Of Flesh and Blood (60 page)

—
The Alfredson: The First Hundred Years
by Gerald Fenton Naylor

Fifteen minutes passed before the coughing paroxysms settled and Evan had caught his breath enough to seek help. Dispassionately, he heard the rattling in his own chest with each breath and realized that pneumonia was taking grip. His rash conduct around his gravely ill daughter had caught up to him, as he had suspected it would all along. Evan was not afraid, though. He felt more ashamed than anything else, considering it a shoddy example for a doctor to set for his staff.

He reached in his pocket for his mask and secured it tightly around his face before taking another step. Whatever happened, he was determined not to spread his infection to anyone else.

Evan started down the slope toward the building housing the flu ward. Even downhill, he had to stop every few steps to get his breathing to cooperate or wait for another coughing fit to pass.

A chill gripped him so intensely that his whole body shook. He was so consumed with the sudden rigors that he didn’t even notice Moses Brown had caught up to him from behind.

“Dr. McGrath?” Moses asked in his familiar deep timbre. “What is it?”

Still masked, Evan turned slowly toward the large man. Moses extended a hand to him, but Evan waved it away. “I have caught
it
, my friend!”

Sadness filled Moses’s large brown eyes, but his face showed no surprise. “How bad?”

Evan shook his head once and then backed a few unsteady steps away from Moses. “One of us needs to stay healthy to keep this hospital afloat.”

Moses pointed at his feet. “I reckon you could fill these boots in about five minutes.” He shook his head. “But yours?”

“Maybe ten.”

Moses chuckled in his low rumble. “Doubt they ever could.”

“I need to admit myself to the flu ward,” Evan said, aware that each word was becoming more of an effort.

Moses nodded. “You’re in no shape to walk.”

“I can make it, Moses.”

Moses watched skeptically as Evan tried to take a few more steps. He stopped when another coughing fit racked him. “You stay right here, Dr. McGrath. I’m gonna go get a wheelchair.”

“All right,” Evan said, embarrassed by his own helplessness.

Moses hurried off in search of a chair.

Evan was burning up with fever, and his legs were too rubbery to support his own weight much longer. He spied a tree about ten feet away, and decided to use it to hold himself upright while waiting for Moses. He only made it three short steps toward the tree when he crumpled to the damp ground.

Evan was still lying on the lawn where he had fallen when Moses reached him with the wheelchair. The big man was wheezing loudly from his asthma, but he reached down and lifted Evan, as effortlessly as picking up a baby, and deposited him in the chair. Moses launched the chair into motion, and it rattled and shook Evan along the pathway toward the building.

Evan’s world spun as Moses wheeled him onto the flu ward. Over the din of the overcrowded mayhem and the mournful sounds and smells of human suffering, Evan heard the murmurs and gasps of the staff members who recognized him. Two nurses rushed over to him.

“We need a bed for Dr. McGrath,” Moses said.

“We will clear one straight away!” one of them replied.

“No. I do not require special treatment—” But Evan’s words dissolved into another hacking fit.

By the time Evan caught his breath again, Moses had already transferred him to a cot against the far wall. Two of the makeshift dividers were placed on either side to give his bed a modicum of privacy. He looked down and watched helplessly as one of the nurses pulled off his shoes. A sheet was thrown over him and a cool wet compress applied to his forehead. He felt a band around his neck and then heard the hissing and spitting of the oxygen mask below his chin. When he looked up again, he saw Gertrude Flanders looking down kindly at him.

“How’s Liv?” Evan croaked.

“Your daughter is resting, Dr. McGrath. She is improving by the minute, though. We will send her home soon, no doubt.”

The relief was immense. He brought his hand up to his chin and tapped the oxygen mask. “Mrs. Flanders, others must need this . . . more than I . . .”

“Oh, you absolutely do—” She stopped. Pity filled her features. “Please, Dr. McGrath, allow us to worry over those decisions. You are the patient now.”

He did not have the strength to argue. Flanders soaked the compress again and reapplied it to his brow. The cool moisture felt surprisingly soothing. Evan tried to thank her, but the words would not emerge. As he stared up at her, his eyes began to shut involuntarily.

