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A Grip on Reality Ch. 01

By: FrancisMacomber



"We're here tonight to honor my friend and partner Ben Mitchell as Banker of the Year," Perry Bergen intoned from the dais to applause from the audience in the ballroom of the Palace Hotel. 

Sitting at the head table just to the right of the podium, Ben tried to look simultaneously humble and gratified. The truth was that he'd rather be almost anywhere else that night. Recognition and publicity made him intensely uncomfortable. Yet he had to admit that it felt pretty good to be celebrated for the dream that he'd striven so hard to make a reality. "At least," he rationalized, "it's good publicity for CFB."

The Community First Bank was an idea that he'd been developing and refining ever since college. Instead of creating a bank that would vie for large corporate accounts, Ben had based his business model on serving individuals and families. "Investing in People" was the bank's slogan.

Many people had told him that retail banking was dead. In fact, when he'd submitted his idea in the form of a paper for his Banking and Finance course in college, the professor had given him a failing grade because "your idea will never work." Even Perry Bergen, the Finance major who had become his friend, had his doubts. Basically everyone hated his plan except the people in the community who were his target customers. In an age of impersonality, they loved the personal service Ben offered. They took advantage of his small business loans and personal lines of credit, and repaid his faith with a remarkably low default rate. 

The result had been that Ben's bank, which he had idealistically named the Community First Bank, turned a profit well ahead of its forecast, growing at a rate that had amazed industry analysts. Now the word was that it was only a matter of time before one of the big boys came knocking with an offer to acquire the bank. Such a buy-out would have been extremely lucrative for Ben, but he had no interest in selling out because he believed so strongly in what he was doing.

As Perry's speech droned on, his wife slipped back into her seat beside him and handed him a cup of coffee. Ben smiled and gave her a quick kiss in gratitude. His addiction to caffeine was almost his trademark - he was never without a cup or mug in front of him.

"Of course, it hasn't always been easy for Ben," Perry continued from the podium. "He's faced major challenges along the way." 

Hearing Perry's words, Ben thought somberly, "They don't know the half of it!"

Growing up, Ben Mitchell had made three major decisions about his life. Teenagers frequently make such decisions, but unlike most Ben actually kept his.

His first big decision was to avoid alcohol in all forms. The reason for this was simple: his mother was an alcoholic. While Ben was still in grammar school, she had managed to function fairly well. She wouldn't start her drinking until dinner; then she kept going until she would fall asleep and Ben's father carried her off to bed.

Gradually, though, drinks with dinner grew into cocktails over lunch. Once that became the norm, Ben had quickly learned to avoid her as much as possible in the afternoons. He'd never forgotten the time he hadn't eaten all the chili she'd prepared for lunch and she'd drunkenly thrown the rest of it in his face.

His father was not oblivious to the problem and had tried repeatedly to change the course of his wife's downward spiral. He'd taken her liquor bottles and poured the contents down the drain; she simply became more resourceful at hiding her booze. He'd taken her spending money away; she replaced it with the grocery money.

When interventions and counseling sessions failed, Ben's father was forced to accept the truth that he couldn't save his wife unless she helped. Unfortunately, she adamantly refused to admit that she had a problem. So his Dad shifted his attention to Ben, focusing on protecting his son as much as possible from the side-effects of his mother's illness. 

Although he had a promising career at the bank where he worked, Ben's father turned down several promotions in order to remain at the bank branch near their home. He wanted to be close to his son in case he was needed. There had been several occasions when Ben's mother had forgotten to pick Ben up from school. Later, when her driving became problematic, Ben's father sold her car and Ben began riding the school bus.

His father's precautions paid off the day that Ben came home from middle school to find the front door wide open and their house empty. Tearfully he had called his father, who rushed home to be with his son. After a futile search of the area, the father called the police. It was three days before they found her, sleeping in a homeless shelter downtown. Even worse, she refused to come home, a decision that hurt both father and son, though in different ways.

Ben's mother never did return home. A year later, police found his mother unconscious under a bridge. By then Ben's father had divorced her for abandonment. But she was still Ben's mother, so father and son went to see her in the charity ward where she was being treated. Ben would never forget what a person dying from cirrhosis of the liver looked like, and he swore never to touch alcohol as long as he lived. Instead, coffee became his drink of choice, and he was seldom seen without a mug in front of him.

Ben's second major decision had been to become a banker like his father. His Dad had always been a major influence, and as his mother began to withdraw from Ben's life, his father became that much more important. So it was little surprise that Ben decided to be like his Dad when he grew up. 

But the path to get there had not been straightforward. During his teenage years Ben rebelled against his father like so many teenagers do. It was during Ben's first year in college that things came to a head.

Ben was attending the local branch of the state college and living at home to save money. His Dad expected Ben to follow the same rules he'd had during high school, and Ben resented the lack of freedom. Having lost his wife, Ben's father, not surprisingly, was overprotective of his son. 

After a semester filled with tension, the conflict came to a head during the holidays. Already chafing under his father's restrictions, Ben's feelings catalyzed when news of a banking scandal hit the papers. That was all the idealistic young man needed to decide that his father was part of a bankers' plot to oppress the nation's poor.

To dramatize his disdain, Ben boldly declared that he would not observe any holiday festivities because the season was just a capitalist conspiracy between retailers and bankers that took advantage of the gullibility of the poor. Instead of arguing, Ben's father ordered his son into the car on Christmas Day and drove him through one of the poorer sections of the town. He slowed down and pointed toward a small home on one side of the street. "See that home? I arranged the loan that helped the owner to buy that house," he told his son.

"But it's a crummy little house in a terrible neighborhood," Ben exclaimed.

"Maybe so," his father acknowledged, "but it's his home and he works hard to keep it up. More importantly, he's building equity, which means that with any luck he'll get the money he's put into it back and make a little profit to boot. Isn't that worth something to him?"

Twisting and turning through the streets of the neighborhood, his Dad took Ben by a home with a three-year-old car sitting in the driveway. "I helped loan the woman who lives there enough to buy that car," he told Ben proudly.

"So she bought a used car, so what? That just means she has a car note to pay along with all her other bills," Ben sniped.

His father nodded gravely. "That's right, Ben, but buying that car meant that she could get a better job across town, and that meant more money for her family. And here's another thing: if she had financed her car through the dealer instead of with our bank, she'd probably be paying significantly more each month."

At the next house they passed, a large tow truck sat in the driveway. "Our bank loaned him the money to buy that truck several years ago. Now he has his own towing business, and since he got on with AAA he's making a good living for his family. Sure the bank charges interest on the loan, but I don't think we're exploiting him. That loan means that he's got a chance to make something of himself."

After he'd pointed out several similar examples, Ben's father turned their car back toward their home. "Banking and lending are like anything else, they can do good or harm," he told his son. "But done fairly and honestly, banking is a lever that can help people do more than they thought was possible."

Ben said nothing on the ride back, but it was clear to his father that his son was thinking about what he'd seen. Sure enough, the next semester Ben switched his major to Business and began taking courses in banking and finance. Later he would tell people that the ride on Christmas Day had been the thing that helped him commit to that path.

That same excursion also helped change Ben's perspective on his father. Before he'd seen his Dad as an inflexible parental figure who didn't understand his son's needs. But hearing his father's enthusiasm for his work gave Ben a new insight into his father's personality. At first Ben merely asked his father questions about banking and his work at the office. After a while he began to seek his Dad's opinions on a variety of subjects. Finally, he dared to ask about his mother, and he learned about his Dad's carefully concealed pain and the shame he felt in not being able to save his wife from her addiction.

This new closeness between father and son was something that Ben cherished, and he was even more grateful when, during Ben's sophomore year in college, his father had a massive heart attack and passed away. Ben's sense of loss was at least partially mitigated by the closeness he'd developed with his father in the last year of his life.

After the funeral, Ben found he had even more reason to be grateful to his father when he learned that he was the beneficiary of a substantial life insurance policy. There was enough money to allow Ben to finish college and start his career with a nice nest egg left over. Many young men would have been tempted to travel the world and enjoy life to the fullest before settling down to work. Ben had other plans. The nest egg his father had provided became the seed money to fund Ben's dream: starting his own bank. It also enabled Ben to pursue the third decision he'd made.

Ben had made that decision back in his sophomore year in high school. He had signed up for a community service project at his school, and on the day that the group of student volunteers met for the first time, he saw Elizabeth Pearson. Afterwards, he couldn't say exactly what had happened, but he was so overwhelmed by the sight of her that he didn't hear the sponsor of the group call on him. The other kids laughed and Elizabeth had turned to look at him as well. Ben blushed furiously and looked down at the sign-up sheet in front of him. When he finally dared to look up, he found Elizabeth still looking at him with a strange expression on her face.

After the meeting, Ben was still embarrassed, but before he could escape, Elizabeth was suddenly standing in front of him. "Why were you staring at me like that?" she demanded.

Confronted by this vision of the opposite sex, Ben's mind lost all capacity for rational thought. To his horror, he heard himself blurt out, "I was thinking that you were the girl I want to marry some day!" Then he clapped his hand over his mouth as though trying to stop his words before they could escape and humiliate him even more.

Elizabeth looked at him in shock and said, "That is so funny."

Ben wanted to die on the spot, but something in Elizabeth's tone of voice made him pause and listen.

She looked at him very solemnly. "I was thinking the same thing about you."

