Stephen White - Critical Conditions

He opened the car door and stepped out. “Think seriously about Children’s. Think of it mostly in terms of what’s best for Merritt. And remember a couple of things. First, sometimes friends lose sleep for friends. And second, I’ll pay gas, even for this bus.”

“You know that’s not necessary.”

“Good, because I was kidding. I do want to know what that friend of Merritt’s says tomorrow.”

I was halfway home when I guessed at Merritt’s motive for killing Dead Ed.

For the first time, I had serious doubts about her innocence.

I drove the rest of the way home thinking about Sam’s proposal to hospitalize Merritt in Denver. There would certainly be advantages for John and Brenda, and God knew they could use any break I could offer them. I also suspected that Sam’s idea had something to do with Sherry and Brenda that he wasn’t talking about.

Emily was thrilled to see me. I’d left her in her dog run while I was gone and when I opened the gate she ran free like an escaped felon. I offered a quick walk down the lane and promised her a meal and a bowl of ice water upon our return. She seemed to think the plan was great, but then, Emily usually thought I was pretty brilliant.

It was one of my favorite things about her.

Lauren had called while I’d been out discovering that Merritt was likely to be arrested for murder.

Bee-eep.

“Hi, hon, it’s me. You there?…Thought you would be home. Is there a hockey game tonight? I can’t keep up. Things are fine here, all things considered. Mom’s doing the same. I miss you. I hope you miss me. Give Emily a big hug for me and call me tomorrow. I’m going to bed early. I love you. I mean that. I do.”

Lauren usually went to bed early these days. Since the serious exacerbation of her multiple sclerosis that had taken place last autumn, her accommodation to her illness had gone through a major metamorphosis.

Since she had disclosed her illness to me when we were dating, I’d always marveled at her adaptiveness, at how invisible she was able to make her disease appear-or, I guess, disappear. Sure, there were times when I knew she was anchored in place by fatigue or absolutely distracted by some ephemeral pain or unexplainable weakness, but most of the time Lauren managed to appear to live a life unencumbered by her illness. That I knew it wasn’t true only managed to make the illusion seem even more magical.

But no more.

The blindness that had struck her last fall persisted to some degree for weeks, and the residual effects were still apparent. Her vision, once so acute and a source of pride, was now compromised by gaps and holes and acuity problems that vexed her daily. She made a silent, unexplained transition from reading the newspaper to watching television in order to absorb current events, and the pile of novels by her bed wasn’t getting smaller anymore. She hinted twice that the nineteen-inch TV in our bedroom wasn’t really big enough for the room, was it?

The new one I purchased is twenty-seven inches. Much less optimistic than her, I pressed for a thirty-two-inch model. Denial, I think, caused her to insist on the smaller one.

Pain that once struck her occasionally was now a daily siege of heavy afternoon artillery, wreaking constant, wearying, aching damage on the bones and muscles of her legs and hips, sometimes on her hands and shoulders.

When I asked, she complained that her legs were often “heavy” now, and the once daily walks we took with Emily, our dog, on the dirt lanes near our home at sunset were now the exception and not the rule.

She didn’t return to work until February 1, and was only now beginning to adopt a caseload in the DA’s office that approached half-time. I could see in her face that she wasn’t sure she could really do it anymore, but she wasn’t ready, yet, to talk about not really doing it anymore.

Alone, I saw all these changes, and alone, I’m sure she did, too.

We rarely mentioned this new evolution of our relationship. I was giving her room to believe that her denial had some validity-that her stubborn belief that all things MS-related would soon pass would again be borne out.

The reality was going to be different this time, I suspected. Although MS is not contagious to other individuals, and I knew I would never catch it from her, I had begun to believe it was a communicable disease within families, and within relationships, and that our relationship was going to need to find a way to adjust to having been freshly stricken.

All these thoughts went through my head while I walked Emily and fed her and before I picked up the phone and punched in the number for The Children’s Hospital in Denver.

If I could pull it off, I decided, I was going to try to get Merritt transferred from Boulder to Denver in the middle of the night. I feared that if I procrastinated, by noon tomorrow Merritt might be on her way first to the Boulder Police Department and then to the state hospital at Fort Logan, out of my care, and out of my influence.

It was simple to discover that there were two female beds available at Children’s. I asked the charge nurse to hold one for me and started planning the moves I would need to make to get Merritt to Denver. I knew, to pull this scenario off on time, that I was going to need to be as quick on my feet as Tommy Tune.

Adrienne loved conspiracy, and I had no doubt that I could count on her. When I filled her in on the latest developments, she was irate at the stupidity of the police for even considering arresting Merritt for murder, and she made it clear she would love to interfere with their march to her patient’s door. She volunteered to take care of getting Marty Klein’s approval for the transfer and would ensure that the discharge and transfer orders were written and ready.

“What about the ambulance?”

Over the phone line I heard her snap her fingers.

“What about MedExcel and approvals?”

“This is the middle of the night, right?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Merritt is a high suicide risk?”

“Couldn’t be higher.”

“Sounds like an emergency transfer to me. I’ll certify that it’s a life-threatening situation and they’ll pay for the transfer and probably one inpatient day while they figure out how to save themselves any additional money. After that you’ll have to fight with them through the business office at Children’s to determine length of stay.”

“One day at a time is all I’m asking for now. I can live with that. The state will probably be paying Merritt’s bills after tomorrow, that is if they let us keep her at Children’s at all. And there are no guarantees about that.”

“What about her parents? What do they say about all this? Do they want her at Children’s?”

“I haven’t asked. That’s the last call I have to make. I assume that they’ll be agreeable. At least if Merritt goes to the inpatient unit at Children’s, they will have both their kids in one building. Let’s assume they concur, what do you say we set this up for four-thirty tomorrow morning? We get the paperwork in order and wheel Merritt out of her room in a wheelchair, make it look routine. Do the transfer to the ambulance stretcher down in the ER. There’s probably a cop outside her door already, and I don’t want the cop to get suspicious about what we’re doing until it’s too late to stop the transfer.”

“Why the dead of night?”

“Sooner the better. Cozy thinks she could be arrested any minute, although he doesn’t expect it until tomorrow. And the nurses at Children’s don’t really want her to arrive at shift change. Is four-thirty okay with you? I said I would try and be accommodating.”

“I’ve synchronized my watch.”