Blind Spot. Nancy Bush
work with her patients, the evenings she shared tea, or dinner, or wine with Dinah were the real moments where Claire felt connected to the human race.
Now she said, “I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through the last six months without this.” She motioned to Dinah and herself.
Dinah smiled. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“For me? Yeah, right.”
“Sometimes the universe does answer.”
“Mmm.” Claire squinched down in her chair and gazed into the fog. “I didn’t know I’d sent out a question.”
“You didn’t want to send it out. Others did that for you. But the message was received and now you’re getting better. Stronger.”
“You’re a little too woo-woo for me. You know that, right?”
She smiled and leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t drink wine. It dulls the senses.”
“All five, or do you have six?”
Dinah opened her eyes and turned to look at Claire. “You’re such a believer in straight science.”
“Hey, if there’s something more, I’m all for it. Don’t quote me on that. The hospital administration already regards me with suspicion. But I like this.” She lifted her glass to toast Dinah.
Claire had told Dinah how her marriage to Ron fell apart after her two miscarriages. Dinah, in turn, had talked about Toby, about her frustration with Toby’s mother, how she would love to adopt the little boy herself, but it was not to be.
Now they just enjoyed each other’s company, talking about other things, the less important the better. After dinner and several glasses of wine, Dinah headed back to her house and Claire stayed where she was, her gaze on the ocean.
Later, lying in bed and watching rain drizzle down her windowpane, she wondered more about her friend. Dinah seemed to understand Claire’s very soul and yet, beyond Toby, Claire knew very little about the woman next door. Some people were like that, she knew; they could give of themselves wholly without offering up a clue to their own inner workings. Claire had just never met someone so completely like that as Dinah. She felt a little guilty because it seemed sometimes like she was taking, taking, taking and offering nothing in return except an occasional dinner or glass of wine.
She closed her eyes, thoughts of Dinah drifting away to be replaced by other more pressing issues. Tomorrow Claire was going to be bullied by the administration and the Marsdons to give a favorable account regarding Heyward Marsdon III’s rehabilitation and therefore the means of his incarceration. Nobody wanted him on Side B. Not his family, and because of them, not the hospital administrators. She knew they wanted him as an inpatient on Side A.
But was it the right course to take?
The question kept her awake till nearly dawn.
Chapter 4
The hour-long eleven o’clock meeting started on time and ran an hour and a half late. Everyone Freeson had said would be there was there, along with Dr. Zellman, Dr. Prior, and Dr. Dayton from Side B—Dr. Jean Dayton being the only other woman in the room besides Claire.
The meeting was to decide the fate of Mr. Heyward Marsdon III, at least within the hospital walls. There was a lot of detailed data on his psychological state of mind, garnered over the past six months, and the first hour and a half crawled by with each of the doctors from Side B’s recount. Claire was a little surprised that Dr. Jean Dayton’s views coincided so closely with her own.
“Mr. Marsdon is a paranoid schizophrenic,” she wrapped up in her curiously flat voice. She seemed to have next to no inflection in her tone. “He suffers delusions and hallucinations. Off his meds, he believes there are alien beings trying to kill him. That has not changed in six months, nor is it likely to in the future. I believe he should stay where he is.”
“Dr. Dayton,” Avanti answered smoothly, before Radke, whose face had grown tight and grim at her bald assessment, could try to pour oil on the situation himself. This was the first serious voice of dissent in their plan to move Heyward to Side A. “How often do you see Mr. Marsdon, professionally?”
“Daily,” she stated.
“How often do you see other patients?”
“Daily,” she repeated.
“All of them?”
“Most of them.”
“But isn’t Dr. Prior Mr. Marsdon’s primary psychiatrist? Isn’t he the one who should decide the right course of action?”
“I’m Heyward Marsdon’s primary,” Prior affirmed. He was a short man with a rotund stomach that he liked to rest his clasped hands upon.
Dayton said, “I’m one of Marsdon’s doctors as well.” Her voice took on a stubborn tone. “I think he’s a danger to himself and others. Why don’t you tell them what you said about him last week,” she challenged Dr. Prior.
Prior sat up straight as if hit by a cattle prod.” “What?”
“When you and I were talking about Heyward after our weekly session together.”
“I said he was doing fine,” Prior declared.
“Actually, you said, ‘Thank God he’s on his meds. That’s the only time he’s fine.’”
“We all agree Heyward should stay on his meds,” Avanti broke in. “But when he’s on them, as he is now, he’s in complete control.”
Claire glanced at Heyward’s family, his grandfather, Heyward Marsdon Senior, and his father, Heyward Marsdon Junior. Senior leaned forward, interested in the proceedings, but Junior looked like he was counting the tiny holes in the acoustical tiles on the ceiling.
Senior said in his gravelly voice, “I’ll allow my grandson’s had a few problems. He was overtaken by chemically induced visions that have altered his reality in terrible ways.”
Like killing Melody Stone? Claire felt her skin tingle with shock. He was trying to negate the seriousness of Heyward’s crime.
Dayton stated flatly, “If you’re implying that his medications altered his reality, you are ignoring the facts.”
“Dr. Dayton, we all know what happened.” This time it was Radke speaking. “And we’re not asking that he be released. What we are trying to discern is whether the more restrictive side of the hospital is the right place for Mr. Marsdon.”
“There are some seriously psychologically disturbed criminals on that side,” Marsdon Senior pointed out.
Of which Heyward III is one, Claire thought.
“They’re all treated with respect,” Dr. Zellman felt compelled to put in.
“That goes for all of our patients,” Avanti said. “Side A and Side B.”
“All right,” Radke said, closing his leather-bound notebook and leaning his arms across its smooth, black finish. His glance touched on Claire for a moment, then he looked around the room. The other doctors gazed back at him expectantly. Avanti, whose supercilious attitude was in high gear, had a faint smile on his lips, as if he knew it was already a foregone conclusion that Marsdon would be moved to Side A. He was worse than Freeson, Claire decided. A major leaguer while Freeson was still on a farm team when it came to overinflated ego, impatience, and narcissism.
The Marsdons, Senior and Junior, gave each other a look. Junior crossed his legs, twitched his knife-creased pant legs into place, then stared off into space as if he’d magically transported himself somewhere else. Maybe he had. He sure as hell hadn’t been in the moment once during this meeting.
Radke said, “We’ve all had a chance to discuss the right course of action for Mr. Marsdon, and though initially it seemed prudent