his own to use to string out everything until the matter was settled by the death of Donna Kelso. And until then he would use Annie to maintain the impasse the equality had created.
Hesitantly, uncertain for the first time, she told Annie about the terms of Donna Kelso’s will.
“He’ll win,” Annie said when Naomi became silent. “He’ll have the McIvey Surgical Institute.” She tasted her coffee, put it down again. “It isn’t even for the money,” she said. “He really doesn’t care about money.” Abruptly she stood up. “Thanks, Naomi. I have to go. See you tomorrow.”
Naomi watched her rush away, then continued to sit at the table thinking she had never hated anyone in her life the way she hated David McIvey. She had seen Annie change from a happy, laughter-loving child into a woman with shadows in her eyes, with a strained expression when her husband’s name was mentioned and an almost total withdrawal into some other space when he was present. David McIvey had marked her. And he would drive Greg out without a moment’s hesitation, destroy Darren, destroy the clinic. All in a day’s work, inconsequential. Collateral damage, she thought bitterly. That’s what he would bring about on his march to where he was driven to go.
She agreed with Annie—it was not for the money. As a surgeon he was making a lot of money already, and apparently spending little. No yacht, no private plane, no palatial mansion. He didn’t collect art. Annie had said the condo was almost sterile, and neither of them wore expensive jewelry, except for her wedding ring. What was driving him was more compelling than money. Power? In the operating room he was a god, power enough. She stood up and took the coffee mugs to the sink where she poured out Annie’s coffee, rinsed both mugs. She picked up a wooden spoon from the counter, then became still again, looking out the back window, over the herb garden, past the screening hedge, to the upper floor of the clinic.
“God wants a larger domain,” she said under her breath. “He wants people to come from all over the world to seek the healing touch of his magic wand, the scalpel, to pay homage….” She heard a snapping sound and looked down in surprise at her hands. She had broken the spoon handle in two.
The anticipated storm moved in that evening with gusting winds and driving rain. Annie stood at a window in the living room of the condo watching the fir trees dance in the rain. When David came into the room after changing his clothes, she said, without turning to look at him, “I’m going to vote for the foundation.”
“Annette, don’t be a fool,” David said. “You will vote exactly the way I tell you to. That’s a given.”
She shook her head. “I think the foundation is a good idea, the continuity is important.” She turned to face him. He was not even looking at her, but at the mail.
“The court will not agree to such a change when one board member is incompetent and another, with majority shares, is opposed,” he said, opening an envelope. “That isn’t how the system works. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable.”
“You could have a surgical clinic somewhere else,” she said. “You could build it to suit yourself, do it that way.” He didn’t ask her how she had learned about the surgical clinic. He had not told her, and he didn’t care who had any more than he cared what she thought about it. He never asked her anything.
“I already have a facility.” He threw the mail down on the coffee table. “My father built it with every intention of leaving it to me, and I intend to use it. I played second fiddle to that clinic all my life, and now I’m moving into the first fiddler’s chair. Period.”
For a moment his face was transformed by fury like that of a thwarted child, or a wronged youth, neglected and vengeful. The expression was fleeting, and once again his expression became as unreadable as that of a Greek statue. “Annette, listen carefully because I won’t repeat this. Greg and Naomi will be out of there in three months, and Darren sooner than that. How they leave is still open. With the unanimous highest recommendations of the board of governors, or with a serious reservation included in a report by a major shareholder? Greg is incompetent, and Naomi has no training in bookkeeping or anything else as far as I can tell. And Darren has a criminal record. He’s an ex-con, a drug addict who, I am afraid, has reverted to his old habit.”
She stared at him, then started to walk across the room, toward the hall and the foyer.
“Where are you going? Dinner is just about ready.”
“I don’t know where I’m going. Out.”
Annie had been driving aimlessly for hours when she pulled in and stopped at the parking lot of the clinic, although she had no intention of running to Naomi and Greg, or of entering the building. The rain was so hard that the windshield wipers had not been able to keep the glass clear enough to continue driving.
When the rain eased, and it probably would in another hour or two, fog would form, she thought. The earth, buildings, pavement, trees, all still warm from summer’s heat, chilled by the first real rain of the season brought dense fogs here in the valley. She was thinking again of her father’s milk cows, placidly grazing as water crept up into the lower pasture, until Molly Bee, the matriarch of the herd, started to move in a leisurely way toward higher ground, and all the others left off cropping grass to follow her. “Who elected her queen of the cattle?” Annie had asked her father a very long time ago, almost too distant a time to recall. “I think she’s self-appointed,” her father had said. “But no one questions her authority.”
She would give the shares to someone else, she thought suddenly, and shook her head even as the thought formed. David never made idle threats. He would smear Darren, Greg and Naomi, and in the end he would still have the clinic. She didn’t doubt that for a second. He would have the clinic. Her cell phone rang and she ignored it just as she had before. It would be David ordering her to come back home. Even if she gave the shares to Naomi and Greg, it wouldn’t stop David….
They both knew what was happening. If they couldn’t save the clinic, they could protect themselves one way or another, or retire. Greg was old enough to retire, or go to a small town and practice medicine.
Then she thought, what if Darren leaves first? She knew he had been offered a position in one of the biggest rehabilitation centers in Los Angeles. Or he could go to Seattle. Or Portland. He could go almost anywhere, make better money, still do the work he loved and had been born to do…. If he handed in his resignation now, he would leave with excellent references, no smear, no blot on his record.
She didn’t know whether he would accept that idea, and chances were good that he wouldn’t, but he had to have the choice. He had to know what was going on. Leave now, or stay and be forced out later, and possibly be destroyed professionally…He had to know. She called his number on her cell phone.
When Darren agreed to meet her, she quickly said, “No. I’ll come to your place. Where do you live now?”
The storm had made Erica restless, unable to concentrate on a book, or the television, or anything else. What if the shingles blew off, or the new roof leaked, or a tree blew down? She heard the car in the driveway and went to a front window to see who was coming this late. She knew that Darren was home. She always knew if he was in the apartment. When she saw Annie leave the car, look at the house uncertainly, then go around to the outside stairs, she burned with resentment, with an ache that started some place she had no name for.
“We have the next board meeting on Thursday,” Annie said. “I’ll try to stall, but I’ll probably have to vote. Think about it, Darren. He’s going to win, one way or the other. He will. He always does. He’s…he’s
