You know what medicine's like, boy?'s like you come to rely on this wonderful woman who has promised you that if you treat her right, she'll always be there when you need her… So you do… You study, and no matter how exhausted you are, you don't take any shortcuts… And then, when you need her the most, when your own goddamn father's involved, you follow the system and use your clinical judgment, and do just what you're supposed to do, and poof! She's gone… Gone! Damn women…
Damn medicine…"
Zack had pronounced Beau Robillard dead just as John Burris was completing the removal of a jagged chunk of rusty metal from deep within the muscles of Clayton Iverson's back. Although there was no evidence that the fragment had pierced the dural lining of the spinal canal, apparently there had been some impairment of blood flow to the cord, because the Judge's paralysis had progressed and was now being regarded by Burris as total paraplegia. Whether the condition was permanent or not, Burris would not speculate, although both he and Zack knew all too well that the prognosis following such a development was not good. Word of Zack's decision, the Judge's paralysis, and Beau Robillard's death had spread through the hospital like wildfire. That Robillard's blood alcohol level had come back well below that of legal intoxication, while the Judge's was above the 0. 1 cutoff, was a fact lost in the rumors and the stories of the accident, and the virtually universal condemnation of Zack's disloyalty to his father. Suddenly, it seemed, there was not a soul in all of Ultramed-Davis who did not have a bone or two to pick with Beaudelaire Robillard, Jr., nor one who had not been helped at one time or another by Judge Clayton Iverson. Throughout the hideous evening, which ended with a tense, one way conversation at his father's bedside, Zack did not hear so much as one word of support from anyone for the difficulty of his position or the rightness of his decision.
With Suzanne and Owen Walsh watching Toby, and John Burris staying the night in the guest room at the hospital, there was no reason for him to stay around. And there was every reason to come home and get drunk. In the morning, he would in all likelihood pack up and leave. If only there were some way he could take off for parts unknown without bringing himself along. With the heat turned off, and no fire in the hearth, the house had begun to absorb the chill of the night. Zack pushed himself up and shuffled to the bedroom for a sweater. He was surprised that although he had had more to drink over a shorter period of time than he could ever remember, he felt quite steady on his feet. There was a certain irony that on this particular night he was unable even to do a decent job of getting drunk. Returning to the living room, he laid a small fire, put on a slightly less morose album, and sipped another ounce of Wild Turkey. He could understand the Judge's stony castigation of him, and even his mother's. They had every right to be upset. But Suzanne's reaction was a bitter pill. She was a physician, to say nothing of being his lover. Even if no one else did, she should have had some compassion and understanding for his predicament. He poured another ounce. Years before, in the very beginning of his training, he had wrestled with the issues of making decisions in medicine, and had chosen to adopt the careful, objective, by-the-book approach over any of the more flamboyant, headline-grabbing tactics embraced by many of his surgical colleagues. The decision had not been that difficult. He was a second child, a plodder. He had done his best with what tools he had.
Why couldn't Suzanne understand that? Frank was the buccaneer in the family. He was a scholar. Frank danced on the wind. He needed a system.
The room was growing stuffy and uncomfortably warm. If he closed his eyes for any length of time, it began to spin. His stomach felt queasy, his head like modeling clay. Perhaps he had had enough to diink. Perhaps it was time to… Zack fought the unpleasant feelings, crossed to the window and opened it a slit. The cool air felt wonderful. Toby Nelms about to be shipped off to Boston… The Judge, paralyzed… The man he had chosen to treat instead, dead… He himself anathema at the hospital. Could things have possibly turned out any worse?
There are such things in this world as love and loyalty. They're allowed … Suzanne's words. He should have listened to her. He was simply too stiff, too inflexible. Connie had told him that more than once, before she had checked out of his life. Now, Suzanne was trying to tell him the same thing. Too many rules. Not enough person. He gazed out across the glistening yard, past the low thicket, to the wall of jagged rock that he had named There, hoping someone, someday, would ask him why he climbed it. The granite face, perhaps three hundred feet up and five hundred across, was the single aspect of the house that had most appealed to him when the Pine Bough realtor was first showing him around. Sloping upward at seventy-five to eighty degrees, the face crested at a broad plateau with a better than decent view of the valley.
The climb, though somewhat tricky, was one he had already made several times. But always, he suddenly realized, he had climbed in the sunlight and with equipment. Always, he had done it by the rules… He negotiated a few heel-to-toe steps without any difficulty, and stood on one foot for several seconds. The alcohol would be no problem, he decided. Probably he hadn't even drunk as much as he thought. Rules… systems… Zack strode to the hall closet, pulled on his rubber-soled climbing shoes and his windbreaker, and stuffed a small but potent flashlight into his pocket. It was time to stop being a second ehild..
.. Time to loosen up and shatter the mold… Time to break some rules … "Because it's There, " Zack cackled as he slipped out the back door and into the chilly night. "Just because it's There."
What in the hell other reason did he need?
The air held little more than a hint of the fine, black rain, but it was still cool and heavy. Several times as Zack crossed the yard and thrashed his way through the dense thicket, he swore he could see his breath. By the time he reached the base of the rock face, his climbing shoes were soaked through. Climbing alone, at night, after a few drinks, in the rain… how many more rules could he think of to break?
Perhaps, he mused, he should go up blindfolded as well. No reason to do things halfway. After a brief debate, he rejected that notion. What he was doing was quite enough for the moment-the first in a series of steps that would ultimately lead to his transformation as a person and a physician. He moved laterally through the tall grass until he located a decent starting point, and then peered upward along the ebony granite.
Above the rim, the heavily overcast sky was only slightly less black than the stone itself It was going to be a hell of a climb. And when it was over, when he had proven what he needed to prove, he would lie beneath the trees on the plateau overhead and watch as dawn floated in over the valley. The exhilaration of the adventure coursing through him, Zack reached out and pressed his palms against the damp, cool stone.
Then, with a final glance above, he was off. Five feet… ten… twenty… forty… The climb, even with the alcohol and the darkness and the rain, was a piece of cake. Fifty… sixty… seventy…
Every time he needed a sound hold, his fingers found one. He was zoned "-climbing with a beautiful smoothness and synchrony. If he had wanted to, he could have done it blindfolded. Below-now far below-he could see the candlelight flickering in the windows of his house. His street, the winding road toward the river, the occasional car, the night lights of town, with each new hold, each upward step, his vista broadened. It was a magnificent climb, he told himself… Absolutely magnificent…
Connie was right… So was Suzanne… He should have been breaking rules like this long ago… While it had been reasonable to operate on Beau Robillard-reasonable and medically sound-in the final, metaphysical analysis, perhaps it might not have been right. Ninety feet… one hundred… maybe more… Below, the steeply sloping rock had no features. Above there was only blackness. His progress was slower now, but steady still. The wind had picked up a bit, and a fine spray was, once again, spattering him through the night. Minute by minute, Zack began feeling his breath becoming shorter, his grips not quite as firm.