From that day on the two of them were a couple. At first their romance was the source of much amusement among their classmates, but the two of them were oblivious to everything except each other. After a while it was simply an accepted fact that Ben and Elizabeth were together and would always be so.

When Ben's father learned about their relationship, he was concerned. "I'd much prefer you date a variety of girls in your class. That way you'll learn more about them and about yourself," he'd told his son. Ben didn't even bother to argue - his decision had already been made.

As Ben's father came to know Elizabeth, however, he felt much more comfortable with his son's choice. The girl had a sweet temper, was well-behaved and consistently earned a place on the Honor Roll in school. And, he had to admit, she certainly was attractive. She was tall and slim; in fact, when they first met she was an inch or two taller than Ben because she'd gotten her growth spurt early. She had red hair that hung down to her shoulders and framed her pretty face perfectly. "She's the All-American Girl," Ben's father thought admiringly.

Seeing how strongly Ben and Elizabeth felt about each other, Ben's father took his son aside and tried to give him the lecture on responsible sex. After hemming and hawing around the subject, he finally said, "What I'm trying to say is that neither of you wants any babies just now."

Ben just grinned and put the man out of his misery. "It's alright, Dad, you don't have to worry. Elizabeth wants to wait to have sex until we're married, and I've promised her I will."

His father left the conversation mightily relieved that it was over and even more impressed with his son's girlfriend. "I just wonder if they'll be able to keep that promise," he thought, remembering how he'd felt when he was a teenager.

Against all odds, the two young people had managed to do so all the way through high school. That's not to say that they remained perfectly chaste; inevitably they'd managed to graduate from first base to second and then on to third. Nevertheless, on many nights Ben had gone home from a date with blue balls. But he loved Elizabeth so much he was willing to bear the discomfort for her sake.

There had never been any question that the two of them would go to the same college, and with their excellent grades there was little doubt of their both getting accepted. By that time they'd been dating so long that both their families felt perfectly comfortable with the two of them going off together. Even their plans to move in together after their freshman year caused no alarm. The master plan had long since been set: the two would marry immediately upon graduation. 

But, as they say, men plan and the gods laugh. The sudden death of Ben's father changed everything. Ben dropped out of school for a semester and moved back home to deal with the funeral, to handle his father's estate and to grieve for the person whose importance in his life was rivaled only by Elizabeth.

She had wanted to drop out as well to help Ben, but he wouldn't hear of it. "There's nothing you can do. This is my responsibility and I intend to spend all my time doing what needs to be done so I can return to college next semester. You stay in school and graduate on time," he told her. Reluctantly, she did so.

As the weeks passed, Elizabeth's friends on campus urged her to get out and enjoy herself a little. After a while she did, believing that Ben wouldn't want to her to become a recluse. When she started to appear at parties and campus activities, it didn't take long for some of the men to hit on her. To every invitation she was unfailingly polite and unbendingly strong - she was Ben's and she would wait for him.

For Ben's part, he avoided socializing at all. His grief obviated any desire for parties, and when he could manage it he drove over to the college to be with Elizabeth. It was during one of these visits that things changed.

The loss of a parent is a big blow at any time and a sudden, early loss is even harder to cope with. On an intellectual level, Ben knew this, so he was not surprised at how depressed he felt. What he had not expected was how subdued Elizabeth became. Both of them had missed each other terribly, but 

Ben had expected Elizabeth to be excited to see him. Instead, she was reserved and quiet. 

They had gone out to dinner together, but instead of going out dancing afterwards Ben had taken her back to the one-room apartment. They sat down on the sofa together and Ben held her by the shoulders so he could look into her face. "What is it, babe? I know all this has been almost as hard on you as it's been on me, but is there something else that's bothering you? It's okay, you can tell me."

She looked at him, and tears began to well up in her eyes, frightening Ben. "Your Dad's death was such a shock to me," she said quietly. "He was a wonderful man and he was so sweet to me and . . ." With that she began to cry so hard that she couldn't continue to speak.

Ben's eyes were leaking too, but he still couldn't understand what Elizabeth was trying to say. She blew her nose on a tissue and then tried to get control of herself. "It was so sudden, and it scared me," she went on. He pulled her to him to comfort her, and she let him hold her for a minute or two before gently pushing him away.

"The thing is," she said, "what if it had been one of us?"

"Oh, babe, no! Don't think about things like that. We're both young and healthy. There's no need to worry," he said, trying to reassure her.

"But something could happen," she said stubbornly, "and I couldn't help thinking about it." She paused and Ben saw a look of determination come over her face. "Anyway, I've decided. I don't want to wait any more. I want you to make love to me right now."

With that she began to pant and then she launched herself at Ben, straddling him and kissing him frantically. Ben was caught off guard, and he struggled to understand the sudden change. "But I promised," he said, trying unsuccessfully to hold her off.

"Screw the promise," she growled. "I want you to take me now!"

With that she began urgently rubbing her panty-covered crotch against his growing erection, and a wave of raw desire swept over him. He clumsily tried to pull her blouse out of her skirt at the same time that she was fumbling with the buckle of his belt. As the couple desperately tugged and pulled at their clothing, an observer would have laughed at their struggles, but Ben and Elizabeth felt nothing but heat and passion. 

When his pants and undershorts were around his ankles and her panties dangled off her foot, she pulled him down on top of her. He tried to touch her but she shoved his hand away almost angrily. "No, do it now! I need you to take me now!" With that he yielded to her desire and his own, and drove himself all the way into her. She gasped and gave a little yelp, then wrapped her legs around his and pulled him even tighter. Her hips began to rock and he found himself thrusting in time to her rhythm.

"Yes!" she yelled, "You're doing it, you're fucking me! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Then there was no thought, just animal instinct driving him to mate with his female. He matched her cries with his own grunts and the two of them surged repeatedly against each other until she screamed and he cried out in long-suppressed ecstasy.

When their breathing had returned to normal, he lifted up enough to look at her face. To his shock he saw that she was crying again. "Did I hurt you?" he asked in a panic. "Oh, no," she said quickly. "I'm just so happy. Now, no matter what happens, we made love to each other." He laughed with relief and crushed her to him in his own happiness.

Afterwards, the two of them realized they had not used any protection, and they went through several anxious weeks before Elizabeth's period returned. From that point on they agreed that they would always use protection.


A Grip on Reality Ch. 01



Even though he had been away from college only one semester, Ben still found it difficult to catch up. Not only was he out of practice at studying but many of the courses he needed weren't even offered during the second semester. He wound up having to go to summer school. When he saw how well that went, he decided to do the same thing the following summer, and that allowed him to catch up with Elizabeth and graduate with her. 

They were married in the campus chapel three days after graduation. As he kissed his beautiful bride, he whispered in her ear, "Remember that day back in junior high? Best decision I ever made."

Before he launched his own bank, Ben decided to take a job in a conventional financial institution to get some practical experience and, he hoped, gain some insights into what he needed to do differently when he finally struck out on his own. His grades and his father's connections helped him land a position as a management trainee in one of the big local banks. Ben dove into the job eagerly, hoping to soak up as much information as possible. That attitude made the drudgery and rote work of the entry-level job he was given more tolerable. Still, he was impatient to get started on his dream.

Elizabeth had majored in education and managed to secure a teaching position at an elementary school. Even though the school was in a low-income area, her patience and loving personality quickly won over the children in her class.

Together the two of them were earning enough to get by without dipping into Ben's inheritance. He offered to invest some of the money for a down-payment on a house, but Elizabeth insisted that they save the funds for starting Ben's bank. "We'll have plenty of time to buy a house when your bank is a big success," she told him.

Married life for Ben and Elizabeth had its challenges and its pleasures, and sometimes it combined both. Elizabeth, for example, was something of a "medicophobe." She had always hated going to doctors for fear they might find something wrong with her. The first time she was due for a gynecological check-up after their marriage, Ben came home from work to find her in a blue funk about her upcoming examination.

Quickly grasping the situation, he pulled her into the bedroom and affected a pseudo-Germanic accent. "Zo, leetle girl, you haf come to me for your exam? Very well, lie back on my examining table und ve vill see what ve shall see."

In spite of her mood, Elizabeth giggled and lay back on their bed with her legs hanging off the end. Ben reached down and somewhat clumsily peeled off Elizabeth's panties before arranging her legs as though her feet were resting in the stirrups. "Vell, vell," he intoned solemnly, "everything looks goot from here, but I think ve must look deeper." With that he pulled down his trousers and his underwear, revealing a quickly hardening cock.

"Oh, Doctor," Elizabeth responded in a little girl's voice, "what a big speculum you have!"

Ben twirled an imaginary mustache. "All the better to probe you weeth, my dear," he said lustily. With that he leaned forward and rubbed the tip of his cock all around the lips of Elizabeth's vagina, being sure to give extra attention to her clitoris. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that she was already slick with lubrication.

"Please, Doctor," she gasped, "I think you need to go deeper. I think you need to do it right now!"

With that Ben slid all the way into her, and she gave a little cry of ecstasy. As he began to stroke into her, she gave another little cry and then reached up to grab him and pull him down to her with all her might. Her hips began to flex spasmodically and she brought her feet up to the mattress to give her greater leverage to thrust against him, which she did so hard that he almost lost his balance. "Harder, deeper!" she kept repeating, her voice rising in pitch as the sensations grew more intense. Suddenly she arched her body off the bed and screamed as a huge orgasm tore through her. With only a few more thrusts Ben followed her over the top, and the two of them slumped in exhaustion. 

