Chapter 41: Working Arrangements

January 23, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“She’s doing OK?” Jessica asked when I went back to the great room after talking to Caroline.

“Yes. She’s taking her class and slowly getting on with her life. To make a long story short, her two visits here kind of unlocked things, and she told me she finally told her counselor everything, which I think was the real key to all of this.”

“Good! Your little friends were looking for you!”

I shook my head, “Samantha is a troublemaker just like Kara and Elyse!”

“She’s dealing with ‘new toy’ or ‘new car’ syndrome,” Jessica laughed. “She’s figuring out all the stuff that all of us had to figure out over the years. She just happened to walk into a very odd situation that most teenage girls never encounter. Go see what they want.”

“I know what they WANT,” Kara giggled. “But he won’t give it to them. Well, not ALL of them!”

“See what I mean, Babe?” I chuckled.

I went to the door of the ‘Indian’ room.

“You were looking for me?” I said.

“You promised a sauna with all four of us!” Samantha said.

I chuckled, “Yes, I did. Will you behave?”

“Yes!” all four girls chorused.

That sounded rehearsed and made me suspicious.

“Put on your bathing suits. I’ll go turn on the sauna and then get my suit on.”

Just over ten minutes later we were in the sauna, with steam rising from the heated rocks. All four girls had on bikinis. Samantha had on her purple one, and Ellie her black one. Mary had on a very tiny white bikini, and Liz had on a slightly more modest red one that struggled to contain her large breasts. I had on my boxer-style trunks, which thankfully were loose fitting. Wearing a Speedo with these four girls would have been an even bigger invitation to mischief than just being in the sauna with them.

“How is school going?” I asked.

I got varied answers, though basically they all were good students. Three of them were in the band. I had known that Ellie played the saxophone and Mary played the flute, and I found out that Liz played the clarinet. All three of them were in the concert band. We got to talking about colleges, as well. Samantha was going to UofC, and Ellie, as she’d said, was going to Rosary and living at home. Liz was going to Notre Dame, and Mary was going to Boston College.

“Three out of four are Catholic schools,” I observed.

“It’s much easier to get scholarships,” Mary said. “Our parish has one that I won that covers more than half my tuition at Boston College. I also found two more partial scholarships so in the end, my parents and I don’t have to pay anything more than housing and food. I’ll get a co-op job to earn some spending money.”

“Pretty much the same here,” Liz said. “Two half scholarships, though both of mine include some housing money.”

“And I have a full scholarship to Rosary,” Ellie said.

They all told me their majors as well. I knew Samantha was getting a business degree. Liz was studying political science for pre-law. Mary was studying marketing. And Ellie planned to be an English teacher.

“I hear you normally use this sauna naked,” Liz smirked.

And so it began. I KNEW something was going to happen and I had to be very careful how I handled this.

“That’s true. And five or six years ago, that comment would have resulted in me stripping off my suit and daring you to do the same. But that’s not appropriate at this point. All of you are more than ten years younger than I am, and you’re all under eighteen.”

“Mary and I are eighteen,” Liz protested. “And Ellie will be eighteen in two weeks!”

Which told me that neither Liz nor Mary knew about me and Ellie, though whether they knew about me and Samantha was up in the air.

“That doesn’t change the age difference, or the fact that Ellie and Samantha are seventeen.”

“But you’re in here with your kids, and they’re way younger,” Liz objected.

“It’s one thing to be with my family. It’s a VERY different thing to be with four teenage girls!”

“You don’t want to see us?” Liz asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Desire has NOTHING at all to do with it,” I said firmly. “There are lots of things we want that we shouldn’t do.”

“But if everyone is OK with it, why not?”

“And what happens NEXT?” I asked. “When we’re all in here naked together?”

“I, uh, don’t know,” she said.

But the look in her eyes said that she DID know.

“Well, if you don’t know, then that’s a good reason all by itself! Doing things where you don’t have a good idea of what the outcome will be, or the problems that might arise, isn’t wise. One thing I learned as a teenager is that it’s very easy to do something without thinking and run into nearly unsolvable problems afterwards.”

“You think we’d do something dumb?”

