machine like a muted pianist.
During the final three hours of the deposition the lawyers dissect every moment of the day Jolene died.
“Which drug did you give first?”
“Why did you choose that drug?”
“How much did you give?”
“Are you sure you gave that amount?”
“Was that the correct dose?”
“How many patients have you anesthetized in the prone position?”
“How much sleep did you have the night before?”
“Did you have anything to drink the night before?”
“Do you tend to drink very much? How much is not much?”
Donnelly objects to this and I shrink as if I’d been scolded. He tells me that I’m still required to answer the question, but at least his objection will be on record. I shift my clasped palms into my lap and see a damp outline of their shape on the tabletop.
Near the end of the deposition Donnelly does his best to piece me back together. He reassures me that I’m doing fine, turns me by the shoulders to face his groomed graying hair, his creased, authoritative face. “Try to keep to the facts, tell the truth, stay calm. Just tell them exactly what steps you took in the operating room that day, to the best of your knowledge.”
To the best of my knowledge I let a healthy eight-year-old girl entrusted to my care, my medical expertise, die. But until we have a pathologist’s report and a final settlement, who could tell me this was not my fault? Forgiveness can only come from myself.
Donnelly reassures me that once we have the autopsy results Feinnes’s case for negligence will be even weaker. Still, he warns, the discovery phase of the mediation will probably take months. He walks down the hall with me after my deposition listing the records he’ll need to pull from my medical school and residency and years of work at First Lutheran, discussing the expert witnesses he plans to hire, explaining the tedious seesaw of haggling and bartering between legal teams that will finally affix a price tag to Jolene’s life.
We wait for the elevators opposite another plush room, nearly identical to the one in which I’ve just been deposed. The door swings farther back and a young woman carries out a tray of dirty coffee cups and crushed sandwich boxes, leaving me a clear view of the gleaming conference table, the walls hung with paintings of flowers and fruit and English hunting parties. Bobbie is sitting at the table. If she looked up now we would be facing each other for the first time since Jolene’s surgery.
Darryl Feinnes pushes a stack of papers in front of her marked with red stickers. I can hear snatches of their conversation—accounts and fees, funeral costs, pain and suffering, lost companionship—as he calculates the final tally of her tragedy. He twirls a pen in his fingers with a pinched mouth that suggests he finds her exasperatingly slow to comprehend. She watches him curiously, as if she’s hearing a foreign language dribble out of his mouth, the concrete details and dollars irrelevant. The bones of her face seem more angular than I remember, disproportionately prominent, her eyes and cheeks hollowed in purple shadows as if she’d forgotten to eat. The top buttons and holes of her blouse are misaligned. The fluorescent panel lights wash the flesh tones from her face and highlight gray strands seeded through her brown hair as her hand mechanically fills in the signature lines. I feel like I’m spying on her own private wound. We are coupled, she and I, through this lost child who has skewed the orbits of our lives.
The elevator door buzzes and I turn to see Donnelly holding it open, patiently waiting for me to follow.
It is almost dark by the time I get home. I should have left a lamp on—something, if not someone, to wait up for me. I call Lori but she doesn’t answer and I don’t have the heart to talk to a machine. I pick up the phone again intending to call my father, then put the receiver down before I dial.
I pull a leftover wild rice salad
During the final three hours of the deposition the lawyers dissect every moment of the day Jolene died.
“Which drug did you give first?”
“Why did you choose that drug?”
“How much did you give?”
“Are you sure you gave that amount?”
“Was that the correct dose?”
“How many patients have you anesthetized in the prone position?”
“How much sleep did you have the night before?”
“Did you have anything to drink the night before?”
“Do you tend to drink very much? How much is not much?”
Donnelly objects to this and I shrink as if I’d been scolded. He tells me that I’m still required to answer the question, but at least his objection will be on record. I shift my clasped palms into my lap and see a damp outline of their shape on the tabletop.
Near the end of the deposition Donnelly does his best to piece me back together. He reassures me that I’m doing fine, turns me by the shoulders to face his groomed graying hair, his creased, authoritative face. “Try to keep to the facts, tell the truth, stay calm. Just tell them exactly what steps you took in the operating room that day, to the best of your knowledge.”
To the best of my knowledge I let a healthy eight-year-old girl entrusted to my care, my medical expertise, die. But until we have a pathologist’s report and a final settlement, who could tell me this was not my fault? Forgiveness can only come from myself.
Donnelly reassures me that once we have the autopsy results Feinnes’s case for negligence will be even weaker. Still, he warns, the discovery phase of the mediation will probably take months. He walks down the hall with me after my deposition listing the records he’ll need to pull from my medical school and residency and years of work at First Lutheran, discussing the expert witnesses he plans to hire, explaining the tedious seesaw of haggling and bartering between legal teams that will finally affix a price tag to Jolene’s life.
We wait for the elevators opposite another plush room, nearly identical to the one in which I’ve just been deposed. The door swings farther back and a young woman carries out a tray of dirty coffee cups and crushed sandwich boxes, leaving me a clear view of the gleaming conference table, the walls hung with paintings of flowers and fruit and English hunting parties. Bobbie is sitting at the table. If she looked up now we would be facing each other for the first time since Jolene’s surgery.
Darryl Feinnes pushes a stack of papers in front of her marked with red stickers. I can hear snatches of their conversation—accounts and fees, funeral costs, pain and suffering, lost companionship—as he calculates the final tally of her tragedy. He twirls a pen in his fingers with a pinched mouth that suggests he finds her exasperatingly slow to comprehend. She watches him curiously, as if she’s hearing a foreign language dribble out of his mouth, the concrete details and dollars irrelevant. The bones of her face seem more angular than I remember, disproportionately prominent, her eyes and cheeks hollowed in purple shadows as if she’d forgotten to eat. The top buttons and holes of her blouse are misaligned. The fluorescent panel lights wash the flesh tones from her face and highlight gray strands seeded through her brown hair as her hand mechanically fills in the signature lines. I feel like I’m spying on her own private wound. We are coupled, she and I, through this lost child who has skewed the orbits of our lives.
The elevator door buzzes and I turn to see Donnelly holding it open, patiently waiting for me to follow.
It is almost dark by the time I get home. I should have left a lamp on—something, if not someone, to wait up for me. I call Lori but she doesn’t answer and I don’t have the heart to talk to a machine. I pick up the phone again intending to call my father, then put the receiver down before I dial.
I pull a leftover wild rice salad
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