“That was the ER. Penny said something to one of the nurses … something … well, I think we should both go see her right now.”
In a flash, Grace was rising to her feet. “I didn’t think I was allowed to go there.”
“You’re not, not really,” Mitch said. “But I’m new here … I don’t know all the rules yet.” He winked.
“What did Penny say?” Grace asked.
“She told a nurse she remembered something from that night. Something important.”
CHAPTER 10
DR. MITCHELL MCHUGH MADE his way to the ER at a pace a few ticks below a jog. With the patients outside in the courtyard at that hour, his fast footfalls echoed in the barren hallway. Grace stayed in lockstep with him, and he suspected they were thinking the same thing: Will it be Penny we find? Or will Eve have returned? And what has she remembered from that night?
Mitch was still unfamiliar with Edgewater, making the creepily similar corridors a maze to rival one of Daedalus’s creations. Twice he found himself backtracking after making a wrong turn. Mitch was reminded of a time, years ago, when he got lost trying to find Adam’s hospital room after his son’s surgery to remove a ruptured appendix. Eventually, Mitch had to call Caitlyn, his ex-wife, to get directions to the room.
Shaken by the memory, Mitch refocused his attention on his job. By no means had he been enthusiastic about accepting a position here, but the bills were mounting and nobody else was calling, so he resigned himself to the equivalent of professional purgatory.
Regret.
Profound, heartbreaking, perspective-shifting, soul-searching regret.
That’s what Mitch felt after his previous employer, MassGeneral for Children at the North Shore Medical Center, decided that the time had come for them to part ways. “Heal thyself” made an excellent biblical proverb, but it was severely frowned upon when interpreted literally by a medical professional. Mitch knew he should have sought help for his depression before turning to his prescription pad, but he was stubbornly self-reliant, a tradition forged by family dysfunction that included an absentee father with whom he had no relationship and an alcoholic mother who gave her life to her disease. Mitch was a poster boy for “grin and bear it,” having perfected the art of bottling up his feelings until they fermented into something unhealthy.
For years Mitch had told his patients there was no shame in seeking help for mental illness, all the while failing to heed his own advice. Technically what he had done—self-diagnosing and self-prescribing—was not illegal, but it wasn’t exactly endorsed, either. Which was why a sharp-eyed pharmacist thought one personal refill was one too many and informed Mitch’s employer of his actions. Two weeks later, Mitch got the boot, along with an invitation to become a client of Physician Health Services.
PHS, as it was more commonly known, provided support and monitoring services for doctors with mental illness, substance abuse, boundary issues, and behavioral problems. Most new PHS contracts required the troubled physician to enter some sort of treatment program or inpatient rehab, followed by regular meetings with their assigned PHS counselor and random urine screens if alcohol or other drug abuse were an issue. While they offered troubled docs a second chance, what they couldn’t provide was freedom from guilt.
“Please, Mitch, please promise me you won’t squander this opportunity.”
Mitch promised his counselor at PHS, Dr. Steve Adelman, that he wouldn’t squander anything, but a friend of his who was familiar with Edgewater didn’t view the opportunity as the brass ring of second chances.
“It’s a real hellhole in there, Mitch,” this friend had warned over beers a week before his start date. “You sure you have no other options?”
Mitch had smiled back wanly. His buddy knew the answer well enough. It takes a lot less effort to dismantle one’s life than it does to build it back up. It was a miracle he’d managed to crawl out of the hole he’d dug for himself far enough to land this gig.
One year. That’s what Mitch gave himself. One year of intensive therapy, no more self-medicating, and then maybe he could work his way back to private practice, provide himself that second chance he’d promised Caitlyn.
“You’re better than this, Mitch,” she had told him. “I’m just not sure you see in yourself what others do.”
What Mitch saw was a failure on his part to stop their son Adam’s perilous descent into drug addiction. He saw his son in his bedroom, skin blue with cyanosis, his body unable to oxygenate the blood, a needle on the floor near his inert form. Like father, like son, Adam’s method of self-medicating involved heroin, and it would have been a fatal injection, too, had Mitch not stocked a ready supply of Narcan for this very occasion. Mitch had talked to countless parents of troubled teens, instructing them on the warning signs for drug abuse, while those very signs were present in his own home.