober in AA for many years.”

“And he was dying of cancer. You knew that when you sent me to him. He talked to me for a long time, then he arranged for me to go to a special treatment center. He never would tell me how it got paid for. I certainly didn’t have any money. I was there for nine months, during which time I had almost no contact with the outside world. While I was there, I got a letter Father Charlie had written to me just before he passed away, telling me how proud he was of me.”

“He was a wonderful man.”

“I went back to school in L.A. Eventually I got a master’s degree in social work and married Mark. It’s no surprise that I specialize in addictions. Last year Mark took a job as the head of the English department at Maplewood Academy, and we moved back here.”

“Now this,” Will said, gesturing to the mammogram.

“Now this,” Grace echoed wistfully, but without rancor.

“And I can’t talk you out of wanting to change from Dr. Hollister to me?”

“Absolutely not, unless you’re not on Steadfast Health’s list of approved providers.”

“I am.”

“Dr. Grant,” Mark Davis said, “take it from me. When Grace makes up her mind like this, there’s no sense even trying to argue with her.”

“Okay, okay, you guys wait here. I’ll see what I can do.”

As he left his office, Will stepped around the carton of material he had planned to review.

Well , he thought, it’s a good thing no one ever died of humiliation .

If Will expected Susan Hollister to give up her patient without discussion, he was mistaken. The two of them had clashed occasionally over treatment philosophy or a surgical approach, but even those conflicts were short-lived.

“Will, why didn’t you just tell this Mrs. Davis that we simply don’t do things like this in our practice?” Susan asked. “You know as well as I do how many times when we’re covering for one another, a patient decides she likes me better than you because I’m a woman, or Gordo better than me because the patient’s Scottish, or you better than Gordo because you’re not overweight. If we aren’t firm about not doing this sort of thing, there will be nothing but chaos and discord.”

A confrontation with Susan on this of all nights was the last thing Will wanted or needed. In no more than ten minutes he had to leave for Boston.

“I thought that because Grace had never met you,” he tried, “and had a history with me, we might make an exception.”

Susan was clearly exasperated.

“I don’t think so. This woman was referred to me, and I feel as if I should take care of her.”

Will checked his watch.

“Susan, I can’t believe I’m stuck in the middle like this. Listen, why don’t you come over and talk to her. I only have a few minutes before I have to head into the city, and I’d like to get this resolved. The poor woman has breast cancer. It seems the least we can do in this situation is to let her choose someone she’s known for ten years to operate on her.”

Susan glared at him for a moment, then visibly softened.

“I’m sorry, Will,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. My nose was just out of joint. This isn’t the typical case I was talking about. You two do have a history. Go tell your Grace Davis that it’s fine for you to take care of her. I’ll even assist in doing the procedure if you need me.”

Will felt a flood of relief.

“Thanks, Suze. In case you couldn’t guess, at this moment, my mind is on other things than who does this breast biopsy.”

“I understand. I’ll see you in Boston. And, Will, relax about tonight. I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead.”

Faneuil Hall had been a gathering place for the artists and intelligentsia of Boston for more than 250 years. Over that time, its grasshopper weathervane, still perched atop the building’s cupola, had become a symbol of “The Hub,” a city characterized by liberal thinking and more than 140 colleges and universities. Samuel Adams and other patriots once spoke beneath its roof, rallying the colonists to strike for independence from the British. None of the building’s history was lost on Will as he parked in a nearby garage, entered the first-floor market area, showed his ID to the guard blocking the stairway, and ascended to the second-floor meeting hall through a metal detector.

There were still nearly forty-five minutes to go before he and Boyd Halliday were scheduled to square off. A sign at the foot of the stairs, adjacent to the metal detector, announced that, for security reasons, ticketed guests only would be admitted beginning thirty minutes before the forum. Two managed-care executives shot to death, a third killed by a bomb. Speculation on the killer’s identity and motive was rampant, with most guesses leaning toward a disgruntled HMO patient or patient’s relative. There was some pressure from law enforcement to postpone the forum or to cancel it altogether, but in the end, it was felt that the second floor at Faneuil Hall was small enough for private security and the police to cover, and that the public was sick of bending to terrorist threats of any kind.

The meeting hall was inspiring-an elegant seventy-six-foot square featuring a thirty-foot-high ceiling and walls adorned with portraits of George Washington, Samuel and John Adams, and Daniel Webster, among others. Doric columns supported a three-tiered balcony running along the sides and back of the hall. Four hundred wooden folding chairs had been set out in neat rows. All would soon be filled. At the front of the hall was a stage and on it a draped dais with five name placards- Boyd Halliday, Excelsius Health; Marshall Gold, Excelsius Health; Roselyn Morton, Wellness Project; Thomas Lemm, MD, Hippocrates Society; Willard Grant, MD, Hippocrates Society.

Willard!

Could the forum possibly be off to a worse start, Will wondered. First, matters surrounding Grace Peng had eliminated his rehearsal time, now Willard. Will disliked the name as much today as he had the first time he was teased about it. He disliked it as much as he hated beets. He disliked it enough to have insisted that the shortened version be on all his diplomas and certifications, and had not changed it legally only because he had never gotten around to it.