“I think you might do something ill-considered. Look, I’ll be blunt. Yes, the fantasy that is running through my head right now is pretty exciting, but as I’ve said to a few people recently, some fantasies are best left to fantasy. Part of becoming an adult is learning when NOT to do something that you think you want to do because it might cause huge problems. It’s about assessing the risks and acting responsibly. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think being an adult is going to be as much fun as I thought,” Liz pouted.

I chuckled, “And that’s the first lesson you learn about becoming an adult!”

“Well, that sucks,” Liz sighed.

“Just remember one thing,” I said. “When you go away to college, don’t put yourself in a bad situation. Be careful how much you drink and who you’re with and what you do. I know lots of people who made bad choices and regretted what happened for years. I’ve certainly made my share of them; some of them still haunt me to this day. So I do my best not to make bad choices. And what might result from what you were hinting at before is probably a very bad choice.”

“I guess.”

“So we’ll all be adults, and do the right thing,” I said. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she sighed.

We sat quietly for another ten minutes, and then we all left the sauna. After my shower, I went to hang out with Jessica and Kara and the kids.

January 25, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“An envelope came for you today from Rush Medical School,” I said to Jessica when Kara and I walked to the ER to meet her on Monday evening.

“Probably another rejection letter,” Jessica sighed. “The sixth one.”

“Jess, you’re still the odds-on favorite for the vascular surgery fellowship at UofC, right? And you were offered the cardio-thoracic fellowship at Northwestern.”

“Yes, but I want a trauma fellowship. I wish UofC offered one, but they never have. Doctor Barton has tried to get them to create one, but our ER just isn’t as busy as Cook County. I pretty much have to decide by Friday if I’m going to take the Northwestern fellowship. I probably will; I think it’s a better choice, even though the commute will be hell.”

“What would that mean for your role as an ER Attending?”

“It’ll all depend on what’s available when the fellowship ends. The cardio-thoracic one is three years. The one at Rush, for example, is two years. That would be best, but board certification in cardio-thoracic surgery wouldn’t hurt my chances at all. Vascular won’t help much though, because that it’s a subspecialty and is really limited in focus.”

“If that letter from Rush is an offer, where would it be?”

Jessica laughed, “Cook County. The nightmare of nightmares in terms of an ER.”

“That’s less than two miles from our new offices,” I said. “That’s not so bad in terms of a commute. Not like going up to Northwestern.”

“I’d see more gunshot wounds than Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John McIntyre, and B.J. Hunnicutt saw combined! That said, it is the prototype for all trauma centers. Two doctors, Robert J. Baker and Robert J. Freeark established what they called a ‘Shock Trauma Unit’ there in March of 1966. That was the very first civilian trauma center.”

“Sounds like you’d be in good hands with them.”

We hurried home so we could get out of the 20°F air, and Jessica went straight to the kitchen without taking off her coat, hat, or gloves. I heard a squeal of excitement and knew it had to be good news. I hung my hat and coat and hurried to the kitchen with Kara right behind me.

“I got it!” she exclaimed when I came into the kitchen. “Rush Medical College, so Cook County. The pay sucks, but I got it!”

“The pay isn’t that important,” I said.

“It’s $10,000 less than Northwestern!”

“But it’s what you want! Forget the money. It’s still a small raise over what you’re making now. The question is, will you be OK working at Cook County for at least two years?”

“Yes. I talked to Doctor Barton about it before I applied to these programs. We need to celebrate!”

“How?” I grinned.

“Ice cream!” Jessica laughed. “With hot fudge, hot caramel, and whipped cream!”

I chuckled, “Sit down and I’ll fix some for all of us. I will need to work off the sugar afterwards.”

“THAT will be the second part of the celebration!”

“You know what this means?” I smirked.

“What?”

“I can chase nurses at UofC for at least two years!” I teased.

“Make the ice cream, Tiger. Then this DOCTOR is going to show you why you aren’t interested in nurses!”

January 28, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“Hi, Al!” I said as I plopped down across from him at Medici.

One VERY inconvenient part of the new offices was having to drive back to Hyde Park to have lunch with Al.

“How are things?”

“I’d say they’re pretty good. What are you going to do without your top Resident for two years?”

“Suffer,” he said. “But this is good for her. The only way she could have stayed at UofC for her fellowship is if the cardio-thoracic fellowship had been available, and it had already been promised to someone by the Chief of Surgery even before Jess applied.”

