Skin Privilege Read online

  'Dr. Linton? The morning of the seventeenth?'

  'Yes,' Sara answered. 'According to my notes, that's when I got the lab results.'

  Sharon, Sara remembered. The lawyer was Sharon Connor. Such an innocuous name for such a horrible person.

  'And what did the lab results reveal to you?'

  'That more than likely, Jimmy had acute myeloblastic leukemia.'

  'And the prognosis?'

  'That's out of my realm. I'm not an oncologist.'

  'No. You referred the Powells to an oncologist, a friend of yours from college, a Dr. William Harris in Atlanta?'

  'Yes.' Poor Bill. He was named in the lawsuit, too, had been forced to hire his own attorney, was battling with his own insurance company.

  'But you are a doctor?'

  Sara took a deep breath. She had been instructed by Buddy to only answer questions, not pointed comments. God knew she was paying him enough for his advice. She might as well start taking it.

  'And surely as a doctor you know what acute myeloblastic leukemia is?'

  'It's a group of malignant disorders characterized by the replacement of normal bone marrow with abnormal cells.'

  Connor smiled, rattling off, 'And it begins as a single somatic hematopoietic progenitor that transforms to a cell incapable of normal differentiation?'

  'The cell loses apoptosis.'

  Another smile, another point scored. 'And this disease has a fifty percent survival rate.'

  Sara held her tongue, waiting for the ax to fall.

  'And timing is critical for treatment, is that correct? In such a disease – a disease that literally turns the body's cells against themselves, turns off apoptosis, according to you, which is the normal genetic process of cell death – timing is critical.'

  Forty-eight hours would not have saved the boy's life, but Sara was not going to utter those words, have them transcribed into a legal document and later thrown in her face with all the callousness Sharon Connor could muster.

  The lawyer shuffled through some papers as if she needed to find her notes. 'And you attended Emory Medical School. As you so graciously corrected me earlier, you didn't just graduate in the top ten percent, you graduated sixth in your class.'

  Buddy sounded bored with the woman's antics. 'We've already established Dr. Linton's credentials.'

  'I'm just trying to put it all together,' the woman countered. She held up one of the pages, her eyes scanning the words. Finally, she put it down. 'And, Dr. Linton, you got this information – this lab result that was almost certainly a death sentence -the morning of the seventeenth, and yet you chose not to share the information with the Powells until two days later. And that was because…?'

  Sara had never heard so many sentences starting with the word 'and.' She imagined grammar wasn't high up on the curriculum at whatever school had churned out the vicious lawyer.

  Still, she answered, 'They were at Disney World for Jimmy's birthday. I wanted them to enjoy their vacation, what I thought might be their last vacation as a family for some time. I made the decision to not tell them until they came back.'

  'They came back the evening of the seventeenth, yet you did not tell them until the morning of the nineteenth, two days later.'

  Sara opened her mouth to respond, but the woman talked over her.

  'And it didn't occur to you that they could return for immediate treatment and perhaps save their child's life?' It was clear she didn't expect an answer. 'I would imagine that, given the choice, the Powells would rather have their son alive today instead of empty photographs of him standing around the Magic Kingdom.' She slid the picture in question across the table. It glided neatly past Beckey and Jim Powell, past Sara's two lawyers, and stopped a few inches from where Sara was sitting.

  She shouldn't have looked, but she did.

  Young Jimmy stood leaning against his father, both of them wearing Mickey Mouse ears and holding sparklers as a parade of Snow White's dwarfs marched behind them. Even in the photo, you could tell the boy was sick. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and he was so thin that his frail little arm looked like a piece of string.

  They had come back from vacation a day early because Jimmy had wanted to be home. Sara did not know why the Powells had not called her at the clinic, brought in Jimmy that day so she could check on him. Maybe his parents had known even without the test, even without the final diagnosis, that their days of having a normal, healthy child were over. Maybe they had just wanted to keep him to themselves one more day. He had been such a wonderful boy – kind, smart, cheerful – everything a parent could hope for. And now he was gone.