After a few minutes to catch his breath, Ben rose up and looked at his beautiful bride with a smile. "I hope your examination tomorrow won't go anything like that!"

She gave him a little smile. "Well, since my OB-GYN is female, I think you can be sure of that."

Ben went off to work the next day smugly satisfied with the way he had successfully handled Elizabeth's fears. So he was shocked when he came home that evening and found his wife in tears. "She told me she found something that didn't look right," Elizabeth sobbed. "She wants me to see a specialist right away."

Fear stabbed at Ben, but he managed to hide it as he took Elizabeth in his arms to comfort her. "It'll be alright," he told her. "Doctors are always going to err on the side of caution. It's probably nothing at all."

But it was something after all. A grim-faced husband held his wife as the oncologist delivered the stunning verdict: ovarian cancer. It turned out that Elizabeth had the BRCA2 genetic mutation that predisposed her to developing the disease. She'd never been tested and there had been no cancer among the women in her immediate family.

"We want to set Elizabeth up for surgery early next week," the doctor told them. "We want to treat this aggressively, get it all before it can metastasize."

Elizabeth buried her face in Ben's chest, and he felt compelled to ask the question he dreaded. "What does the surgery involve?"

The doctor looked at him sympathetically. "We won't know for sure until we get in there. Hopefully, all we'll need to remove are the ovaries."

Ben felt Elizabeth stiffen against him. They'd both wanted children.

As the day of Elizabeth's surgery approached, Ben was surprised at her reaction. While fear haunted his waking and sleeping hours, she no longer seemed troubled. Instead, she exhibited a level of peace that seemed unbelievable to him. He felt he couldn't ask her directly, but she sensed his questions and tried to help him understand. She'd always been frightened of the medical unknown, she explained. Now that the worst had finally happened there was nothing more for her to fear.

The surgery went well, and the oncologist was very reassuring when he met with Ben afterwards. "I think we got it all," he said. "With any luck she should be able to live cancer-free for the rest of her normal life."

Luck was apparently away on vacation. When Elizabeth went back for follow-up testing, the results were not good. Worse, this time the cancer had spread to her liver. The doctors put her on a course of chemotherapy that made her deathly ill but had little effect on the cancer slowly spreading in her body. A different type of chemotherapy was tried, but the results were the same.

Elizabeth's life devolved into a cycle of treatment, illness and bed rest that seemed to repeat endlessly. Ben's life devolved into a nightmare of showing up at work enough to keep his job and the precious medical insurance, leaving to take care of Elizabeth, transporting her to the hospital for treatment, keeping her parents informed of developments, plus maintaining their home. Although he would never have admitted it, he suffered almost as much as his wife, especially since he endured all the solitary guilt of being the healthy partner.

Elizabeth had just finished her latest course of chemotherapy, and Ben was at her side when the oncologist arrived to report on her test results. The look on his face was enough to tell them the bad news. "There is something you might consider," the doctor offered. "Stanford is doing some exciting work on a new approach to treating cancer. Elizabeth is a perfect candidate. If you're willing, I think I could get her accepted in the clinical trial they'll be starting."

"Let's try it, Doctor," Ben said eagerly. "Maybe this will be just what Elizabeth needs. I've been reading about it on the Internet and . . ."

"No!" said Elizabeth, so sharply that both Ben and the doctor were startled. "I don't want to do it."

"But babe, this is cutting edge stuff," Ben protested. "It might just be the thing to cure you."

"No," she said more quietly, "I don't want to go through all that any more. No more hospitals, no more treatments - I just want to go home."

Ben felt his throat constrict, but he forced the words out. "But if you do that, it means . . ."

"I know what it means, Ben, and I'm okay with that. All I want now is to sleep in my own bed, to be in my own neighborhood, and to taste and see life the way I remember it, not what it's turned into now. Please."

By now Ben was incapable of speaking. All he could do was to sit beside her and search her face for some sign she might relent. Even that task became impossible as tears blurred his vision before they streamed down his face.

"I understand, Elizabeth," the doctor said quietly. "I'll make the arrangements for someone who can help you and Ben."

The hospice nurse was an older woman who had plenty of experience caring for the dying. Elizabeth liked her and she spent a lot of time talking with her. It comforted Ben to know that Elizabeth was well cared for, and the nurse's visits gave him the opportunity to go in to work, a respite that he desperately needed.

He was at his desk one day when the nurse called. "I think you should come home now," she said in answer to his anxious question. "I think it's almost time."

When Ben came into the bedroom, Elizabeth was lying in bed wearing a clean nightgown. Her red hair was spread out on the pillow so that it formed a copper halo around her face. She was so silent that Ben wondered if he had come too late, but then her eyes opened, and when she saw him she smiled.

"Come here, my darling," she said in a low but clear voice.

He came and sat down beside her on the bed. Even the slight contact of his hip with her body was enough to remind him how little of her there was left. He gently took her hand in his, and she gave him a slight squeeze.

"You've been the best husband I could ever have," she said weakly. "I'm so happy we found each other. I wouldn't change anything for that."

"Oh, Elizabeth," he cried. "You're my dream, my perfect other half." His voice cracked in anguish. "How am I going to live without you?"

She smiled and then her face took on a serious expression. "That's what I want to talk to you about, Ben. I want you to promise me two things."

"Anything, babe, anything," he said through his tears.

"I want you to promise me you'll follow your dream to start your own bank. I've always believed in you. Promise me you'll do it - for me."

"I, I promise," he managed to get out.

She smiled. "The second thing I want is for you to find someone else, someone who'll love you and take care of you when I can't anymore."

He pulled back abruptly, his eyes filled with horror."Don't make me say that. I could never. . . There'll never be . . ." He was crying so hard he couldn't finish his thoughts, but she understood.

"Yes there is, and you'll find her some day. When you do, I want you to give her all the love you've given me."

"No, I can't . . ."

"Benjamin, listen to me," she interrupted, her voice so strong that Ben stopped and stared at her in surprise. "You have to promise me," she went on. "I can't die in peace if I don't know you'll go on with your life. Now promise me."

"Alright," he choked out, "I promise." With that he laid his head beside her arm, still holding her hand in his, trying to regain control. After a minute he was startled by a touch on his shoulder. The hospice nurse was standing beside him. "She's at peace now. Say your goodbyes and then give me a little time to get her ready."

He realized that the hand he was holding had grown cold. He bent over and kissed his wife for the last time, then forced himself to his feet and shuffled out of the room and into the next phase of his life, the one without Elizabeth.

Later, Ben would say that the only thing that had kept him sane during that time was his determination to start his own bank. Within days after Elizabeth's funeral he quit his job and began laying the groundwork for the new bank he had dreamed about for so long. Driven by his promise to Elizabeth, he intended to get started as quickly as possible. His first task was to call Perry Bergen and persuade him to join him. In college the two of them had talked about Ben's plans many times, and although Perry didn't have the vision Ben did, he had faith in his friend.

Using the money from Ben's inheritance, the two men set out to start a new bank. Their first task was to select a name. Perry jokingly proposed they call it the Umpteenth National Bank, since all the other numbers had already been taken. But Ben wanted a name that set them apart from others while describing their philosophy. "So if you want to start a bank to help the community, let's call it the First Community Bank," Perry suggested.

"I like that. You've got the part about the community right," Ben replied, "but our bank is going to focus on helping people in our community, so let's name it the Community First Bank." And with that, the CFB was born.

Virtually everything about the CFB was unconventional. Where the major banks were switching as quickly as possible to electronic banking, Ben set about opening small branches targeting working-class neighborhoods. Unlike the marble and granite edifices his competitors erected, Ben opted to lease abandoned gas stations and failed fast-food restaurants. The rents were dirt cheap, there was always plenty of parking, and through clever design and use of materials Ben was able to renovate inexpensively.

To build deposits Ben competed not only against other banks in the area but also against payday lenders and auto title loan companies. The CFB offered many of the same services but without the predatory rates that cheated the working poor. Slowly the word spread that CFB was fair and honest and the customer base grew. His initial return on assets was low, but Ben was prepared to be patient.

Following the example his father had given him, Ben specialized in small loans to help people maintain employment or start new businesses. The CFB quickly earned a reputation as the place for small businesses to go for short-term working capital. Roofers would borrow the cost of the shingles they needed; landscapers bought shrubbery and sod with loans from Ben; dry cleaners went to him for a loan when their equipment needed repairs.

The business grew slowly and there were setbacks along the way, but after four years in operation the new bank was turning a small but steady profit. Ben was still working as hard as ever, but now he felt secure enough to buy a home for himself. The one he purchased was too large for a single man, but he chose it because it was the kind of house he had wanted to get for Elizabeth.

His pain at losing his wife slowly subsided as time passed, but Ben still could not bring himself to seriously consider the other promise he had made to Elizabeth. A year after her passing, Ben's friends began trying to get him to socialize. Perry's wife Frances in particular made it her mission to look for potential replacements. But although Ben went out with some very nice ladies, none of them stirred his interest.

Finally, four years after Ben had launched CFB, something happened that changed everything. Rather than rent expensive office space for himself, Ben made it his practice to work in his branch banks. He would set up his laptop in the back office of one location for a week, then move to another the following Monday. He felt this kept him in closer touch with both his employees and his customers.

He was going over some figures one day when a strobe light on the wall began to flash. Ben knew it was the silent alarm that was installed in all his branches. One of his tellers out front had triggered it, meaning there was a robbery in progress.