Evan opened his eyes, assuming only moments had passed, but found that the room had darkened. A fire raged across his forehead, and he was drenched in sweat. His arms and legs ached as though someone had taken a club to them. Gertrude Flanders was gone, but George stood above him, staring down more earnestly than ever. “Father, can you hear me?”

Evan nodded.

“Papa, how is the breathing?” Liv asked urgently from somewhere nearby.

Evan turned his head and saw Liv resting in a wheelchair beside her brother. Her face had lost much of its fullness and she had deep bags under her eyes, but the color had returned to her lips and cheeks. The sight warmed Evan’s heart and eased his body aches.

“I am all right . . .,” he gasped.

“Mother is on a train from Everett,” George said urgently. “Nicholas is making his way up from California. He will be here by the morning.”

“Why?” But Evan already knew the answer.

His two children shared a quick glance and then George said, “We believe the family needs to be together at this time of crisis.”

Evan nodded slightly. He reached out for the oxygen mask, but his hand bumped directly into his chin.

A pained look crossed George’s face. “Father, I am sorry. The clinic has run out of oxygen. We have not been able to locate another supplier.”

“It was . . . inevitable, Son,” Evan said. Over his own raspy respirations, he could hear the choking agonized pleas of a neighboring patient. He knew death was near.

A hand clasped his. “Oh, Papa,” Liv said.

Evan trembled as another wave of chills swept over him. His limbs ached as though vises had tightened around them. And involuntarily, his panting steadily deepened.

Liv’s features darkened with worry. “I was in this same condition, remember, Papa?” she murmured. “I got better, Papa. You can, too.
Please
.”

Evan tried to show Liv a reassuring smile, but he felt as though a sock had been stuffed down his throat. He knew time was running out. “This clinic . . .” He huffed. “It is needed . . . more than ever now.”

“Absolutely, Father,” George said.

“Promise me . . .,” Evan sputtered. “Promise me, you will see that it goes on . . . continues to offer the best care . . . to those in need . . .”

“We will, Father,” George said. “I swear it.”

“Of course, Papa,” Liv added.

“It will be our legacy,” Evan muttered under his breath.

“What was that, Father?” George asked.

Evan shook his head weakly. “And Nicholas . . . and Mother . . . You will always take care of each other . . .”

“Of course!” Liv said. “Always, Papa.”

A sense of contentment descended on Evan, lessening the pain and breathlessness. “I am so . . . so very proud of you both.”

His children’s faces blurred until they were indistinguishable from the others around him. The colors of the walls bled into each other. And the clamor around him blended into a white noise that sounded like a seashell held to his ear. He raised his head off the bed. “Olivia!” he cried out. “Oh, Olivia.”

“Father, she’s right here!” George’s words sounded as though they were shouted through a windstorm.

No, Olivia. Olivia Alfredson!
Evan wanted to say, but he had no voice left.

The room faded away, and Evan could suddenly see her again. He stood on a beach with lovely warm sand between his toes. A pleasant light breeze blew in off the water. Olivia stood at the water’s edge, wearing her familiar blue dress but no shoes or stockings. The water lapped around her ankles, and her red hair blew freely in the wind.

Olivia smiled broadly at Evan. Her green eyes sparkled with invitation as she waved for him to join her in the water. “Come, Evan,” she cried happily. “Come with me now.”

Evan didn’t hesitate. Full of energy and breath, he sprinted for the surf.

The Alfredson’s boardroom occupied most of the top floor of the administrative building. Erin had never before set foot inside, but the surroundings impressed her. Glassed in on three sides with floor-to-ceiling windows, the room provided a view of the rest of the complex and the Cascades to the east. The morning sun streamed through the translucent blinds on the east-facing windows and bathed the room in an ethereal light. A massive rectangular oak table, encircled by at least a hundred padded rolling chairs, sat in the center of the room. Ultramodern, with its integrated high-tech audiovisual system, the room struck Erin as more fitting to a major Wall Street corporation than a hospital.