  Sara felt tears well into her eyes, and bit her lip so hard that the tears fell from pain instead of grief.

  Buddy snatched away the picture, irritated. He slid it back to Sharon Connor. 'You can practice your opening statement in front of your mirror at home, sweetheart.'

  Connor's mouth twisted into a smirk as she took back the photograph. She was living proof that the theory that women were nurturing caretakers was utter bullshit. Sara half-expected to see rotting flesh between her teeth.

  The woman said, 'Dr. Linton, on this particular date, the date you got James's lab results, did anything else happen that stood out for you?'

  A prickling went up Sara's spine, a spark of warning that she could not suppress. 'Yes.'

  'And could you tell us what that was?'

  I found a woman who had been murdered in the bathroom of our local diner.'

  'Raped and murdered. Is that correct?'

  'Yes.'

  'That brings us to your part-time job as coroner for the county. I believe your husband – then ex-husband, when this rape and murder occurred – is chief of police for the county. Both of you work closely together when cases arise.'

  Sara waited for more, but the woman had obviously just wanted to get that on the record.

  'Counselor?' Buddy asked.

  'One moment, please,' the lawyer murmured, picking up a thick folder and leafing through the pages.

  Sara looked down at her hands to give herself something to do. Pisiform, triquetrum, hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium, lunate, scaphoid… She listed all the bones in her hand, then started on the ligaments, trying to distract herself, willing herself not to walk into the trap the lawyer was so skillfully setting.

  While Sara was in her residency at Grady, headhunters had pursued her so relentlessly that she had stopped answering her phone. Partnerships. Six-figure salaries with year-end bonuses. Surgical privileges at any hospital she chose. Personal assistants, lab support, full secretarial staff, even her own parking space. They had offered her everything, and yet in the end, she had decided to return home to Grant, to practice medicine for considerably less money and even less respect, because she thought it was important for doctors to serve rural communities.

  Was part of it vanity, too? Sara had seen herself as a role model for the girls in town. Most of them had only ever seen a male doctor. The only women

  in authority were nurses, teachers, and mothers. Her first five years at the Heartsdale Children's Clinic, Sara had spent at least half of her time convincing young patients – and frequently their mothers – that she had, in fact, graduated medical school. No one believed a woman could be smart enough, good enough, to reach such a position. Even when Sara bought the clinic from her retiring partner, people had still been skeptical. It had taken years to carve herself a place of respect in the community.

  All for this.

  Sharon Connor finally looked up from her papers. She frowned. 'Dr. Linton, you yourself were raped. Isn't that correct?'

  Sara felt all of the saliva in her mouth dry up. Her throat tightened and her flesh turned hot as she struggled with an unwelcome shame that she had not felt since the last time a lawyer had deposed her about being raped. Just like then, Sara's vision tunneled and blurred in such a way that she saw nothing, just heard the words ringing in her ears.

  Buddy shot to his feet, arguing something
, stabbing his finger at the lawyer, at the Powells. Beside him, Melinda Stiles from the Global Medical Indemnity said nothing. Buddy had told Sara this would happen, that Stiles would sit silently by, letting opposing counsel tear into Sara, speaking only when she thought Global might be exposed. Another woman, another failed role model.

  'And I want that on the goddamn record!' Buddy finished, pushing his chair away from the table as he sat down.

  'Noted,' Connor said. 'Dr. Linton?'

  Sara's vision cleared. She heard a whoosh in her ears, as if she had been swimming underwater and suddenly pushed herself to the surface.

  'Dr. Linton?' Connor repeated. She kept using the title, making it sound like something vile instead of a position Sara had worked for all of her life.

  Sara looked at Buddy, and he shrugged as he shook his head, indicating there was nothing he could do. He had predicted that the deposition would be nothing more than a fishing expedition with Sara's life as bait.

