Eighty-One

EIGHTY-ONE

"AT LEAST I DIDN'T consider kicking you to wake you up," Dr. Sam Wylie says.

It's an hour later and I'm hooked up to an IV in a bed in a private room at Southampton Hospital that Sam Wylie has scored for me, mostly because she's not someone to be screwed with, especially not here.

She drove me herself, not wanting to wait for an ambulance. I admitted to her over a couple of bottles of water that for all my chatter about doing the right things, over the past couple of days I've allowed myself to get dehydrated. She tells me it's probably not the only reason I fainted. But likely the biggest one.

I accuse her of being overly dramatic.

"Ending up in the hospital at the end of our girls' night out is what's kind of dramatic," Sam says.

She's in a chair next to my bed.

"You've got to sleep more, you've got to exercise more, you have to hydrate every day and not just when you remember," she says. "All those good things you say you've been doing? You don't get to take a day off, whether you're doing chemo or not."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder. Or you not only won't make it through your trial, you won't make it to your trial."

I lift my head slightly and start to speak.

Sam doesn't give me the chance.

"Hush and listen," she says, putting a little snap in her voice. "I'm telling you for the last time that no trial and no client is worth dying for."

"Would you say that if I were defending one of your patients?" I ask.

"We're talking here about the most important patient I've ever had," she says. "You."

"I tried to quit the case. I just couldn't make myself do it."

Sam smiles. "Would that have killed you?"

She reaches over and takes my free hand. I think about all the talks we've had in our lives, about everything, in what feels like another life a thousand years before we were doctor and patient.

"For the last time, please answer one question. I promise not to ask you ever again."

"Liar."

She leans forward, squeezes my hand harder. "Is it worth it?"

Ever since I resumed my defense of Rob Jacobson, I've been asking myself the same question.

I squeeze her hand back and remind myself that tonight is a no-cry zone.

In a whisper, I say, "It might not make any sense to you. But it's worth it to me."

She keeps me on the IV for another hour. The nurse comes in and unhooks me, but Sam shakes her head. "Obviously I can't release you. You're still acting lightheaded."

"I'm fine."

"The hell you are," she says. "You can pick up the car in the morning. Besides, your ride is already here."

Dr. Ben Kalinsky pokes his head into the room now.

"We need to stop meeting like this," he says.

He drives me home and gets me into bed, walks Rip. No further conversation, he tells me. He's going to sleep on the couch.

In the morning, Jimmy calls. From the hospital, Sam caught him up on the festivities at the Bell & Anchor.

"I took a ride over to the restaurant after you two girls left," Jimmy tells me. "I found out some very interesting shit about McKenzie and Eric Jacobson."

"Such as?"

"Such as they go in there a lot," Jimmy says.

There's a brief silence then, from both of us, while I process the information.

"Turns out it's kind of their place," Jimmy adds.