Quickly Ben checked the security cameras and spotted the would-be robber leaning against a teller's cage. He switched to an overview of the bank floor to look for accomplices. When he saw none, he switched to an exterior view. The only vehicle in customer parking was a beat-up pick-up truck. Ben switched back to the robbery in progress and zoomed in with the camera. After a moment he made a fateful decision.

As she was instructed to do, the teller quickly filled a bag with all the cash in the till. When she handed it to the robber, he snatched it from her and ordered her not to call the police. Then he dashed out the door.

Striding quickly across the parking lot, the man yanked open the door and slid into the cab of his truck, only to recoil in surprise. Ben was sitting there in the passenger seat.

"Who the hell are you?" the man asked in amazement.

"I'm Ben Mitchell. That's my bank you're trying to rob."

The man thrust his hand menacingly into his jacket pocket. "Well I don't care who you are, get the fuck outta my truck, or else!" he yelled threateningly.

"Not until you hear what I've got to say," Ben said calmly.

The man looked at him in surprise and then yelled, "I'm telling you, you better get out now before something bad happens."

Ben looked at him carefully. "You don't have a gun, do you?"

The robber glared at him, then suddenly his shoulders slumped and he looked down at the steering wheel. "No," he said resignedly.

Ben pointed at the money bag the man was still holding. "So how much were you hoping to get?"

The man looked up at him, his face creased by lines of weariness. "I was hoping for $30,000. I figure that'd be enough to catch us up on the mortgage and tide us over till I can find work again."

Ben shook his head. "I expect there's less than $5,000 in that bag. That's the limit on how much we allow at each teller window. But don't check the bag to see. If Rosa did what she's supposed to do, there's a dye bomb inside that will go off if you open it."

The man looked at him in surprise, and then shook his head in disgust. "Some bank robber I turned out to be," he spat.

"Ever done this before?" Ben asked.

"Nah, I'm not a criminal, I mean, not before now. But I got laid off at the factory six months ago, and then my wife got sick, and things just went all to hell after that." He looked up at Ben with sad eyes. "I guess I just got desperate - and stupid too."

Ben looked at him for another minute, then opened the passenger door. "Come with me," he ordered. Resignedly, the man got out of his truck and followed Ben back into the bank.

The bank employees were understandably shocked when their boss walked in the door followed by the man who had just tried to rob them. They were even more shocked when Ben sat down at a desk and directed the robber to sit across from him. "Can somebody hand me a loan form?" Ben asked.

Ben turned back to his new acquaintance. "Okay, here's the deal. You give me back the money you just tried to take. In return, I'll lend you the money you need and you can pay me when you get back on your feet."

Now the man was truly stunned. "Why would you do that? You already know that I ain't got a job, and besides, I just tried to rob your bank!"

Ben smiled as he started filling out the loan form. "Well, if I call the police and report a robbery, we'll be shut down for the rest of the day and maybe longer. That's no small loss right there, plus there'll be lots of paperwork and other complications to deal with. But if I lend you the money you need and you pay me back, I'll make a little money on the deal. I fancy myself a pretty good judge of character, and I think you're worth the risk." He turned the paperwork around so the man could see it. "So what do you say, do we have a deal?"

The man glanced at the paper, then his eyes widened and he looked closer. "Wait a minute, this says you're loaning me $40,000!"




A Grip on Reality Ch. 01



"You were looking for $30,000; I figured you might need a little extra cushion. If you don't need it all, you can always give it back."

The man stared at him with something like awe in his eyes, took the pen that Ben was offering, and signed. Then he looked up at Ben again and said, "God bless you, Mr. Mitchell, God bless you!"

The story spread through the bank like wildfire, and by that afternoon Perry Bergen was on the phone to Ben. "What were you thinking?" he demanded. "We'll never see that money again."

"Maybe, maybe not," Ben admitted. "But it just felt like the right thing to do."

"Please, Ben, don't play any more hunches without talking to me first," Perry begged.

But the story didn't end there. Another customer in the bank at the time had managed to capture the entire episode on video and posted it on YouTube. When Ben went into work the next day he was greeted by a news crew from one of the local television stations asking for an interview. No sooner had Ben finished with them than another reporter called, and then another. That night the story led the evening news.

While Ben was still trying to assimilate what was happening the next day, a friend brought him a copy of USA Today, which had picked up the story for national circulation. As Ben was reading, one of his employees approached him with wide eyes. "It's Good Morning America! They want you to fly to New York to be on the show!"

Then the story got even better. During the live interview, Robin Roberts surprised Ben with the news that a local employer had heard the story and offered the would-be bank robber a job. "If Ben Mitchell was willing to take a chance on him, I guess we can too," a company representative said, and the audience cheered wildly.

The New York Times ran a story under a picture of a bemused Ben Mitchell with the caption, "The Face of Compassionate Capitalism." The story also carried details about Ben's life, including the death of Ben's father and Elizabeth. Ben hadn't wanted that, but there was little he could do to prevent it.

The publicity gave CFB an enormous boost in name recognition and a surge in both depositors and loan business. Perry was in ecstasy as he watched the weekly numbers grow; he never mentioned his initial reaction to what Ben had done.

A month later the publicity had finally died down when one of Ben's employees came to see him. "There's a woman here asking to see you," the man said. "She said she's a reporter."

Ben groaned. "I thought we were all done with that. Can't she come back another time?"

The man in front of him gave Ben an odd look. "I really think you should see her."

Ben raised his eyebrows in question, but the man said nothing more. Finally, Ben told him to show the reporter in.

When he heard the door open, he looked up - and then simply sat there and stared. The woman standing before him was breathtaking. She was tall with dark hair that flowed down and framed the most captivating face Ben could remember. She was not classically beautiful: her nose had an odd bend in it that suggested it had been broken at one time. But that didn't detract from her looks; instead it seemed to make her face that much more striking. With her high cheekbones and dark eyes, she was simply the most attractive woman Ben had ever seen in person.

Suddenly he realized that he was staring and he rushed to stand and shake hands with her, apologizing clumsily for the meagerness of the office.

If the woman was put off in any way, she gave no indication of it. After she was seated she bent her head and looked up at Ben from under her long eyelashes. "I'm Cilla Devereaux, Mr. Mitchell, and actually, I'm the one who owes you an apology. I'm not really a news reporter, I'm an author writing a book on new trends in business practices. My working title is The Metamorphosis of American Banking in the 21st Century. From what I've been reading in the news, I think Community First Bank would make a wonderful case study."

Ben was happy to talk with her, and used the opportunity to find out as much as he could about the enchanting woman seated before him. He was impressed to learn that Cilla had earned her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. After working for several years with one of the major consultants, she told Ben that she had become fascinated by the lessons that her consulting work had uncovered, and she wanted to try her hand at writing a book.

He in turn gave her a quick rundown on his background and how he had come up with the CFB's mission and philosophy. The two of them were chatting so easily that Ben was startled when one of his people knocked on the door to tell him they were ready to close for the night.

"I didn't realize I was keeping you so long," he sheepishly apologized. "Would you like to continue this over coffee or dinner?"

She smiled regretfully. "I'd love to do that, but unfortunately I have a prior commitment tonight." Seeing the disappointment on Ben's face, she quickly added, "Would it be possible for us to resume this another time? I don't want to interrupt your work anymore than I have already."

He quickly agreed and a new date was set.

The next time they got together the conversation flowed just as easily as before. Ben opened up to Cilla about Elizabeth and how he had lost her. His story brought tears to her eyes. She in turn told him about her first marriage to a man in Miami who had turned abusive. "My ugly nose was a parting gift from him," she said bitterly. "I never tried to have it fixed. Every time I look in a mirror I want to be reminded of the price for being naïve and trusting." Ben told her he thought her nose made her face look even more striking and attractive, and she smiled gratefully.

When they finally wound up the evening, Cilla kissed his cheek and told him how much she was enjoying their sessions. Since Ben felt the same way, it was a simple matter to arrange another get-together.

Their next "interview" was over dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in town. By now Ben had stopped lying to himself - he wanted to impress her. She was so unlike other women he'd been introduced to after he'd become a widower. She was intelligent and easy to talk to, she had a good sense of humor, and above all she had a face and figure that belonged in a fashion magazine ad. As he escorted her to the table, he caught the envious glances following them and felt proud.

Dinner was even more enjoyable than their prior sessions, undoubtedly helped along by an excellent meal accompanied by a fine wine. Ben hadn't wanted the evening to end, so he was delighted when she asked if he could show her his home before they called it a night. "I've found you can tell so much about a person by how they live," she told him as he drove her through his neighborhood." Now he was especially glad that he'd bought the big house.

When they got inside he took her coat and hung it along with his own in the entry hall closet. Then he led her into the living room and began talking about the house. Suddenly she grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around and kissed him passionately while thrusting her body against his. After a long blissful interval, she pushed herself away from him. "I'm sorry, Ben," she said, her breath coming in great gasps, "I know I shouldn't have done that, but you are the most fascinating man I think I've ever met."

He stared at her in amazement, not daring to believe that she had similar feelings about him. Then a look of determination mixed with years of pent-up lust came over his face and he grabbed her to him and kissed her hungrily. After a minute or two he paused to look at her. "I feel the same way about you, Cilla. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind since the day I met you."