  Connor said, 'Doctor, would you like a few minutes to collect your emotions? I know that your rape is a hard thing for you to talk about.' She indicated the thick file on the table in front of her. It had to be the trial transcript from Sara's case. The woman had read everything, knew every disgusting detail. 'From what I gathered, your assault was very, very brutal.'

  Sara cleared her throat, willed her voice to not just work but to be strong, fearless. 'Yes, it was.'

  Connor's tone turned almost conciliatory. 'I used to work at the district attorney's office in Baton Rouge. I can honestly say in my twelve years as a prosecutor, I never saw anything as brutal, as sadistic, as what you experienced.'

  Buddy snapped, 'Sweetheart, you wanna quit with the crocodile tears and get to the question?'

  The lawyer hesitated for just a second then continued, 'For the record, Dr. Linton was raped in the bathroom of Grady Hospital, where she was working as an emergency room intern. Apparently, the perpetrator accessed the women's room through the drop ceiling. Dr. Linton was in one of the stalls when he literally dropped down on her.'

  'Noted,' Buddy said. 'You got a question in there, or do you just like giving speeches?'

  'Dr. Linton, the fact that you were brutally raped figured greatly into your decision to return to Grant County, did it not?'

  'There were other reasons.'

  'But would you say that the rape was your primary reason?'

  'I would say that it was one of many reasons that figured into my decision to return.'

  'Is this going somewhere?' Buddy asked. The lawyers exchanged words again, and Sara reached for the pitcher of water on the table, poured herself a glass with hands she willed to be steady.

  She felt rather than saw Beckey Powell stir, and wondered if the woman was feeling guilty, seeing Sara as a human being again instead of a monster. Sara hoped so. She hoped Beckey tossed and turned in her bed tonight, realized that no matter how much she and her lawyer vilified Sara, nothing would bring back her son. Nothing would change the fact that Sara had done everything she could for Jimmy.

  'Dr. Linton?' Connor continued. 'I imagine in light of the brutal rape you experienced, it was quite an emotional ordeal to walk into that bathroom and discover a woman who herself had been sexually assaulted. Especially as it was almost ten years to the date that you were raped.'

  Buddy snapped, 'Is that a question?'

  'Dr. Linton, you and your ex-husband – I'm sorry, husband - you both are trying to adopt a child now, aren't you? Because as a consequence to this brutal rape you experienced, you cannot have children of your own?'

  Beckey's reaction was unmistakable. For the first time since this had started, Sara really looked at the woman. She saw a softening in Beckey's eyes, a stirring of joy for a friend, but the emotion vanished as swiftly as it had come, and Sara could almost read the rebuke that cancelled it: You have no right to mother a child when you killed my son.

  Connor held up a familiar-looking document, stating, 'Doctor, you and your husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, filed papers for adoption with the state of Georgia three months ago. Isn't that correct?'

  Sara tried to remember what they had put on the adoption application, what they had said during the state-mandated parenting classes that had taken up every free minute of their time, over the last few months. What incriminating evidence would the lawyer wring out of the endless, seemingly innocuous process? Jeffrey's high blood pressure? Sara's need for reading glasses? 'Yes.'

  Connor shuffled through some more papers, saying, 'Just a moment, please.'

  The room was tiny, airless. There were no windows, no paintings on the wall to stare at. A dying palm tree stood in the corner, the leaves drooping and sad. Nothing good would come of any of this. No pound of flesh would bring back a child. No verdict of innocence would restore a reputation.

  Sara looked down at her hand. Dorsal metacarpal ligaments, dorsal carpometacarpal ligaments, dorsal intercarpal ligaments…

  Sara had visited Jimmy the week before he died, held his frail little hand for hours as he haltingly talked about football and skateboarding and all the things he missed. Sara had been able to see it then, that look of death in his eyes. The look was the mirror opposite of the hope she had seen in Beckey Powell's, even though the woman had heard the prognosis, had agreed to stop treatment so as not to prolong Jimmy's suffering. It was that hope that kept Jimmy from letting go, that fear that every child has of disappointing his mother.

