Tatiana flew back late Sunday and was back to work the next day. Miriam signed out to her Monday morning, giving her the short version.
Lilly Fielding was one of Tatiana's favorite patients. "I always knew her daughter was a piece of shit. She suspected it too."
"Then why did she name her as her surrogate, for goodness sakes?" Miriam could barely control her exasperation. "She would have saved us a bunch of grief if she'd named her daughter's Shih Tzu as surrogate, for example, or her manicurist!"
"If we had children maybe we'd understand. Fortunately we're among the lucky ones who were spared. Although there's still time for you to succumb.
"Anyway, I think she gave me a new advance directive on her last visit."
She heard Tatiana softly cursing, and could picture her rifling through the mountainous stacks of paper on her desk. "Here it is. Six weeks ago, after the last ER visit. She named a cousin as surrogate, not her daughter.
"Too bad you didn't come into my office and look around," Tatiana continued.
"Look around? It would take an archeologist to find anything! Besides, your staff was gone. Security wouldn't have let me in your office."
"You could have sweet-talked them, or snuck in with housekeeping. Pick locked the door. Oh I forgot, you're a card carrying member of the hospital ethics committee or some other good shit."
Miriam thought of her pact of silence with Lara. Lara had activated almost every sprinkler in Marilyn's house, and the fire-phobic woman had sprinklers everywhere. The company was still investigating. Lara had insisted she knew how to do it and escape detection.
Card carrying ethics committee member.
"You got that right," she said.
"Lilly loves the damn hospital," Tati went on. "Volunteers. Bought a few plaques. I had to stop her from dedicating one to me, made her change it to with thanks to my darling doctor, you know who you are, or something. Rumor is she's worth millions, and a lot of them are going to her beloved Miami Health.
"Never good idea to will your money to the hospital you go to. Now if it were me, I'd give the hospital money to keep me alive, but make sure all the big shots knew it was going to their bitterest competitor when I die."
Miriam let that sink in.
"How was your trip, anyway?" she asked. "Glad to be back?"
"In some ways. It was a hard week, there's real need over there. Now I have to listen to some yokel in Publix complaining about the moldy strawberries. After a trip like this I have no patience for the stupid things people complain about here."
"You never have patience."
"That too."
Office was quiet that day, giving Miriam a change to catch up on calls, paperwork, and computer data entry. Botwork, she thought, thinking of JK, and thinking about JK inevitably led to thinking about the narcotics diversion and then the pharmacy murder. The police were pursuing solid leads, according to the news, but still--another week and still no answers.
Mr. Kasper had missed his two week follow-up appointment after his hospitalization. Miriam dialed his number and listened to it ring and ring. Finally, an answering machine. She left a cheery message, asking him to call back to reschedule, vowing silently to visit him at home if he didn't show up.
In unexpected good news, the appeal for Mr. Riverton's heartburn medicine was successful, after Belle finally managed to get a sympathetic insurance agent on the phone. The office called him with the approval.
YOU ARE READING
Comfort Zone
Misterio / SuspensoDr. Miriam Gotlin is intent on building a medical practice in which caring for patients also means caring about them. When a desperately ill AIDS patient is admitted to the hospital and fails to respond to an injection that had always worked, Miria...