January 1983 Barkston, Michigan

 

         The wailing hit me as soon as the elevator doors opened. Piercing, uncontrolled, loud. A keening that made me want to run away. It rose in volume and pitch as it careened off the walls and floors of the corridor. I wanted to stay in the elevator and wait for the doors to reclose, but all my medical training pushed me out and toward the sound, now diminishing into broken sobs. I knew who it was. I knew why. Angela Lawfton had died, and her mother’s heart was broken. I had wanted to be there when it happened, wanted to be able to offer some comfort, some inadequate words, some last act of care. Now, I was going to enter a room filled with inconsolable pain and absent the life of a little girl. I walked quickly, ignoring the glare of the charge nurse as I passed her station. We both knew I should have been here an hour ago. It didn’t matter now. 

         The door was ajar and swung silently as I pushed it open. Mrs. Lawfton was draped over her daughter, shaking with now-silent sobs. Mr. Lawfton stood behind her rubbing her back, his face a frozen mask of sad pain. He looked my way as I stepped in.

         “I am so sorry,” I said. He said nothing. I approached the bed. “But we knew this was coming, didn’t we?”

         His eyes widened, and he whispered through clenched teeth. “Get. The. Hell. Away. From. My. Daughter.” 

         “Mr. Lawfton, I know that—”

         Mrs. Lawfton raised her head to look at me. “You…you…you didn’t…”

         “Get out. Now.” Mr. Lawton started around the end of the bed towards me.

         I left. I stopped at the nurses’ station. “Mrs. Wynn, would you contact the on-call minister for us? The Lawftons—.”

         “I already have, Dr. Bennett. Reverend Amberstien is on his way.” Her tone was as crisp as her starched uniform, but her eyes hinted her own sadness. None of us wanted this day to come. None of us. Especially myself, her doctor. We tried our absolute damnedest. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stop the cancer. It wasn’t enough to save her life. 

         Nor was it enough to assuage the anger that quite naturally accompanied her parents’ grief. Two weeks later, a registered letter from a Detroit law firm informed me I was being sued for malpractice. 

         The death of a child is wrong in so many ways. The reversal of nature’s intended order. The profound injustice of an innocent’s death. It addles the human mind; it stabs at the human heart. We want desperately to make it right. So, we seek the next best thing—a cause, an agent, someone to blame, and someone to atone for what is so terribly, terribly wrong. That was simply what was happening. Angela’s parents, good-hearted but broken-hearted, trying to mend the unmendable and make sense of the senseless.

         I assumed the hospital and our clinic would be included in the suit, but there was no mention of them in the thirty-four pages I leafed through. I called the administrators of each. Neither had received anything. Nor would they. This was personal. This was on me. I shared it with my wife Rhonda, then sat on the couch and stared at a television set that wasn’t turned on. “I’ll call Chris,” she said. Chris was our lawyer and friend.

         Dr. Rhonda Sills and I met at work. I was smitten by her the first day I arrived at the hospital. It took more than a week for me to go from “Dr. Sills” to “Rhonda,” and even then, I was hesitant. She was funny and smart and, in my eyes, beautiful. She would smile, and I would melt. She would be witty, and I would blather. I knew she dated, but never knew who or how seriously. Our relationship changed at the clinic’s summer picnic.

         We ended up going through the food line next to each other, her quietly commenting on the spread, me trying desperately to be funny about potato salad. We sat together in silence until I couldn’t stand it and tried to be witty. “So, when are you going to fall in love with me.” She looked down at her food and said nothing while I felt my face redden with now-familiar embarrassment. Finally, she looked up, her eyes meeting mine. “Why do you think I haven’t already?” We held our wedding reception at the clinic and spent much of our life there. 

         Today, reading this sheaf of frightening legalese, I could not have wanted to be married to anyone else–a person who understood my worries about Angela, my frustrations, and finally, my sadness. Someone who knew me and my profession and on this dismal day whom to call. 

         Three months to the day after receiving the letter, the trial began. It lasted six days—three long days of testimony, then two more longer days of deliberation by the jury. On the morning of the sixth day, I was emotionally exhausted. The jury kept sending questions out to the honorable Anthony Tortino. When they sent one more, I almost screamed. Fortunately, Chris heard my sharp intake of breath and grabbed my forearm. It was the tenth question. I wanted to shout, “For God’s sake, people! Three months of investigating every prescription and practice of my profession, and you still think I’m a screwup of a doctor?” I stopped myself and only emitted an indistinct grunt. At the sound, the judge glanced over at our table. Our eyes met. He sighed his own exasperation and suggested that since the jury was still deep in deliberations, we should get some lunch and return at one. 

         The jury was already seated when we returned to our too-familiar places at the defendant’s table. I knew a few of them from town, but none of them had been my patients or even been to our clinic. The Lawftons’ lawyer had made sure of that. The judge asked the foreman to stand. Allen Carter, average height, average build, average almost everything, stood.