More than half of the chairs around the table were already filled. Those seated ranged in age from early twenties to eighties. Erin suspected that one tiny woman, with shorn white hair and dressed in an outrageous saffron pantsuit, had to be pushing ninety. Most of the attendees were dressed formally in dark business suits, but a few were more casually attired, including a middle-aged man in jeans with a ponytail and hoop earrings. Scanning the room, Erin could not spot any discernible unifying feature, size, or coloring among the various Alfredson descendants. By the way the chairs were positioned and the people leaned, Erin saw that the family had naturally divided themselves into cliques and clusters. She wondered if they intended to vote in similar blocs.

The vote
. A week earlier, Erin had been so consumed with her panic attacks that the thought of this meeting hardly registered. But in the past few days it had begun to sink in just how much the sale of the Alfredson would impact her program, her patients, and, most of all, her father. She
had woken earlier in the morning on tenterhooks—as though on the verge of another panic attack that never materialized—over the meeting’s possible outcome.

Since Erin, Tyler, and even William were invited only as guests and observers, they were not seated at the table. Instead, they sat in the row of chairs along the far wall with three other people Erin didn’t recognize.

Despite the hushed conversations surrounding the table, an air of electrified tension ran through the room, which surged the moment Eileen called the meeting to order. As someone was closing the door, two stragglers—middle-aged women in bland suits—slipped through and muttered apologies before grabbing their seats.

On the screen above Eileen’s head, an agenda appeared. Erin saw her father’s name listed two-thirds of the way down the program with the subtitle
CEO REPORT
. She glanced over to her father. He sat as rigid as ever in his blue suit and dark tie. In profile, his face was a mask. Erin couldn’t imagine his tumult of emotions, but from his impassive appearance, he could have passed for a commuter waiting for a scheduled train to arrive.

On the far side of William, Tyler leaned forward in his seat and turned to Erin with a little smile. “Victory,” he mouthed, and she almost giggled out of nerves.

Eileen held up her hand, and the room quieted further. “Thank you for taking the time to convene for this extraordinary meeting of the Alfredson Medical Center’s Board of Directors. I assume we have all seen the e-mails and letters pertaining to this meeting and the
sole
motion at hand.” Eileen’s tone was brusque and businesslike. “Though we only have one motion to address, as it is of an unprecedented magnitude and nature, we have set the entire day aside for presentations and discussion. All members who have requested to present have been allotted time to do so. As well, there will be time to open discussion from the floor. I hope we will commence the voting by the end of this afternoon.” She paused and scanned the table with her eyes. “There will be no proxy voting. Only board members present will vote on the motion. It will require a simple majority, fifty percent plus one, to pass. I will begin now by reading the motion aloud.”

A chill ran through Erin as she listened, for the first time, to the legalese wording of the motion that would decide the fate of the Alfredson. Again,
she half expected those invisible fingers to creep around her neck, but they never touched her.

Erin had heard from her father that Hutchins was a staunch ally and supporter of the no-sale side, but Eileen kept her opinion to herself throughout her introduction. She concluded by saying, “We have sought three separate opinions on the legality of this motion, in terms of whether the Alfredson board has the right to sell the Alfredson Medical Center to a private-interest group or person. Unquestionably, the Alfredson family owns the land on which the hospital is built, but it is much less clear whether the board is entitled to sell the hospital itself.” She indicated two of the people sitting in the chairs to the right of Tyler. “To that end, Mr. David Vogel and Ms. Jennifer Duluth from the Seattle firm of Hansen, Vogel, and Haworth have kindly attended to offer us a more informed opinion.”

The two lawyers rose in unison. The younger woman followed the gray-haired senior partner to the front of the room. Vogel opened with a few general remarks and then deferred to his associate. The woman clicked a button and the screen above her filled with the first slide of her computerized presentation. As Duluth dryly outlined the legal precedents and citations of previous major hospital sales, Erin’s mind wandered. She thought of Steve and her boys, who were taking Alex and Katie Hill to the zoo later today. She felt another flicker of pride at her sons’ eagerness to help Erin keep the promise she had made to the dying mother.

By the time Duluth wrapped up her thirty-minute presentation, Erin didn’t understand the ramifications of the vote any better than before she had begun. Judging from the bewildered expressions around the table, she was not alone. The man with the ponytail piped up. “Look, Ms. Duluth, that’s a whole lot of mumbo jumbo to me. What’s your gut tell you? Can we unload this albatross or not?”