“And that’s within the rules?”

“It was the only way to avoid losing a Resident they think is the ‘second coming’ and the fellowship committee accepted the recommendation. There would have been a similar recommendation had we been able to offer a trauma surgery fellowship. I’m sure Jessica explained that we don’t see the volume of patients that major trauma centers like Cook County see. The nice thing about the fellowship is that it’s guaranteed and wouldn’t be affected by budget cuts imposed by the County Board. The downside is that the facility is pretty decrepit. They need a new hospital, but that’s still in the planning stages and is probably ten years off.”

“And an Attending spot?” I asked.

“We’ll have one for her if she wants it. She’ll do more general surgery here than she would at Cook County, but we’re a better hospital with a lot more money to spend. We just don’t have the crazy volume that Cook County has because we have a more limited number of trauma beds. I’m trying to get the hospital to expand the ER, but that takes serious money.”

“I might know of a source of funds,” I grinned. “But it’ll take a few years before we could get to that point.”

“Just let me know. I’ll have plans drawn up before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’!”

“How are things otherwise?”

“Fawn is doing well at Juilliard, Gerry is finishing his Junior year in High School, and Belinda is busy with looking at pretty pictures of things so far away, their light started on its way before Hippocrates wrote his oath!”

“Do no harm. I can get behind that!”

“That is your guiding principle, as it is ours. Though we don’t really use the oath in its original form any more. I actually recited it, but UofC is using the Declaration of Geneva. I don’t like it because it doesn’t specifically say ‘do no harm’, which I think it should.”

“You know I agree with you on that one. Of course, the original oath forbade therapeutic abortions...”

“I’ve never given a woman a pessary for the purposes of an abortion!”

“I do believe I’m going for intent, not exact wording,” I grinned.

“Let’s not have that argument today, shall we?”

“No, let’s not. Do you think Jess will be OK at Cook County? She could still take the position at Northwestern. She has until tomorrow to tell them. I asked her to hold off until tomorrow afternoon so she had time to think about it.”

“Jess will be fine wherever she goes. She has you. That’s all she needs. That’s all she’s ever needed.”

“And what happened a little over three years ago?” I asked.

“Her, not you. You know the issues. Yes, that crazy woman triggered it, but it was going to happen eventually. Better then, when it could be managed, than now, or later.”

“Carla isn’t crazy,” I said. “Misguided. Confused. But I believe she believes she never had sex with anyone else. Now, you and I both know she did, and I have my suspicions about what happened that would make everyone’s story line up, minus me being Rachel’s dad.”

“Drugs? Alcohol?”

“We’re guessing GHB, Propofol, or Rohypnol. Something that creates potential blanks in memory.”

“You sound like you have a suspect.”

I nodded, “Unfortunately, he died in you ER about 5 years ago as the result of a hit-and-run accident.”

“Exhumation?”

“He was cremated. And what are the chances that Carla would allow another DNA swab of Rachel? Rachel has been told I’m her father.”

“It’s possible that some tissue samples were kept if he was an organ donor or other tests were done, but I wouldn’t count on it. What about finding his family? You have a friend that does that kind of investigation.”

“I do, but again, say we find someone. What do we say? ‘Hey, we think your brother or son raped a woman, could we have some DNA?’? And even if we do, again, will Carla agree to testing? And if she does, the best thing they could do is come back with some probability that Rachel is related to their family, but without a 100% match, Carla won’t accept it, and even WITH a match, she’ll insist she only ever had sex with me. How can we ever prove it?”

“Let me at least check to see if we have any tissue samples or anything that could be used to get a DNA sample. What was the man’s name?”

“Dustin Brady. It would have been February 10, 1988.”

Al wrote a note in the pocket notebook he always carried.

“I’ll see what I can find in the records. Maybe there’s a next of kin or friend or something mentioned we can go on. If I have to pull paper records, and I probably do, it’ll take a few days.”

“If you can find anything, let me know.”

January 29, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“I assume your friends are OK?” I asked Samantha as we cuddled in her bed on Friday night.

“They were very surprised at your reaction.”

“And you?”

“Very happy. Did you do that for me?”

“Not just for you, but for me, and for them, too. Liz was playing with fire and could have been burned very badly. I’m curious; do they know about you and me? I mean Liz and Mary.”