Doctored (34 page)

Madison arrived at the hospital a little late the next day.  She had had to go and get her injury looked at as she was having a hard time breathing.  As he had been wearing work boots, the bruising and subsequent swelling from the kick were nasty looking and causing her discomfort.  The doctor had ordered x-rays and while she was okay, it would take time for it all to go away.  She was put on limited work detail.

Madison looked for Doctor Kearney, but was hit with a very large dose of gossip when she arrived.  Apparently Deanna had a broken nose and a cracked rib and everyone was talking about it since she wouldn’t say how she had gotten it.  Madison made sure her own bruise was not visible and protected it from jostling with her arm.  Her supervisor, while annoyed that her work was limited, seemed to buy the excuse that she had taken a fall.  She didn’t put two and two together and for that Madison was grateful.

Madison didn’t see Deanna for several days and when she did she saw that her face was very bruised from the break to her nose.  She wasn’t seeing any patients like that and spent a lot of time catching up on paperwork in her office.

“Can I see you?”  Madison hesitated at the door she had just knocked on.

Deanna looked up and nodded.  “Close the door behind you,” she told her.

Madison closed the door and walked across the small office to the chair across from Deanna.  “May I sit down?” she asked politely and at Deanna’s nod she sat.  Swallowing, feeling a lump in her throat, she asked, “What are you going to do about Scott?”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” she asked thoughtfully, her head turning slightly to the side as she studied Madison.

Madison already knew that his bail was set too high for him to get out.  She was considering taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, but that was taking time.  “He doesn’t deserve to stay in jail.”

“I beg to differ.  He attacked you, then he attacked me.”  She waited to see what Madison would respond.

“He didn’t mean to hit you…” she began defensively.  He had acted out, childishly perhaps, but he’d been incensed.

“My ribs would beg to differ.”

Madison noticed that Deanna was sitting very straight in her chair.  If her own ribs were any indication, she could only imagine how much hurt the blonde was feeling.  At least her ribs weren’t cracked, just badly bruised, with a clear imprint of the shoe he was wearing on them.  “He was just upset,” she answered lamely.

“I got pretty upset when I saw him try to drag you from the car.”

“Well, we were kissing.”

“We were about to kiss.  We were just talking...” she clarified the point.  It was obvious she was sticking to the exact part of the story she told the police.  Scott had ‘thought’ they were about to kiss, but they hadn’t.

“Deanna, please.  Scott isn’t a bad guy.  He’s just like a child and he was upset.”

“Me too.”

“We can’t afford the bail….”

“Why should you even worry about his bail?” she asked angrily, her eyebrows, which had noticeable gaps in them, beetling together.

Madison didn’t know why she focused in on Deanna’s eyebrows, but she did.  Deanna must have been very upset if she was pulling out the hairs.  “He was my husband….”

“
Was
, key word,” she pointed out.  “He attacked you.  He attacked me.”

“He was upset…” she repeated.

“He had no right.”

“Deanna, he’s really sorry….”

“I’m sorry too.  He’s going to have to pay for what he did to me, for what he did to you.”

“I’m not pressing charges.”

“I am.”

Madison sat back gingerly in the chair, her own bruised ribs hurting in the effort to try to convince Deanna to drop the charges.  It was clear she was hurt and angry.  “I guess we have nothing more to talk about then, do we?”

Deanna carefully schooled her features so that the hurt and anger she felt didn’t spill out.  “I guess we don’t,” she answered sadly.

“You won’t change your mind?  You won’t let him off with a warning this time?”  She had to try once more, for her children’s sake.

“Why?  So he can get upset again someday and hurt someone else?”

“It was an accident.  He didn’t mean to break your nose,” she repeated exactly what he had told her when she visited him to talk about the bail.  He had pleaded with her to find a way to pay it.  He had talked fearfully of what he had experienced in jail so far.  She’d talked to some very unscrupulous bail bondsmen since then.  Their fees were outrageous and she couldn’t afford them.

“I’m sure he didn’t.  You and I were merely talking and I gave you a ride home.  I still don’t understand why he went ballistic.”

“He put two and two together….”

“…And what, came up with five?”

“I told him that I was in love with you,” she tried harder.

Deanna realized what Madison was trying to do.  “Was he like that during your marriage?  Jealous? Possessive?  ...Abusive?”

Madison shook her head immediately.  “He had no reason to be.  I never even looked at another man while we were married.”

“How about another woman?” she asked pointedly.

Madison had been looking down, now she looked up into Deanna’s blue eyes.  “I suppressed those feelings.  They were inappropriate….”

“To whom?  You?  Him?  Your family?  Or anyone else who might gossip about a woman loving another woman?”  She saw the knowing look appear in Madison’s eyes.  “Yes, I realize how much people gossip around here.  I know how much a part of that you are, to a degree.  No, I don’t think you gossip, but I know it bothers you if there is any part of any indiscretions aired.  Your divorce, the reasons for it.  What if they find out you and I were lovers?  That we hooked up the other night?”  She saw the look in the redhead’s eyes change to genuine fear.  “I won’t say anything.  I thought we were friends.  I thought we were
more
than friends,” she finished sadly.

“We are friends.  We are....”

“What?  Friends with benefits?”  Deanna was angry.  She had finally told Madison she loved her.  She had realized her mistakes of a decade before.  She had fully disclosed what had happened to her.  She’d been honest and open, and hurt and betrayed, all in a matter of a few short hours.  Her life right now was not what she had envisioned.

“No, it wasn’t like that!  I loved you,” at the look of hurt in Deanna’s eye she amended that statement, “I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“What?  I should let my husband,” she slipped, “
ex
-husband rot in jail because you want him to be punished for a mistake he made?  Are you sure you aren’t taking it out on him because he knew me intimately?”