He started to crush her to him, but she stopped him. "No, you sweet man, let me do this." She pushed him back so that he sat down on the sofa. Then, swaying to some music only she could hear, she began to remove her clothes. It wasn't a striptease - every move was natural and unaffected. Yet the result was the sexiest thing that Ben had ever seen. And when she stood before him wearing nothing but her underwear, he was in awe. Her bra and panties were black and sheer. He had not realized that she had worn a garter belt, and this one wrapped her in bands of black satin that emphasized her long legs and flat tummy while directing his eyes toward the delights waiting beneath her tiny panties. She looked like someone out of a Victoria's Secret catalog.

She held her pose for a moment, then strode forward and began to tug urgently at his clothing. In a frenzy he pulled and yanked until he was naked. Then he bent down, scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to his bedroom.

He had intended to lay her on the bed, but once again she took charge, slipping free of his grasp and pushing him down on his back. Then she knelt between his legs and ran her fingers up his thighs until she reached his swollen cock. With no delay or hesitation she sucked him into her mouth and began to perform rituals with her tongue and lips he had never experienced before. In no time he was straining up against her in ecstasy, and although he tried to warn her she kept him deep in her mouth until he pulsed in orgasm.

Overwhelmed, his head flopped back on the bed and for a moment he was unable to think. Then he quickly rose up on his elbows to look at the raven-haired goddess kneeling before him. He tried to pull her up beside him, but she wouldn't move, remaining where she was with his cock in her mouth.

Then he became aware that her tongue was still working on him, and to his amazement he felt the beginnings of a response. In moments he was stiffening again, and she gave a little cry of triumph as she felt the evidence of her success.

When she had him once again at full erection, she sprang to her feet and clambered up on the bed. Straddling his thighs, she reached down and pulled the crotch of her panties aside. Almost frantically she began rubbing her pussy over his swollen cock, and Ben couldn't help but feel how moist she was. Then she grabbed his cock with her other hand, held it where she wanted it and impaled herself. In an instant she was in motion, now rising up and down with little cries, now rocking back and forth so as to rub him against her clitoris. The sensations Ben felt were incredible, and the raw passion that possessed her produced a matching response in him. He heard himself growling and grunting like an animal.

Suddenly she bent over so that her breasts were mashed against Ben's chest. Thrusting her arms around his shoulders, she clutched him to her, then threw her weight to one side so that he rolled over on top of her in the missionary position. He felt the nylon of her stockings along his sides as she raised her legs straight up in the air. Then she was screaming, "Now, fuck me! Harder, deeper, now, now!"

Like a wild man he thrust himself into her, trying to batter her into submission. Her only response was to reach back and grab his buttocks with her hands to pull him into her, deeper and harder.

"Oh, I'm going to cum!" she exclaimed, "You're going to make me cum!"

As he heard her cries rise in pitch he tried to accelerate even more. Having already cum once, he knew that he wasn't quite ready to do so again, so he tried to hurry so he would be in synch with her. Suddenly, as she flexed and bucked against him, he felt one of her fingers slip into his ass. Her finger probed deeper and deeper until she stroked his prostate gland. A sensation like nothing he'd ever experienced shot through him and he exploded in the biggest orgasm he'd ever had, even as he heard Cilla reach her own peak beneath him. He collapsed on her, holding her like she was the only still point in a turning world.

When he opened his eyes again, morning was shining through the bedroom windows. He glanced over at Cilla, who was lying on her side, still asleep, only partially covered by the sheet. Ben shook his head in wonder. Even in her sleep she looked carefully posed.

He realized that her eyes had opened and that she was looking at him with a little grin on her face. "Hi, lover," she said quietly. "Thank you for a wonderful evening."

He pulled her to him and kissed her lips gently. "Last night may have been the most incredible experience of my life," he told her sincerely.

"Did you like that?" she asked coyly. "Even that?" she asked, wiggling her middle finger suggestively.

"That was intense," he said emphatically.

Her face became serious. "That's exactly how I feel about you: intense."

After that there was no longer any pretense of remaining author and interview subject - they were a couple now. Ben began taking Cilla everywhere, introducing her to his friends, showing her the sights of his city. His friends were delighted to see Ben come out of his long-imposed mourning. After a night out at the theater with Perry and his wife Frances, as the two women went off to powder their noses, Perry pulled Ben aside. "You lucky son of a bitch!" he exclaimed, pounding Ben on the back. "I thought that you had sworn off women for good, but by God you've sure made up for lost time!" Ben had noted how much Frances had let herself go over the last few years, and he decided that was why he'd heard the note of raw envy in his partner's voice.

Ben was also surprised at the response of some of his female acquaintances. Even though they'd been the ones most eager to get Ben back in the dating pool, some of them seemed almost resentful now that he'd found someone. He chalked it up to jealousy. "They wanted me to do well, but not to hit a home run," he thought with amusement.

After six months together, Ben decided that he'd lived alone long enough. When he proposed to Cilla, she eagerly accepted. Ben offered to give her any kind of wedding she wanted, but she firmly told him she wanted a simple wedding in their back yard with no one but Perry and Frances as witnesses.

Ben's reverie was suddenly interrupted by laughter from the audience, and he realized that Perry was winding up his introduction. Ben glanced over at his smiling wife and allowed himself a feeling of intense satisfaction. "Life is pretty damned good," he thought. "After all I've been through, it says something that the biggest problem I have is how to say no to BankGroup's buy-out offer."

"And now," he heard Perry say, "without further ado, I give you your Banker of the Year, Ben Mitchell!"

As a wave of applause swept over the room, Ben leaned over and kissed Cilla, then rose and reached for the speaking notes he had stuffed in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. As he did so, he noted in surprise that he was sweating profusely. "I'm not usually that nervous before making a speech," he thought as he made his way to the podium. A wave of heat enveloped him and he thought, "I need to ask them to turn up the AC in the room."

Spreading his notes on the podium he looked around the room and froze. His heart was pounding in his chest so loudly that he wondered if the audience could hear it. Then an oddly familiar metallic taste filled his mouth and a line from an old R.E.M. song popped into his head: "Aluminum tastes like fear."

Ben turned to look to Perry for help but recoiled when he saw his friend's face highlighted by rainbow-like colors. Ben rubbed his eyes, but the colors remained, growing even brighter. He grabbed for the podium to steady himself, and the taste of chocolate mixed with the aluminum. 

In panic he tried to ask for help, but his tongue and lips were now moving in slow motion so that the sound that emerged sounded like some drunken foghorn. He heard shouting and tried to see where it was coming from, but his view of the room was now blurred and indistinct. Suddenly, he could make out hands and arms reaching towards him, and the audience transformed into zombies intent on killing him. 

He gave a high-pitched moan and tried to hide behind the podium, but it seemed to quiver and pulse like a living thing in his hands. As he looked in horror, the microphone transformed into a snake that opened its mouth to reveal fangs dripping with venom. In fear and loathing he shoved the thing away from him, and the podium toppled to the floor with a crash that gave off a purple echo.

Shouts and screams filled the air, and when Ben looked up to see what was happening, he realized that the walls of the room were beginning to melt and run. Before he could react a spark of light glinted from the ceiling, and the crystals in the chandeliers turned into ice-like spears hurtling toward him. In a panic he threw himself over the table in front of him and rolled off the dais onto the floor. The fall momentarily stunned him, but then he saw shapes approaching him and he crawled under the skirt of the platform, looking for a place to hide. The darkness helped momentarily, but then blobs of light appeared, taking strange shapes that were constantly changing. Some of them were quite beautiful, and he paused to marvel at what he was seeing.

But then he was being dragged back out into the light, and despite his frantic struggles he found himself unable to get away. Weights too heavy to lift pressed down on his arms and legs, and something clamped on his head to prevent him from thrashing. The noise around him was overwhelmingly loud, so he tried to block it out with his own screaming, but to no avail.

Suddenly there was additional pressure on his knee and a sharp pain in his right thigh. The world began to dissolve into darkness, and the last thing he saw was Cilla's blurry face looming over him. Then there was nothing.



A Grip on Reality Ch. 02



 Banker Ben Mitchell had a rocky start in life, but lately things have begun to look up. His bank is a success, he's found a beautiful new wife and his industry peers have gathered to honor him. Then, at the moment of his triumph, he suffers a catastrophic psychiatric episode.

*****

When she got to the hospital on Monday morning, Gina Esposito found a note telling her to check in with her supervisor. A thrill of fear shot through her - the hospital had already had one round of lay-offs and the rumor mill said more were coming.

But when she found her supervisor she was relieved to learn that she wasn't being laid off. Her relief turned to dismay, however, when she heard she was being given a special assignment. "Effective immediately, you've got a new patient to work with. He's a VIP and Dr. Adenauer is going to be treating him personally, so you'd better be on your toes."

Gina tried not to roll her eyes as she took the file on her new patient. "Just what I need: wiping the ass of some senile old rich guy under the supervision of the chief medical officer," she thought disgustedly. But then she reminded herself that she was lucky to still have her job and she chided herself for her attitude.

She found herself doing that a lot. In fact, she thought, "It's been happening ever since that rat bastard ran out on me." Her then boyfriend had managed to get her pregnant even though she'd been on the pill. When he found out, he forgot his promise to marry her and promptly disappeared. Pregnant and unable to pay her rent by herself, Gina had had to move back in with her mother. "Still," she reminded herself, "if I hadn't gotten pregnant I wouldn't have Angela now." The thought of her little girl cheered her up as it always did, and she marched off to her new assignment with her normally cheerful attitude firmly back in place.

