“Maybe he should be,” Brian insisted. “As a businessman in a service industry, I would think he’d be very interested in the hospital’s image. What do you think about me approaching him on my own?”
“He wouldn’t waste a minute talking with you,” Roger said. “I’m telling you: He’s a very, very busy man. Besides, you’d be taking a risk going up to him unannounced.”
“How so?” Brian asked.
“He has an armed driver.”
“Why would a hospital CEO need an armed driver?” Brian asked. As a security-minded individual, Brian was legitimately interested.
“Because he is an inordinately important man running several large institutions,” Roger said impatiently. “It’s to protect him from people like you, if you want to know the truth. What a ridiculous question.”
“Okay,” Brian said, trying to maintain his composure. “Let’s move on to another issue. Did you or anyone here make it a point to contact the Hudson Valley Rehabilitation Hospital and report that my wife’s hospital bill had been turned over to collections?”
“I can’t imagine. It certainly wasn’t me, if that is what you are implying.”
“Someone did,” Brian said. “Last week I was dragged into their business office and presented with an ultimatum: Either I came up with a twenty-thousand-dollar advance or my wife was going to be booted out for the second time because of nonpayment of exorbitant hospital charges.”
“I resent that statement,” Roger said irritably. “It seems you’re implying that your wife was discharged from here because of nonpayment of her bill and that our charges are not appropriate. Both statements are patently untrue, as I’ve told you before.” He stood up. “This meeting is over. I want you to leave, or I am going to call security, and they will throw you out.”
For a brief moment of irrationality, Brian fantasized about refusing to leave in hopes of having a half-trained hospital security person or two try to throw him out. Instead, feeling chagrined at being summarily dismissed after he’d made a sincere effort to come in and resolve the hospital bill problem, Brian stormed out of Dalton’s office. Cursing under his breath and feeling a searing anger at a system designed to make money more than anything else, he strode toward the door leading into the hospital lobby. But on his way out he couldn’t help but stop and stare in at Charles Kelley’s empty office and fancy glass-walled conference room.
Motivated by morbid curiosity, Brian walked in through the open office door. He was looking for the equivalent of Heather Williams’s ostentatious foxhunting portrait, and he wasn’t disappointed. Hanging above a faux fireplace was a nearly full-sized painting of a blond-haired middle-aged man in a three-piece business suit, arms folded, leaning up against an impressive desk similar to the real one in the room. Just to be certain, Brian approached to read the engraved plaque. It was indeed Charles Kelley. Although pictorially tame in contrast to Heather’s outlandish portrait, Charles’s painting conveyed the same sense of entitlement and privilege, with an equally haughty, superior-than-thou smile. “Two birds of a feather,” Brian observed out loud as he shook his head in disgust.
“Excuse me!” a voice called. “What are you doing? You are not allowed in here!”
Brian turned to face a secretary clearly outraged at his violation of Charles Kelley’s inner sanctum.
“Just enjoying the artwork,” Brian said with a fake, innocent smile.
A few minutes later as he was passing out through the main entrance’s revolving door, with his irritation and anger still at a boiling point, Brian thought again about the two CEOs and how they seemed to be poster children for what was wrong with American medicine and unbridled entrepreneurial capitalism. And as a doer, he knew he couldn’t just passively allow their greediness to go unchallenged and dictate the unraveling of his life. He had to do something. He just didn’t know what.
Chapter 12
August 31
As Brian turned from Park Terrace East onto West 217th Street and slowed to a walk on his torn-up street, what was becoming progressively clear to him was the need to retain a lawyer despite the added cost. The question was: Should he use the counselor Grady suggested, who had some experience dealing with MMH Inwood, or should he use a lawyer from the white-shoe firm he and Emma had employed to set up Personal Protection LLC? As he climbed the stairs in the middle of his front yard where Grady had been sitting that morning, he decided to give Patrick McCarthy a try, as the cost would undoubtedly be appropriately and remarkably less. But that wasn’t the only reason. Brian also thought that Patrick’s experience with MMH could be significant in addition to his being a local boy. In a community like Inwood, being part of the neighborhood made a difference.
Reaching the top step and despite his preoccupations, he paused. He couldn’t help but appreciate his surroundings. He was standing with his profusion of riotously beautiful orange tiger lilies flanking both sides of the walkway, which had been planted by the house’s previous owners in lieu of a minuscule lawn. After admiring the flowers, he then looked up at his home with its striking Tudor revival mixture of brick and stonework. He and Emma loved the house and had admired it during their childhoods. Brian was proud that they owned it, but now, with MMH Inwood’s Premier Collections on his case, he knew that the property was potentially in jeopardy. The thought shocked him back to reality and reawakened the anger he’d felt in Roger Dalton’s office, forcing him to try to think about something else.
The something else was what he would be confronting once he entered through the front door. The one positive thing that he hoped would have resulted from Emma’s being kicked out of two hospitals was that her presence at home would have drastically improved Juliette’s attitude and behavior. But that hadn’t happened. If anything, Juliette’s apparent anxiety was even worse because Emma’s illness made it difficult for her to meet her daughter’s needs. As a result, Juliette was back to refusing to eat, was again voicing vague bodily complaints, and was displaying frequent temper tantrums.
Brian’s worst fears were substantiated the moment he entered through the front door. Standing in the foyer and removing his shoes, he could hear both his wife and his daughter distantly sobbing and complaining, one from the kitchen and the other from the upstairs guest room. Flipping a mental coin of which situation took precedence, he first went into the kitchen. Juliette was sitting in the breakfast nook and Camila was at the sink washing a frying pan. For a brief moment Brian and Camila exchanged a glance and Camila rolled her eyes.
He slid into the banquette alongside Juliette. In front of her on a plate was a freshly made grilled cheese sandwich. “What’s the matter, my sweet?” Brian asked. Juliette cried harder.
“She said she was hungry for a grilled cheese,” Camila said. It was obvious her patience was being tested. “Now she won’t eat it.” Camila finished with the pan and then turned to face the room, leaning back against the sink arms akimbo.
“Why are you not eating?” he asked his daughter.
Choking on her tears, Juliette managed: “I don’t feel good.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Brian said. He looked over at Camila, who was at her wits’ end. “Why don’t I spend a little time with her?”
“I’d appreciate that,” Camila said, and immediately left the room.
“If you don’t want to eat, what do you want to do?”
“I want to watch cartoons with Bunny.” Bunny was propped up against her as per usual.