Richard Mabry - Code Blue

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

Cathy remembered her own experience when she'd had a wart removed from her finger while in med school. "My treatment felt like a burn, and it took a while for the pain to go away. After that, though, it was fine."

"What about the high-ver-natum or whatever you said?" Greiner asked.

"This is the Hyfrecator." She pointed to a rectangular off- white plastic box sitting on the waist-high treatment cabinet behind her. A thin black cord connected the box to a pencil-like probe with an angled needle on the tip. "It's an electrocautery unit. Probably the most common one in the world."

"So how does it work?"

"I usually inject a little local anesthetic. Then I put the tip of the needle in contact with the wart and deliver a low-voltage electric current that makes it shrivel up. A scab forms, and when it comes off, the tissue underneath it is all healed. Same end result as freezing."

Greiner seemed to think about the options. "I don't see any need to go somewhere else for this. What you're suggesting sounds fine to me." He shrugged. "Let's do it."

Fifteen minutes later, while Jane made Greiner's follow-up appointment, Cathy thought back to her reasons for going into family practice. One of the main ones was the ability to offer her patients a broad range of services. She had no intention of taking patients away from the specialists. She referred more complex cases to them and was glad to have their expertise to lean on. No, it all boiled down to what she thought of as her "business model." Give the patient the best care with as little inconvenience to them as possible. Now if the credentials committee would give her all the privileges she needed to do that, maybe she could get on with her life.

Cathy looked up from the forms strewn across her desk. Was that a knock at the door? She looked at her watch. Was it after six already? She hurried to the office's front door, unlocked it, and beckoned Will inside before relocking it.

"Sorry I didn't hear you at first. I've been doing paperwork for about three-quarters of an hour, and I guess I got lost in it." She motioned him to the chair across from her desk. "Give me five more minutes and we can leave."

"No problem." He gestured toward the stack of papers. "If you have that many insurance claims to file, business must be picking up."

"I wish. Most of these are claims we have to re-file because the insurance company either paid incorrectly or denied improperly. Sometimes I think they do that to hang on to their money a bit longer. I wonder how many doctors' offices take the denials at face value, bill the patient for the balance, and let it go at that."

Will leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankles. "That's what makes you special, Cathy. You're not 'most doctors.' You take the time to care. The folks in Dainger are lucky to have you practicing here."

She signed the last form and tossed it on top of all the others. "I hope more of them recognize that. Until some of these insurance claim checks come in, it's pretty slim pickings around here."

She emptied the pockets of her white coat before rolling it into a ball. "Be right back. I need to toss this into the laundry hamper." That accomplished, she pulled her purse from her bottom desk drawer and grabbed her jacket from the hanger on the back of the door. "Let's get out of here. I'm starved, and if what your mother serves on a weekday is anything like what she cooks on Sunday, I'm ready for it."

In the parking lot, she pulled her keys out of her purse and pressed the remote to unlock her car. "Shall I follow you?"

"You can, or you can ride with me and I'll come by in the morning to pick you up and take you to work. That way I get to see you even more."

Cathy thought about it for a moment. Why not? She locked her car and allowed Will to open the door of his pickup for her. When they were both belted in, she said, "What makes you so sure I'll end up staying with your folks?"

He backed out of the parking space and steered into the street before he answered. A big grin spread across his face. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'd like to call your attention to the following points. Dr. Sewell's back is probably still sore from the Elam's couch. She likes my parents almost as much as I do. And…" He paused for emphasis."My mother's cooking would lure an escaped convict back to prison."

Cathy gave him a playful punch on the arm. "Wait until I'm back in my apartment. I'll cook for you again. But, in the meantime, I'd be happy to enjoy your folks' hospitality-and your mother's cooking."

Cathy opened one of the boxes Will and his father had just carried to the Kennedy's spare room. Because Joe and his impromptu work detail hadn't yet finished the new stairs, and Will adamantly refused to let Cathy climb up the ladder, she'd had to give him a detailed list of what to pack for her. This had proved sort of embarrassing to Cathy, but he assured her that attorneys, like physicians, were hard to shock.

Dora Kennedy stood in the doorway after the Kennedy men withdrew to give Cathy a degree of privacy as she unpacked. "Dear, can I help you?"

Cathy shook her head. "I think I'll be fine. Again, I really appreciate your letting me stay here. I hope it won't be too long."

"Stay as long as you need to. There are clean sheets on the bed and clean towels in your bathroom. And you just make yourself at home anywhere in the house."

"You've really made me feel at home." Cathy thought about what she wanted to say. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth. "You know, Mrs. Kennedy, I'm more comfortable here than the last time I stayed with my parents."

"Cathy, I mean, Dr. Sewell-"

"Please. I've always been Cathy to you and your husband. Let's don't change that."

"Cathy then. I know you may not want to talk about it, but everyone around here knows about your mother's problems. I'm sure you must have been uncomfortable when you were around her after she got to be so difficult. But before she got sick, she was a wonderful person. And your daddy took good care of her."

Cathy shook her head. "Sorry. That's not what I've heard."

Mrs. Kennedy appeared unfazed. "Dear, you can't be a pastor's wife for almost forty years without learning a few things. You've heard rumors that your daddy wasn't faithful to your mother, haven't you?"

"Yes." Cathy started to say more, but decided to leave it at that. After all, most of what she suspected was unproven. But how do you get hard evidence that your father, who'd been dead for over three years, had cheated on your mother?

"I can't give you the details-I know them, but you'll have to hear them from someone else-but I can tell you this for sure." Dora moved from the doorway into the room and picked up the Bible that lay on the bedside table. "With my hand on this Bible, I'll tell you that your daddy was not unfaithful to your mother."

Cathy couldn't believe it. Emotions swirled through her head like a weather vane in a Texas tornado. Relief. Regret. Anguish. Confusion. She slumped onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. "I so want to believe that."

Dora's voice was soft. "Believe it, dear."

Cathy felt tears form. "I feel so guilty. I didn't want to believe my suspicions about Daddy, but I let them taint my memory of him anyway. Daddy, please forgive me." She choked back a sob. "And God forgive me too."

The bed sagged beside Cathy as Dora Kennedy sat down and gently patted her shoulder.

Her voice was like a gentle wind. "Dear, would you like me to pray with you?"

"Please," Cathy choked out. "Yes, please."

Cathy and Will sat across from each other at the Kennedy dining table. Will made notes on a yellow legal pad while Cathy shared the details of her conversation with Mrs. Gladstone. "I don't know why Gail Nix would have it in for me, but apparently, she's the one who bullied her husband into filing the malpractice suit."