As she walked down the hallway, she went over her new patient's chart. "Well, I was wrong about the Alzheimer's," she thought. Apparently her patient, Benjamin Mitchell, was a 36-year-old white male in otherwise good health who had had a sudden psychiatric crisis on Saturday night. She flipped through a series of pages. "Wow, they put this poor guy through the wringer," she murmured. He had had a CAT scan, PET scan, MRI and a complete physical exam. Everything had come back normal.

"Great," she thought, "I wonder what I'm supposed to do with him?"

She found him in the rubber room. It wasn't really rubber, of course, mostly plastic-covered foam, but everybody at the hospital called it the rubber room. "He must have thrown a doozy," she thought, peering at the comatose figure through the peephole.

She turned to the night nurse who was preparing to go off duty. "What's he been like?" she asked.

"They took him down with diazepam during his psychotic episode and they kept him on it while they were testing him. Once they finished they brought him here and he's been sleeping it off ever since. My guess is that they'll start him on clozapine once his system has cleared and then see what happens."

Gina nodded. "Who's on duty, Ed or Harold?"

The nurse knew what she meant immediately.

"Harold's on today, if you need him."

Gina nodded again. Either one of the two big orderlies could handle the most violent patient, but Gina preferred Harold - he was a gentle giant. Ed always seemed to look for opportunities to inflict pain if a patient offered any resistance.

She went back to the peephole and looked again. To her surprise the patient was now sitting up, his back against the wall. He didn't appear agitated so Gina decided to take a chance. "Get Harold down here for me," she asked the other woman. "I'm going to go see how our boy is doing in there. He doesn't look dangerous, but it's nice to know help is available."

When she slipped the latch and opened the door, the patient looked up quickly, but otherwise didn't move. Nevertheless, Gina made sure to stay on the opposite side of the room. 

When she made no further move, he looked at her blankly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Nurse Esposito," she said, "and you must be Mr. Mitchell. Is there anything I can do for you?" She watched him carefully, curious to hear what would be his first priority.

He surprised her. "Yes there is. Could you get me a cup of coffee?"

She thought about it momentarily, then decided a little caffeine couldn't hurt. She turned to the grill in the wall and said, "Harold, could you get a cup of coffee for Mr. Mitchell?" She turned back to look at Ben. "Cream and sugar?"

"Just sugar - two packs."

When she handed him the cardboard cup, he quickly took a sip, then made a face. "This is terrible," he said.

She laughed. "Tell me about it!" she replied. "I have to drink the stuff every day."

He gave a little smile, and she thought to herself that that was a positive sign. She also noted that he didn't stop drinking the coffee.

When he had finished the cup, he abruptly asked, "So where am I?"

She had anticipated the question and decided to answer it directly. "You're in Longview Psychiatric Hospital, Mr. Mitchell. You apparently suffered some kind of breakdown on Saturday night, and you were brought here for observation and treatment."

He looked at her strangely. "I remember being at a banquet, but after that I must have gone to sleep because I had terrible nightmares. At least I thought they were nightmares." He got a confused look on his face and suddenly asked, "What day is it?"

"It's Monday," she said quietly, waiting for his reaction.

"Monday!" he exclaimed. "Have I really been out of it that long? What is happening to me?"

Before Gina could reply there was a noise from the door behind her and in walked Dr. Bernard Adenauer, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of the Longview. "The great man himself," she thought sarcastically.

"I'll answer that question, Nurse," Dr. Adenauer, and Gina stepped hastily aside. 

The doctor walked over and gravely shook his patient's hand. "Do you know me, Ben?"

Ben looked at him carefully and recognition dawned. "I feel like I've met you before. Oh yeah, you're Dr. Adenauer. You're the head of Longview."

The psychiatrist beamed at Ben like he was a bright boy in elementary school. "Excellent, Ben, it appears your memory is unimpaired. That's a very good sign."

Gina began making notes on her clipboard.

Ben repeated his question. "Dr. Adenauer, can you tell me what's wrong with me?"

"Well, Ben, we are not ready to make a definitive diagnosis at this point, but we have learned quite a bit. In case you don't remember, you had a major psychotic episode at the banquet that, ironically enough, was being held in your honor." He gave a little chuckle. "Apparently you frightened quite a lot of people with your behavior."

Ben groaned and looked down in embarrassment. 

Gina snorted silently to herself. "So much for patient sensitivity!" she thought.

Dr. Adenauer was unperturbed. "When I heard of your episode and watched the video . . ."

Ben groaned again. "They have it on video?"

Adenauer nodded and continued unabated. "My immediate thought was that you were suffering from a glioma, a brain tumor. Pressure on your brain could explain such irrational behavior."

Watching Ben turn pale, Gina decided that her initial assessment of Dr. Adenauer's bedside manner had been too kind.

"Fortunately," the good doctor continued, "we have been able to rule that out as a possibility. Similarly, we have eliminated stroke, seizure, high blood sugar levels and virtually every other physical abnormality that could have caused such an event. You'll be happy to know that you are a very healthy young man."

"Except that I'm losing my mind," Ben said bitterly.

"We're not ready to make that call just yet," Adenauer responded. "You have had a single irregular event, nothing more. If it does not recur, we will conclude that it was a one-time occurrence of unknown origin. If it should recur, we will be in a position to evaluate what treatment might provide relief."

Ben looked at him suspiciously. "Do I have to stay here?"

"Oh, yes, I think that would be wise. In the first place, your presence here will make it easier for me and others like Nurse Esposito to interact with and observe you. Secondly, should a recurrence of the original episode transpire, you will be in a safe place."

Ben made a sour face. "For how long?"

"That we'll just have to see," the doctor said breezily. "Well, I must go now, but I'll see you later to begin therapy." He turned to Gina. "Nurse Esposito, would you come with me, please?"

Once they had left the rubber room, Dr. Adenauer turned and looked sharply at the nurse. "Mr. Mitchell is a very important patient, Ms. Esposito. Your responsibility will be to devote full time to him."

"Full time?" Gina gasped. "What about my other patients?"

Adenauer frowned impatiently. "Your other patients will be reassigned. You are to keep him company, interact with him and generally make a continuous assessment of his state of mind. I want you to observe him carefully for any signs of a recurrence. Keep careful notes of his thoughts and actions, and especially look for any indications of irrationality. Document everything. Do you understand?"

"I think so, Doctor, but I've never done anything like this before and . . ."

"Are you saying that you're incapable of performing these responsibilities, Nurse Esposito? Do you want me to find someone else to replace you?"

"Oh, no sir, I can do this, I assure you," she said hastily.

"That's good," he said. "This appears to be a rather unusual case, and I want to be sure we observe and record the course of his disease very carefully."

"Yes, doctor, I understand. You can count on me."

When the imposing figure of the chief medical officer had walked away, Gina rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Holy smoke, what was that all about? I thought he was going to fire me on the spot."

Taking a deep breath she returned to the rubber room and let herself inside. Mitchell glared up at her. "So, you're going to be my babysitter."

In her notebook, Gina wrote "Patient displays initial hostility." Mentally, she groaned, "This is not going to be a fun assignment."

That night over dinner Gina told her mother and brother about her new assignment. Her brother was a detective on the city police force. Ever since his marriage had broken up, Marco made it a habit of dropping by his mother's house for dinner once or twice a week. Gina accused him of being a mooch, but secretly she was delighted to have his company. She had always idolized her big brother growing up, and she enjoyed his company, even if he did like to tease her.

She was bemoaning her new assignment when Marco interrupted her. "What's your new patient's name?" he asked.

"You know I'm not supposed to talk about our patients," she said.

He rolled his eyes. "It's not as though I'm going to broadcast his name on Twitter," he said with exasperation. Seeing that she wasn't going to talk, he went on. "Okay, you said the guy freaked out at a banquet last weekend. Well, take a look at this." 

With that he pulled out his IPad and connected to YouTube. In seconds Gina and her mother were looking at video obviously taken from the floor of the hotel ballroom. There was Ben Mitchell stepping up to the podium to accept Banker of the Year honors - and having a total meltdown in front of hundreds of guests.

As Gina looked on in amazement, her mother grew very nervous. "Is it safe for you to be working with this man?" she asked apprehensively.

Gina reassured her that she was perfectly safe; nevertheless, she was taken aback at the way Ben had transformed so quickly from a normal, seemingly happy individual into a stark raving mad man.

"So what does the boss head-shrinker say is the matter with this guy?" Marco asked irreverently. 

"Dr. Adenauer hasn't made a diagnosis yet," Gina said stiffly, bristling at her brother's teasing.

"Well, I can tell you what's wrong with him, and I'm not even a rich doctor. Your boy's on drugs, for sure. I've seen it on the streets many times." Marco said confidently.

Gina gave him a baleful look. "Well you'd be wrong, smartypants. In the first place, they did a full medical work-up on him. He was clean: no drugs and not a drop of alcohol. In fact they say he doesn't drink at all. Anyway, they checked his arms and legs carefully: no needle marks. And two hundred people at the banquet ate the same food he did without any ill effects. So stick to your police work and leave the medical diagnoses to the professionals!"

Marco was undeterred. "Maybe so, but he sure looks drugged out to me." He shook his head. "Anyway, it's kind of a shame that it happened to him. From what I hear, he's a pretty good guy for a banker."

