Chapter 9
John had just stepped off the elevator and was trying to decide just what his next move should be.
"Mr. Gage," John heard and turned to try and find where the call was coming from. "Mr. Gage," the call repeated and John noticed two women coming from the door to the stairwell. "Please Mr. Gage can we please talk with you for a moment, please?"
John recognized two of Elise's four sisters who were hurriedly yet cautiously moving in his direction. One John had met before the other he had only seen pictures of. Now that he had been relieved of his fears about his wife he felt as if he could deal with these two, so he allowed them to approach him.
"Vanessa and Patricia, right," John spoke when they were close enough to hear. Both women stopped still in their tracks, stunned that he knew their names.
"Yes, that's right," Vanessa spoke for the pair. "How do you know that?"
"You and I have met once," John started, "Although it was several years ago so I'm not surprised that you don't remember. I spent a few days as a guest at Elise's home when she invited me out to teach some fire fighting and rescue skills to the fire department in your area. As I remember it your furnace was acting up at the time so you and your son stayed in Elise's third bedroom to make sure the two of us behaved ourselves," John brought up a memory that he hoped she shared.
A light of remembering shown in Vanessa's eyes and then more confusion, "Yes I remember, I just didn't recognize you, I guess I was a little obvious about my intentions at the time."
"As I remember it, you were clearly and intentionally obvious," John let them know, "especially when Elise was out of the room."
"I had no idea she and you kept in touch after that visit?" Vanessa was blushing but didn't wait for an answer before she asked the next question, "I thought she said you were from the reservation."
"I grew up there," John answered watching carefully for their reaction, "And yes we have kept in touch and made several trips to meet and get more training with each other over the years. She's also asked my advice every time she buys new equipment. We'd actually known each other for about a year before I came out to visit her."
"So did she call you and ask you to come get her and bring her here?" Patricia spoke accusingly.
"No, she called me and asked me if I could introduce her to a doctor, I thought it was for some more emergency service training," John answered unruffled by the accusation that was lodged at him. "I insisted on meeting her at the airport and knew the second she was off the plane that something was wrong."
"Who got her to the airport in Helena? There's no way she could have driven, she was far too drugged and weak," Vanessa questioned both John and her sister. "Greg even requested extra sedation because he was afraid she was going to try and make a brake for it."
"Even with the added risk to her heart he insisted on more sedation?" John questioned and instantly disliked Greg all that much more.
"Why did you agree to let Elise have that surgery with the risks as high as they were? She only had a 40 to 50 percent chance of coming out of there alive." Patricia spoke again.
"Where did you get those figures?" John asked.
"The Dr. told us that there was only a 50/50 chance it would work at the very best, Greg was the one who explained it to us." Vanessa seemed to be the calmest and most rational of the two sisters and John felt like they deserved to understand a few things.
Motioning them toward a quiet group of chairs and then to set down John sat across from them and began to speak calmly.
"What you don't seem to understand is that this procedure that was performed is so none evasive that even if the pacemaker didn't correct the heart rhythm she wouldn't have been any worse off. So in fact the 50 % chance of success was 50% more that what she already had. Another thing you need to understand is that in your area the doctors that can perform this kind of procedure don't do it all that often and their proficiency and success rate are lower than here in the big city were the doctors do this sort of thing to the tune of hundreds a month. Some of these doctors can implant a pacemaker in their sleep and therefore their success rate is much higher. Add in the fact that her heart has healed somewhat and they used a new type of pacemaker for a higher success and we were dealing with only a win situation, we had very little to lose and a whole lot to gain."
"But what about that sliver of helmet in her heart?" Vanessa revealed that she had known about it before today. "The doctor back home said it could only be removed with open heart surgery and there was no way she was strong enough to get through that surgery."
"It was close to coming to that today," John admitted, "The doctor who was performing the procedure just happens to be a master with the catheter he was using and by a miracle he was able to get a hold of the sliver and remove it with the same equipment that was used to implant the pacemaker's electrodes."
"So what you're saying is that your doctors are better than the ones we have back home." Patricia was still antagonistic.
"What I want you to understand is that they specialize. This type of situation is all that they do, if you were to come to them with a broken leg they wouldn't even begin to know what to do for you. But because they only do one thing they are a little better at that one thing than a Doctor who is expected to treat everything."
"So if we had agreed to have her transferred to the bigger hospital in Helena they might have been able to do it there?" Patricia started to soften up a little.
"Very likely," John answered.
"But Greg told us she would never survive the travel. He convinced us that the best thing to do was to keep her comfortable and her seizures under control and that she just might heal on her own." Vanessa was stunned at the implication she had made toward her brother-in-law.