  Sara had taken Beckey to the cafeteria, sitting in a quiet corner with the bewildered woman and holding her hand just as she had held Jimmy's moments before. She'd described to Beckey how it would happen, how death would claim her son. His feet would get cold, then his hands, as circulation slowed. His lips would turn blue. His breathing would become irregular, but that shouldn't be taken as a sign of distress. He would have difficulty swallowing. He might lose control of his bladder. His thoughts would wander, but Beckey had to keep talking to him, engaging him, because he would still be there. He would still be her Jimmy until the very last second. It was her job to be there at every step, then – the hardest part – to let him go on without her.

  She had to be strong enough to let Jimmy go.

  Connor cleared her throat and waited for Sara's attention. 'You never charged the Powells for the lab tests and subsequent office visits after you made James's diagnosis,' she said. 'Why is that, Dr. Linton?'

  'I didn't, in fact, make a firm diagnosis,' Sara corrected, trying to get her focus back. 'I could only tell them what I suspected and refer them to an oncologist.'

  'Your college friend, Dr. William Harris,' the lawyer supplied. 'And you didn't bill the Powells for any of the lab work or any subsequent visits following the referral.'

  'I don't handle billing.'

  'But you do direct your office staff, do you not?' Connor paused. 'Do I need to remind you that you're under oath?'

  Sara bit back the sharp answer that wanted to come.

  'According to the deposition of your office manager, Nelly Morgan, you directed her to write off as a loss the almost two thousand dollars the Powells owed you. True?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why is that, Dr. Linton?'

  'Because I knew that they were facing what could be crippling medical costs for Jimmy's treatment. I didn't want to add to the pile of creditors I knew that they would have.' Sara stared at Beckey, though the woman would not meet her gaze. 'That's what this is about, isn't it? Lab bills. Hospital bills. Radiologists. Pharmacies. You must owe a fortune.'

  Connor reminded, 'Dr. Linton, you're here to answer my questions, not ask your own.'

  Sara leaned toward the Powells, tried to connect with them, make them see reason. 'Don't you know it won't get him back? None of this will get Jimmy back.'

  'Mr. Conford, please instruct your client-'

  'Do you know what I gave up to practice here? Do you know how many years I spent-'

  'Dr. Linton, do not address my clients.'

  'This is the reason why you had
to go to Atlanta to find a specialist,' Sara told them. 'These lawsuits are why the hospital closed down, why there are only five doctors within a hundred miles of here who can afford to practice medicine.'

  They would not look up at her, would not respond.

  Sara sat back in her chair, spent. This couldn't just be about money. Beckey and Jimmy wanted something more, an explanation for why their son died. The sad fact was that there was no explanation. People died – children died – and sometimes, there was no one to blame, nothing that could stop it. All this lawsuit meant was that a year from now, maybe five years, another child would be sick, another family would be stricken, and no one would be able to afford to help them.

  No one would be there to hold their hand, to explain what was happening.

  'Dr. Linton,' Connor continued. 'As to your failure to bill the Powells for the lab work and office visits: isn't it a fact that you felt guilty for Jimmy's death?'

  She knew the answer Buddy wanted her to give the question, knew that even Melinda Stiles, the silent advocate for Global Medical Indemnity, wanted her to deny this.

  'Dr. Linton?' Connor insisted. 'Didn't you feel guilty?'

  Sara closed her eyes, could see Jimmy lying in that hospital bed, talking to her about skateboarding. She could still feel the cold touch of his fingers in hers as he patiently explained to her the difference between a heelflip and an ollie.

  Interphalangeal joints. Metacarpophalangeal joint. Capsule, distal, radioulnar joints…

  'Dr. Linton?'

  'Yes,' she finally admitted, tears flowing freely now. 'Yes. I felt guilty.'

  Sara drove through downtown Heartsdale, the speedometer on her BMW 335ci barely reaching twenty-five. She passed the five-and-dime, the dress shop, the hardware store. At Burgess's Cleaners, she stopped in the middle of the empty street, debating whether or not to drive on.