"Don't touch me," Kevin snapped.
"Come on, Mr. Aggressive," Trent Yarborough called from across the floor. Trent was a surgeon and one of the better ballplayers. He'd played at Yale. "Let's see the old schnozzola. Frankly, I'm glad to see you get a little of your own medicine."
"Screw you, Yarborough," Kevin said. He lowered his hands. His right nostril dripped blood. The bridge of his nose bent to the right.
Trent came over for a better look. "Looks like your beak's been broken."
"Shit!" Kevin said.
"Want me to straighten it?" Trent asked. "I won't charge much."
"Let's just hope your malpractice insurance is paid up," Kevin said. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
Trent grabbed Kevin's nose between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger and snapped it back into position. The cracking sound that resulted made everyone-even the surgeon-wince.
Trent stepped back to admire his handiwork. "Looks better than the original," he said.
David asked if he could give Kevin a ride home, but Kevin told him he'd drive himself, still sounding angry.
A sub stepped into the game, taking Kevin's place. For a moment David stood and gazed at the door where Kevin had exited. Then he winced as someone slapped him on the back. David turned and looked into Trent's face.
"Don't let Kevin bother you," Trent said. "He's broken two other people's noses here that I know of. Kevin is not a particularly good sport, but otherwise he's okay."
Reluctantly, David resumed the game.
When David returned home, Nikki and Angela were ready for the day's outing. There were to be no projects that Saturday because they had been invited to a nearby lake for an overnight stay. An afternoon of swimming was to be followed by a cookout. The Yansens, the Yarboroughs, and the Youngs, the "three Y's" as they called themselves, had rented a lakeside cottage for the month. Steve Young was an obstetrician/gynecologist as well as one of the basketball regulars.
"Come on, Daddy," Nikki said impatiently. "We're already late."
David looked at the time. He'd played basketball longer than usual. Running upstairs, he jumped into the shower. A half hour later they were in the car and on their way.
The lake was an emerald green jewel nestled into a lushly wooded valley between two mountains. One of the mountains boasted a ski resort that David and Angela were told was one of the best in the area.
The cottage was charming. It was a rambling, multi-bedroomed structure built around a massive fieldstone fireplace. A spacious screened porch fronted the entire house and faced the lake. Extending out from the porch was a large deck. A flight of wooden steps connected the deck to a T-shaped dock that ran out fifty feet into the water.
Nikki immediately teamed up with Arni Yansen, and they ran off into the forest where Arni was eager to show her a treehouse. Angela went into the kitchen where Nancy Yansen, Claire Young, and Gayle Yarborough were happily involved in the food preparation. David joined the men who were nursing beers while casually watching a Red Sox game on a portable TV.
The afternoon passed languidly, interrupted only by the minor tragedies associated with eight active children who had the usual proclivities of tripping over rocks, skinning knees, and hurting each others' feelings. The Yansens had two children, the Youngs had one, and the Yarboroughs had three.
The only blip in the otherwise flawless day was Kevin's mood. He'd developed mildly black eyes from his broken nose. On more than one occasion he yelled at David for being clumsy and fouling him continuously. David finally took him aside, amazed that Kevin was making such an issue of the affair.
"I apologized," David said. "And I'll apologize again. I'm sorry. It was an accident. I certainly didn't mean it."
Kevin irritably eyed David, giving David the impression that Kevin was not going to forgive him. But then Kevin sighed. "All right," he said. "Let's have another beer."
After dinner the adults sat around the huge table while the children went out onto the dock to fish. The sky was still red in the west and the color reflected off the water. The tree frogs and crickets and other insects had long since started their incessant nightly chorus. Fireflies dotted the deep shadows under the trees.
At first the conversation dealt with the beauty of the surroundings and the inherent benefits of living in Vermont where most people only got to visit for short vacations. But then the conversation turned to medicine, to the chagrin of the other three wives.
"I'd almost rather hear sports trivia," Gayle Yarborough complained. Nancy Yansen and Claire Young heartily agreed.
"It's hard not to talk about medicine with all this so-called 'reform' going on," Trent said. Neither Trent nor Steve were CMV physicians. Although they had been trying to form a preferred provider organization with a large insurance company and Blue Shield, they were not having much luck. They were a little late. Most of the patient base had been snapped up by CMV because of the plan's aggressive, competitive marketing.
"The whole business has got me depressed," Steve said. "If I could think of some way of supporting myself and my family, I'd leave medicine in the blink of an eye."
"That would be a terrible waste of your skill," Angela said.
"I suppose," Steve said. "But it would be a hell of a lot better than blowing my brains out like you-know-who."
The reference to Dr. Portland intimidated everyone for a few moments. It was Angela who broke the silence. "We've never heard the story about Dr. Portland," she said. "I've been curious, I have to admit. I've seen his poor wife. She's obviously having enormous trouble dealing with his death."
"She blames herself," Gayle Yarborough said.
"All we heard was that he was depressed," David said. "Was it about something specific?"
"The last time he played basketball he was all uptight about one of his hip fracture patients dying," Trent said. "It was Sam Flemming, the artist. Then I think he lost a couple of others."
David felt a shiver pass down his spine. The memory of his own reaction as a junior resident to the deaths of several of his patients passed through him like an unwelcome chill.
"I'm not even sure he killed himself," Kevin said suddenly, shocking everyone. Other than complaining about David's clumsiness, Kevin had said very little that day. Even his wife Nancy looked at him as if he'd blasphemed.
"I think you'd better explain yourself," Trent said.
"Not much to explain except Randy didn't have a gun," Kevin said. "It's one of those nagging details that no one has been able to explain. Where'd he get it? No one has stepped forward to say that he'd borrowed it from him. He didn't go out of town. What did he do, find it along the road?" Kevin laughed hollowly. "Think about it."
"Come on," Steve said. "He must have had it, just no one knew."
"Arlene said she didn't know anything about it," Kevin persisted. "Plus he was shot directly through the front of the head and angled downward. That's why it was his cerebellum that was splattered against the wall. I've personally never heard of anyone shooting himself like that. People usually put the barrel in their mouths if they want to be sure not to mess it up. Other people shoot themselves in the side of the head. It's hard to shoot yourself from the front, especially with a long-barreled magnum." Kevin made a pistol with his hand as he'd done on David's first day of work. This time when he tried to point the gun straight into his forehead, he made the gesture look particularly awkward.
Gayle shivered through fleeting nausea. Even though she was married to a doctor, talk of blood and guts made her ill.
"Are you trying to suggest he was murdered?" Steve said.
"All I'm saying is I'm personally not sure he killed himself," Kevin repeated. "Beyond that, everybody can make his own assessment."
The sounds of crickets and tree frogs dominated the night as everyone pondered Kevin's disturbing comments. "Well, I think it's all poppycock," Gayle Yarborough said finally. "I think it was cowardly suicide, and my heart goes out to Arlene and her two boys."