"We really just thought we were doing what's best for her," Vanessa said with a distant stare of realization at the wall behind John.
"She's such a risk taker and a daredevil and Greg and the doctor convinced us that with all the medication she was on and the head injury that she wasn't capable of making her own choices." Patricia added she too looked as if she had realized what they were doing was wrong.
"But wait a minute; if you didn't come get her then how did she get to the airport in Helena?" Patricia questioned.
"Rachel," John answered.
"Rachel! But none of us as seen Rachel since she left her husband two years ago," Both sisters stared at John.
"She has always known Elise wouldn't tell her husband where she was," John informed, "Just like you didn't know that she kept in touch with me you didn't know she was keeping track of and in touch with her other sister."
"Rachel would be the one to help her do what she wanted when we wouldn't." Vanessa spoke again, "We never did trust our baby sister to make the right choice, even when she proved us wrong time and time again." Vanessa let out a deep sigh, "She's just such a dare devil and always goes against the grain. Once she sets her mind on something there's no talking her out of it."
"I would say that's a fair assessment of your sister," John thought what he was saying was a compliment. "But look at the lives she's saved and the difference she's made."
"Yeah, but most of them were Indians," Vanessa blurted out before remembering John had said that he grew up on the reservation. All she could do then was look ashamed.
"We would really like to see our sister before we go back home," Patricia pleaded with John.
"Not tonight, I'll talk with her in the morning and if she agrees and is doing well then once she's moved to the step down unit you can see her one at a time." John agreed and the two sisters felt that was a safe and fair compromise.
The conversation was interrupted by a hand on his back and John looked behind him to see Roy standing there.
"Hey," John looked at his partner, "Is there a chance I could get a ride back to the station to get my car?"
"I don't see why not, your even still in uniform if we get a call on the way," Roy offered and John got up to go with him waving at the two in-laws he had hopefully gotten on better terms with.
The ride to the station was an uneventful one. John was introduced to his replacement by the name of Dave Carter, new to the paramedics neither John nor Roy had met him before but Roy said he was good at the job.
John thanked him for helping out while he dealt with a personal issue and then became very quiet. His thoughts turned quickly to Vanessa's statement about Indians. He had known from early on in his friendship with Elise that her family had a thing against Indians. It came up during one of their dinners out when Elise came to learn how to use her rescue equipment at the fire academy.
John had conveniently broken his leg just before she arrived when the ceiling fell on him in a fire and then was damaged again when Roy dove out of the window and down the ladder head first ahead of a flash explosion. John had managed to grab a hold of him on his way down the ladder and then he rolled off to the side and pulled John off the ladder after him. After the flames on Roy's back were extinguished and his coat removed John gave him a once over and found a burn on his arm and that he had a good case of smoke inhalation but at that point John began to realize that his leg was really starting to hurt and he agreed to get it splinted and to be lifted onto the stretcher for his ride in the ambulance.
When Elise arrived he was waiting for her at the airport on crutches. Since he was on medical leave John was able to spend all of Elise's time in LA at her side. Although he wasn't able to get in and help her lift and set up the equipment he was able to talk with her on breaks and tell her what she had done wrong or could do differently. Before the end of the second day Elise declared that she was benefiting from him being on crutches, so that she had to get her hands on and figure things out.
It was when the two were out for dinner the third night that John found the confidence to ask a question.
"Do you have a significant other back on Montana?" John had managed to get out with his mouth full of Pizza.
Elise motheringly cleaned his face with a napkin then turned serious. "Not for seven months now." Elise answered and took the time to set her piece of pizza down before continuing. "His name was Kent, and I enjoyed every moment we spent together, then about seven months ago someone shot his horse out from under him while he was in a full gallop, He broke his neck when he hit the ground, he passed away three days later."
"Did they ever find out who shot his horse?" John asked.
"No, and I don't expect they ever will," Elise commented while she fiddled with her food.
"Why's that?" John questioned.
"They're not really trying, Kent was an Indian and most of the people in my area think of the Indians in the same light as wolves and Coyotes that are getting into the cattle."
John never once since that day worried about how Elise would respond to his heritage. That night she had also vocalized that she wouldn't be surprised if they found out it was a member of her family that had done the shooting.
"Here we are," Roy started talking while he was backing into the bay.
John started moving around and stretching his neck to let his partner know he was listening to him. Mike was in the bay and pressed the button to close the bay door. Everyone was out of the squad and the door was about half way down when a man ducked under the closing door and stood up in the bay looking right at John.
It was Elise's brother-in-law Greg, one of the last people John wanted to see.