Both women were curious now, so Marco went back to his IPad and found the video of Mitchell's loan to the thwarted bank robber. When they'd finished watching, Marco added, "I figured the guy was crazy when I heard about this little stunt. If somebody attempts to rob a bank, you can't just let him go. But apparently it worked this time. It just goes to show, there really is an exception for every rule."

Gina said nothing, but she was impressed by the last video she'd seen. She decided to cut Ben Mitchell a little slack when she saw him the next day.

Gina had never had an assignment like her current one and she wasn't really sure what Adenauer wanted from her. How was a nurse supposed to find out anything about Ben's mental state? For that matter, how was she going to spend so much time with her patient without running out of things to talk about? And how was she going to achieve anything positive, given his depressed and somewhat antagonistic state of mind?

The next morning Gina strode into Ben's room with a sense of purpose. He greeted her with sarcasm. "Ah, my babysitter is back."

Gina was undeterred. "That's not a very nice way to say hello, especially since I went to the trouble to be nice to you." With that she revealed the cup of Starbucks she had brought with her and held it out to him.

His demeanor changed completely and he accepted the cup gratefully. His smile grew even broader when she handed him several packs of sugar. "Thank you," he said earnestly. "You don't know how much I've missed good coffee."

After a couple of minutes, he looked up at Gina with a wry grin. "Okay, Nurse Esposito, I guess I owe you a little cooperation. So what's on the agenda for today - word associations, Rorschach tests, block puzzles?"

Gina rolled her eyes, but she had an agenda so she ignored his jibes. After a lot of worrying, she had decided to start by exploring Ben's memories of what had happened immediately prior to his episode. She wanted to know in as much detail as possible everything that had happened before the onset of the attack, his emotions, his actions and his interactions with others. 

As she posed her questions, everything he reported seemed completely normal and unremarkable to her. Nevertheless she kept at it lest she overlook anything of importance. When she felt she had exhausted that subject she gently pressed him to describe the episode itself. As she had anticipated, he was reluctant to do so, but she carefully explained that the details of his experience might prove helpful to Dr. Adenauer in diagnosing what had happened to Ben. 

As she listened to his account of his experience, Gina found it surprisingly difficult to maintain her professional demeanor. Most psychotics she had dealt with seemed unaware that anything unusual was happening to them. The voices they heard or the impulses they felt were integral to them. But Ben's experience was different: he seemed completely aware of how aberrant his behavior had been. Gina could easily see how fearful he was at the way his mind had misfired.

The thing that seemed to disturb him most was the distortion of his perception. "I remember seeing a woman screaming, but instead of hearing her voice I felt a strong unpleasant taste in my mouth. At another point I ran my hand over the nap of the carpet and saw the color blue. It was the most frightening and disconcerting experience I've ever had."

"What you were experiencing is called 'synesthesia,'" Gina told him. "Basically, your senses became garbled and your brain interpreted sensations incorrectly. Synesthesia has been frequently observed but exactly what's happening is not well understood."

Ben was still upset by his memories of that experience, but he took a little comfort in the fact that there was a name for what had happened.

It was clear to Gina that Ben didn't want to delve any further into his episode. She didn't want to risk triggering another one so she suggested that they have an early lunch. As the two of them ate bland food off of paper plates, she wracked her brain to think of a safer topic she could explore with him. As she pondered the problem, she remembered Dr. Adenauer's comment about Ben's memory. Maybe that was the approach she should use. Come to think about it, that might offer a way she could get Ben to accept her too.

"Okay," Gina said briskly when they'd finished lunch, "let's change the subject. This afternoon is all about Ben Mitchell. I want to know everything about you."

"Sounds to me like you're in for a pretty dull time," Ben said.

"You let me be the judge of that," she responded. "Now let's get going."

With that she began to take him on a tour of his own life, asking him questions about every episode he could remember: his relationship with his parents, his likes and dislikes, emotions and preferences - in short, anything and everything that might possible reveal some insight or precursor to his sudden psychosis. Before she'd started she feared they might run out of things to discuss in short order. But once they started, time seemed to fly by, with each event eliciting yet more questions and more memories. 

Gina wasn't so interested in the actual events of Ben's life; instead, she was looking for subtext, any insights that might reveal the mind of the patient before her. But it was impossible for her to hear his story and not become engaged by it. Gradually she began to draw conclusions about the man, not just the patient.

Before she started working with Ben, Gina had held certain stereotypes about businessmen in general and bankers in particular. But it quickly became clear to her that this one didn't fit her expectations. For example, he hadn't come from privilege. His father had been a mid-level manager, and she soon learned that Ben's mother had drunk any disposable income they might have had. 

As she listened to Ben talk about his mother, she quickly understood why he avoided alcohol so assiduously. Even if he had inherited any genetic predisposition to alcoholism, Gina decided, the spectacle of his mother's degeneration had clearly left a mark so indelible that he would never be tempted.

But over and above the life lesson he had learned, Gina also observed the impact of his mother's disease on Ben. "It would have been easier on him if she had died suddenly," she found herself thinking. Yet instead of withdrawal or bitterness, Ben's reaction had been to bond more closely with his father, and she decided that indicated a significant level of resilience, something she admired.

Ben was just getting ready to talk about Elizabeth when they were interrupted by the 4:00-to-midnight nurse. "Sorry to barge in on you, Gina, but we won't be able to get the shift review and hand-over done if you don't stop."

Gina was startled and, promising Ben they would get started promptly the next morning, she hurried off. Later, as she retrieved her car from the hospital parking garage and headed home, she shook her head. "I've got to do a better job of managing my time," she thought ruefully. "I've got a ton of notes to type up when I get home."




A Grip on Reality Ch. 02



The next morning Gina arrived with another cup of Starbucks for Ben, and he acknowledged her thoughtfulness gratefully. She thought that he seemed glad to see her as well as her gift, and that encouraged her.

Despite the amount of time she had spent with Ben going over the early years of his life, Gina's review of her notes had uncovered many more questions she wanted to explore. As a result, it wasn't until after lunch that they got back to the subject of Elizabeth.

Gina had known that Ben had been previously married, but she hadn't known any details about their relationship or why it had ended. Despite her professional reserve, Ben's story touched her to an extent that surprised her. As a result, she was almost relieved when Ed came to escort Ben to his session with Dr. Adenauer. Once he'd gone she'd blown her nose and wiped her eyes, chastising herself for becoming emotionally involved with one of her patients.

The next morning, after Ben had had a chance to sip his coffee, he asked her an unexpected question. "What do you think of Dr. Adenauer?"

"Well, uh, he's a noted psychiatrist and has done very well for himself," she said, not wanting to reveal her personal feelings about his aloof manner and dictatorial attitude towards the hospital staff. "Why do you ask?"

"It just seems like he was going through the motions with me," Ben complained. "He seemed distracted and kept asking me questions that we'd already been over. Besides, I don't see how Freudian analysis is much use for a case like mine."

"I'm not a doctor, much less a psychiatrist, so I can't speak to Dr. Adenauer's methods," Gina equivocated. "But he's very well respected and I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

Ben nodded and took another sip of his coffee, but it was obvious that he wasn't convinced by her answer. Then he startled her again.

"Before we talk about me anymore, I want to find out something about you. You've been asking all the questions so far, so it only seems fair to give me a turn," he said.

"No, that's not appropriate. You're the patient and I'm the caregiver. You're the person who's in treatment, not me."

He winced visibly at her last remark, and Gina immediately felt guilty. There was an awkward moment of silence, but he recovered before she did. "It's just that I'm not used to all this attention. Besides, I really would like to know a little something about you. After all, you've been virtually my only companion for quite a while now."

She started to refuse him again, but then paused to consider. "Maybe," she thought, "I could learn something from the kind of questions he asks, the sort of things he's interested in. Besides, I don't know what the hell I'm doing in any case, so why not?" 

She wound up spending most of the day telling her story to Ben. At first his questions covered the sort of things a new acquaintance might ask, but soon he was probing for her thoughts and motivations even as he asked about dates and facts. "Damn," she thought to herself, "he's better at this than I am!"

He was particularly interested to learn about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and he was angered to hear how the man had deserted her when Gina had gotten pregnant. As she described the episode, Gina found long-suppressed emotions rising to the surface. "It wasn't as though I tried to get pregnant!" she exclaimed angrily. "We used birth control; it just happened. But he accused me of trying to trap him into marriage, and then he just disappeared."

"Did you consider abortion or adoption?" Ben wanted to know.

"Absolutely not!" Gina snapped. "Angela's father may have been a rat, but my daughter is the best thing that ever happened in my life. It hasn't been easy trying to raise her on my own, but I wouldn't change anything that happened," she said forcefully.

"I wish my mother had felt that way about me," Ben said wistfully.

Just then there was a noise at the door to the room, and when Gina looked over her shoulder she saw one of the most striking women she had ever seen step into the room.

"Cilla!" Ben called out, and leapt to his feet. 

Immediately, a look of consternation came over the woman's face, and Gina realized instantly what was happening. She grabbed Ben's arm and tugged at it. "Sit down, Ben," she said urgently. "You'll startle her."

Comprehension dawned on Ben's face and he reluctantly sat back down. Seeing him acting in a non-threatening way, the woman re-entered the room. "Ben, darling, it's so wonderful to see you," she exclaimed. To Gina it sounded half-hearted, but she realized that people can respond that way to mental illness.

Ben beamed at his wife. "It's so good to see you, babe. I've missed you so much."