“Yeah, that’s why, Madison.  He’s seen you naked so I want him to go to jail for that,” she said sarcastically.  Her hand started to come up to her eyebrow and her fingertips started rubbing along the hairs that were left.

“Stop that,” Madison said automatically, seeing the gesture.

Deanna almost smiled, but remembered their conversation.  “He has to realize you don’t belong to him anymore.  He doesn’t have the right to get angry like that.  You have the right to date anyone you wish.”

“Yes, I think he realizes that now.  He was hurt.  He lashed out like the child he is.  It’s why I divorced him, I got tired of his childish behavior.”

“I’m sorry, Madison, I won’t drop the assault charges,” she said with finality.

“I’m sorry too, Deanna,” she answered sadly and got up to leave.

“Madison, I don’t want to lose you,” she tried one more time to get the redhead to see reason.

“You already have,” she said quietly as she left the office.

* * * * *

Madison couldn’t afford the second mortgage on her home.  The interest rate alone would kill her and the rate the bail bondsmen offered her wasn’t much better.  She knew Scott would be good for it, but she also knew that he expected her to take care of it for him.  She couldn’t.  She just couldn’t put her children’s home in jeopardy.  He pleaded with her, he guilt-tripped her.  After what she had told him about her love for Deanna, he really laid it on thick.  She finally stopped visiting him since she couldn’t help him.  She heard that he lost his job since he was stuck in jail until the court date.  She also found out there had been several other incidents, that was the reason his bail was set so high.  She had thought the bail was set so high because Deanna was a Kearney, because of her prestige and connections.  She felt bad for that, for thinking that about Deanna.  It was all just such a horrible situation.

The day of the trial, Madison took off from work.  Her bruises had faded and she had avoided Deanna around the hospital like the plague.  Because of her status, she had been able to avoid being put on Doctor Kearney’s surgical service.  She reassigned her own nurses time and again when she was.  She wouldn’t talk to Deanna and it seemed the doctor felt the same.  Her facial bruises slowly faded, Madison saw, as she surreptitiously watched from afar.

Madison wasn’t surprised when Scott was levied a rather large fine.  He would serve no further jail time and was let off for time served.  The judge, however, warned him that his vicious temper would do him no good and he was ordered to seek counseling for it as part of his probation.  Another expense that he couldn’t afford now that he didn’t have a job.

“It’s all that bitch’s fault,” he hissed at Madison as they left the courtroom.  “What the hell do you see in her other than a large checkbook?”

“I don’t see her, Scott and I’d appreciate it if you would keep what I told you quiet.”

“It’s all her fault,” he repeated.  “She didn’t have to pursue this.”

“Yes, Scott, she did.” 

Deanna hadn’t appeared in court.  The judge took the statement from the police and from her lawyers.  High-powered and very expensive lawyers appeared on her behalf.  Her x-rays and the damages to her person were taken into account.  That, along with his past behaviors had determined his fate. 

“What do you mean?  I barely hit her?” he reasoned outside of the courtroom.

“You kicked her.  You cracked her ribs,” she countered.  “You kicked me!”  She was looking at him as though for the first time.  He had behaved like a petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way.

“You know I didn’t mean it,” he tried to contend.  They’d had this same conversation many times.

“Yes, Scott, I know you think you didn’t mean it.  I do think you need help.  I’m glad you have to see someone about that temper of yours.”

“How the hell am I going to afford that?  I no longer have health insurance now that I lost my job!”

“Well, I guess you are going to have to get a new job first thing then.”

Sarcastically, he answered, “Yeah, with this on my record, that’s going to be easy.”

“You did this to yourself,” she pointed out.

“That bitch did it to me,” he nodded towards the hired suits that had just left the courtroom.

“No, Scott, you did it.  You should have stopped.  Nothing happened,” she was grateful she hadn’t told him that she had slept with Deanna, his rage would have been something to behold.  She regretted telling him anything at all about Deanna.  She now realized the childish behavior he had exhibited in all the years she had known him.  While endearing at first, he had never developed into the adult he should have been.

“Do you really want it known that you’re in love with a dyke?” he asked meanly, with a hint of a threat in his tone as he hissed the question.

“What do you mean?” she asked warily as she began to back away from him.

He grabbed her arm to hold her in place.  “I mean you better find a way to help me pay for that fine or I’m going to start telling your friends exactly what you told me.”  He changed his voice to mock a woman’s.  “I loved Deanna in Africa, Scott.  I’ve fallen back in love with her.”  His voice returned to normal, with a threatening overtone as he continued, “How do you think that will look?  Do you really think people will let you keep the kids when I get through with you?”

“I told you that in confidence,” she hissed back, horrified that he would use it against her.  This was blackmail.  He knew very well that gossip around the hospital was prevalent.  She’d never live it down.  Threatening the kids though, that was the last straw!

“Yeah?  Then you better help me pay for this fine or I’ll talk to Bonnie or Beth or social services…” he let the menace hang in the air.

“You okay, ma’am?” a police officer had noticed Scott’s hand on her arm and the expression on her face.

Scott let go immediately and stood up straight.  Madison staggered back, showing she had been trying to get away.

“No, officer, I’m not,” she said and saw the surprised look in Scott’s face.  “He was just threatening me.  Blackmailing me actually, over the fine he just received in that court,” she nodded towards the courtroom they had just exited.

“I was just kidd–” Scott began defensively, but the officer wasn’t buying it.  He immediately signaled to someone and before Scott knew it, he was in handcuffs again and being read his Miranda rights.  “You can’t do this…it’s all a misunderstanding,” he tried to say, but no one was listening to him and Madison stood back, letting it happen.