         “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

         “We have, your honor.”

         “The defendant will rise and face the jury. Continue, mister foreman.”

         “After many hours of frustrating deliberation,” At this point, Carter looked over his shoulder at an older man holding onto a cane. “We have come to the dissatisfying, regretful, and, in my opinion, questionable conclusion—”

         The whack of the gavel was like a gunshot in the quiet of the courtroom. The judge leaned toward the jury box as far as his position behind the bench would allow, his face contorted in anger.

         “Mr. Foreman, you and this jury have tried my patience to its breaking point. You will read the verdict without accompanying comment or implied judgment. If you are unable to do that, give it to me, and I’ll read it,” he growled.

         The foreman was startled and confused. “Yes, sir. Sorry. Should I just give it to you?”

         The judge nodded at the bailiff, who retrieved the paper and handed it to him. He cleared his throat. “The jury, having reviewed the evidence and heard the witnesses, finds Dr. Samuel A. Bennett innocent of having committed either malicious or negligent malpractice. The court thanks the jury for their work. You are dismissed. This court is adjourned.” The gavel sounded again, quieter this time.

         I was shaking with relief and trying to take deep breaths. 

         I couldn’t look at the Lawftons. As they left the courtroom, I heard their mumbled curses and quiet sobs. Whatever the jury’s decision, for them, the undisputed fact was that I had failed to save their daughter’s life. Whether I could have remained an unanswered question. The jury didn’t believe so. No doubt, the Lawftons did. I had gone over my notes, test results, decisions I made, everything I could think of. In the end, I fought through the web of doubts to agree with the jury. I would try to move on, but my heart ached. She had been a beautiful, bright little nine-year-old. 

 

§

 

         There was another, unanticipated consequence to the trial and its publicity. Not immediate. Not dramatic. I couldn’t really believe it was happening. In the following months, one by one, my patients canceled appointments or asked to see someone else. Most said nothing to me; if they did, it was a quick, mumbled apology. Some moved to a different clinic entirely. I found I had plenty of time to visit with the ones who remained in my care, but my caseload continued to diminish. Eventually, the administrator saw that I was more of a liability than an asset. There was a meeting, a conversation, and, in the end, a gentle insistence that I leave the practice. I was told it wasn’t personal. It was just business. A half-hearted and unsuccessful effort was made to find me another position. Setting December twenty-third as my last day seemed inconsiderate, if not downright unkind. Merry Christmas. You’re fired. Go home. 

 

§

         

         I moped my way through the rest of the holiday season. On January second, I started working on my resumé. Two weeks later, I sent one to Butterfield Hospital in nearby Grand Rapids. Then, to Detroit General. Then, to the University of Michigan. Then, to clinics in Grand Rapids. Then, to every medical center in central Michigan that advertised for a position. By the end of February, I was getting frustrated. More resumés went out further afield. Few offers came, none were acceptable. I found myself losing enthusiasm for the practice of medicine. What if I wasn’t a doctor? So what?

         Like the subtle decline of my life as a doctor, so was that of being a husband. Rhonda was busy; I was bored. Rhonda was healing people; I was spending time at The Lighthouse, my favorite bar, which was suffering its own emptiness and decline. Rhonda was worn out; I was anxious and angry and sometimes a little drunk.

         She came home from work late one afternoon and said, “Samuel, Betty Angston is still having problems with her left hip. I’m not sure what to do.” She took off her coat and hung it in the closet.

         “Why are you telling me?” I asked around a mouthful of chocolate fudge ice cream.

         “You worked with her. She was your patient for years.”

         “Was.” I stirred the ice cream.

         Rhonda sighed. “I just thought you might have some insight or thoughts about it.”

         I looked up from scooping ice cream dribbles off my bathrobe. “Yeah, I’ve got some thoughts. I worked my ass off as her doctor, and she listened to the gossips in the effing town and fired me. Those are my thoughts. I don’t care whether she walks, dances, limps, or rolls around in a wheelchair.”

         The corners of Rhonda’s mouth turned down. “I’m sorry, Samuel. I just thought if you—”

         “No, no. Don’t go there. I don’t need your pity.” I put my bowl in the sink and went upstairs.

§

         

         It didn’t get better. None of it. The job search, the marriage, my mood, Rhonda’s impatience.  With an irony that was not lost on Rhonda or myself or maybe even the right honorable Anthony Tortino, we were all in the same courtroom exactly one year after the dismissal of the malpractice suit. This time the words from Judge Tortino were more painful. “The petition for a full and complete dissolution of the marriage of Dr. Samuel A. Bennett and Dr. Rhonda R. Sills is granted.” If the tap of a gavel could sound sad, this one did.

         Rhonda bought out my half of the house and stayed on at the clinic. I purchased The Lighthouse, now repossessed by the bank, sardonically renamed it Doc’s, and moved into the attic apartment above it.