Part 58

Alexis arranged to meet Gail Baldwin, M.D., at the hospital. She sent Zander on a supply run after he dropped her off.

"Come in, Alexis," Gail said, when she got to her office, "It's nice to see you. Come in and sit down."

"I have a case for you, if you are interested," Alexis said. "It's a friend. Don't laugh, it's really a friend! I'd send him right to you directly, but you have the right to a warning. This case is a doozy – a real, total, complete, knock-down, no-question doozy."

Gail sat down at her desk. "It sounds interesting. The doozies usually are."

"To start with – let's see, where do we even start? OK. We start with a couple with two sons. They get a divorce. Then we have the nasty custody battle. Then we have abduction of the children by the non-custodial parent. As if this were not enough, we have an international abduction. A couple of years later, we have the abductor in jail. Older child becomes a runaway. Later this child comes back into the orbit of mom and dad and brother. Dad now out of jail. Runaway child did not choose to be back into contact with them. He was forced into it when his medical history became essential to Dr. Quartermaine here. Now we have Mom moving brother and herself here. This runaway is my friend, employee, and I got him to agree to counseling over it. The mother, I bet you will think, should be part of it, but she's not the counseling type. Likely to be resistant. Very practical, smart, but emotionally – oversimplifies things a great deal."

"What a doozy!" Gail said.

They both laughed.

"This is right up my alley," Gail said. "Bring 'em on!"