Cilla smiled and then glanced over at Gina. "Who is this woman?" she asked.

Gina turned to face her. "I'm Nurse Esposito, Mrs. Mitchell. Dr. Adenauer assigned me to work with your husband on his recovery."

Ben's wife gave her a perfunctory nod, then added, "I see. Well, I don't think we'll need you at this time."

Gina was not to be cowed. "A staff member is required to be with a patient at all times on this floor," she said definitively. "They should have told you that at the desk."

"It's alright," Ben spoke up quickly, "she's my friend. She's been helping me a lot."

"I see," Cilla repeated. Apparently deciding not to make an issue of the situation, she turned back toward Ben. "Darling, I'm so sorry that I haven't been to visit you sooner. I knew you were in good hands, and things have been in such an uproar after your, um, unfortunate experience at the banquet. Anyway, I've been working closely with Perry to keeping everything going at the bank. It was really crazy for awhile there, as you can imagine."

Gina winced at her choice of words, but Cilla went right on. "In any case, Dr. Adenauer has been keeping me posted on your situation and I'm very encouraged. He says you're making marvelous progress."

Gina could see the skepticism in Ben's eyes at the mention of Dr. Adenauer, but she knew better than to say anything.

As they talked, it was clear to Gina that Ben was delighted to see Cilla, but she also detected a hint of disappointment. "I'm really glad to know you and Perry are keeping things going at the bank," he told her. "That's a real comfort. Hopefully I'll be able to get back in harness very soon." He paused and then added, "I do wish you could have visited sooner."

"I know, darling, and I'm so sorry. But here, I have a little gift to make it up to you." With that she lifted up the little brown bag she had brought with her and carried it over to her husband. When Ben opened it he found a cup of Starbucks and two packs of sugar. "I know how much you must have missed your favorite coffee, so I brought you some."

With that she reached up to give him a quick kiss, and before he could react she backed away hastily. "I'm sorry I have to dash now, darling, but it was wonderful to see you, and I'll be back as soon as I can."

With that Cilla turned and ducked out the door, leaving Ben holding the coffee and sugar with a bemused look on his face. Before the moment could grow awkward, Gina quickly spoke up. "Oh, that was so thoughtful of her to bring you your favorite coffee. She really must love you a great deal."

Ben nodded and gave her a little smile, but Gina saw him glance over at the empty Starbucks cup she had brought for him that morning. Still trying to boost his spirits, she added, "Your wife is gorgeous. I can certainly see why you married her."

"Thanks," Ben muttered, and sat down to drink his coffee. It was clear to Gina that he was disappointed by his wife's hasty departure.

At that point the 4:00-to-midnight nurse stuck her head in the door, alerting Gina that it was time for the shift change. Gina patted Ben on the arm and said as cheerfully as she could, "I'll see you in the morning. Enjoy your coffee."

As she drove home that night, Gina was fuming. "What a bitch!" she thought. "If Ben was my husband, I'd have been hammering on the hospital door every day to get in to see him. And then for her to disappear after five minutes!" She was so incensed that she told her mother and Marco, who had dropped by for dinner, all about the situation. "What is that woman's problem, anyway?" she fumed.

Immediately Marco began to tease her about getting so close to her patients. When he began to sing-song about lovers kissing in a tree, Gina could take it no longer. "Will you listen to yourself just once, Marco? You sound like you're back in high school. You don't know the first thing about the situation. This guy has been through a terrifying experience, and his wife treated him like crap. Anybody would be upset to see something like that, so just keep your opinions to yourself!"

Marco knew his sister well enough not to antagonize her further, but he couldn't keep the smirk off his face. Gina rolled her eyes and did her best to ignore him the rest of the evening. "I am not getting too close to my patient," she told herself emphatically after he had left.

Nevertheless, the next morning she found herself leaving early for work. After picking up a cup of Starbucks for Ben from the kiosk in the lobby of the hospital, she hurried to the ward. But before she entered, the night duty nurse stopped her. "You better not go in there," she warned. "He had another episode last night, and it was a real lulu."

"Omigod," Gina cried and rushed to look through the portal. Ben was enswathed in a straightjacket and propped up in the corner of the room. Clamping down on her emotions, she went back to the night nurse. "Tell me what happened," she said in what she hoped was a calm voice.

"Apparently, it came on shortly after the evening shift change," she told Gina. "The nurse on duty heard him cry out and observed that he was sweating profusely. Then he began raving and running about the room. The nurse said it was almost as though he was blind: he kept running into the walls and falling down. He'd blunder into a corner and crouch there like he was in fear, then the next moment he'd be up and groping about with his hands outstretched.

"Anyway, luckily Harold hadn't left yet, and he and Ed managed to subdue the guy and get him into the jacket. We hit him with a high dose of diazepam and that quieted him down, but this morning he's been moaning and weeping again."

Gina was distraught at this development but she tried her best not to show it. She walked back to the portal and looked at Ben carefully. He seemed to be awake but was totally passive. Gina opened the door and walked over to Ben's figure. Kneeling down, she began loosen the straightjacket.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" the other nurse asked anxiously. "He was pretty wild last night."

"I'm sure," Gina said, although in truth she wasn't sure at all what to expect. But she worked with determination until she finally had the heavy material off of him. Then she sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.

He looked over at her with frightened eyes. "Oh, Gina, I don't know what's happening to me," he whispered in a hoarse voice. Then he put his head down in her lap and began to cry like a child.

Most of Gina's patients hadn't known they were ill. On the contrary, most asserted forcefully that they were fine but everyone else was crazy. For the first time Gina was dealing with a patient who seemed to fully comprehend that something was going wrong in his brain, and that realization shook him to the core. Seeing him like this affected Gina more than any other patient she had cared for, and she found herself shedding her own tears to see him this way.

She stayed with him for a long time until another nurse entered the room. When Gina raised her eyebrows in question, the nurse held up a hypodermic. "Clozapine," she said, "Dr. Adenauer's orders."

Gina nodded. Clozapine was an "atypical" anti-psychotic and the drug of choice in such cases. After Ben's second episode, it was obvious that he needed medication. "Ben," she said quietly, "the nurse is going to give you a shot to help you."

He looked up at her a moment, then nodded apathetically. It broke her heart to see that all the spirit had gone out of him.

After he was given the medication, Ben quickly slipped off to sleep. Gina left the room quietly, then paused outside to try to regain her composure. She was deeply distressed that Ben had had a second episode. He'd seemed to be doing so well, acting so normally that she'd dared to hope that what had happened to him at the banquet was some sort of one-off.

Then she remembered Cilla's remark about Dr. Adenauer's assessment of Ben's progress. "I'd like to hear what Adenauer says now," she thought angrily. She stepped over to the computer terminal and quickly called up Ben's records so she could see for herself. 

What she found shocked her. Dr. Adenauer had written that "patient appears to be suffering from acute/transient psychotic disorder." Underneath that entry she found a second, dated last night, changing the diagnosis to "persistent delusional disorder with chronic primary hallucinatory psychosis." She had to look that up in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and when she found it she was deeply distressed. The current research indicated that even the best pharmacological agents available could not eradicate psychotic delusions, only attenuate them.

Adenauer must have been feeding Cilla Mitchell a line of bull to keep her from worrying, Gina decided. Still, it wasn't her responsibility to enlighten the woman. That thought made her check the logs, and she found no evidence that anyone had called Ben's wife with an update. That too wasn't her responsibility, but Gina decided to do so anyway. She felt that Ben needed something to keep his spirits up, and it was clear that he wanted to see more of his wife. Maybe she'd come if she knew what had happened.

Hoping she wasn't going to get in trouble, Gina picked up the phone and dialed the number shown in Ben's emergency contacts. When her call was answered, Gina immediately recognized the woman's contralto voice. "Mrs. Mitchell, this is Nurse Esposito from the hospital. I don't want to alarm you, but last night your husband suffered a second major psychotic episode. I thought you would want to know."

"Oh, how dreadful!" the voice exclaimed. "How is he now?"

"We had to sedate him overnight, Mrs. Mitchell, but he woke up this morning and seemed relatively normal. Dr. Adenauer prescribed some additional medication and he's sleeping now. I'd guess he'll be awake around noon if you'd like to come and see him."

"Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the hospital today, but I'll come to see him as soon as my schedule permits," Cilla said smoothly.

Gina tried not to explode at the woman's attitude. "Mrs. Mitchell, I really think it would help your husband's state of mind if he could see you as soon as possible," she said.

Now the woman's tone was icy. "I'll come to see him as soon as my schedule permits. Thank you for calling." And with that she disconnected the call.

Gina stood there fuming. "What kind of wife is she?" she asked angrily.

She was still angry when she got home that evening, and after dinner she called her brother who, for a change, hadn't come over for a meal. "Hey, Marco, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to run a background check on Mrs. Benjamin Mitchell. She goes by the name 'Cilla.'"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sis, I can't just run a check on somebody without a good reason," Marco protested.

"Well I've got a good reason," Gina said hotly, and proceeded to describe her two run-ins with her patient's wife.

"She may be a cold-hearted bitch but that still doesn't mean I can run a check on her," Marco said after Gina had finished.

"Listen, I know you checked up on your ex without anyone finding out. Just do the same thing on her and let me know what you find out."

"You're going to get me in trouble one of these days, Gina, but I'll see what I can do."

Gina hadn't heard anything further from her brother by the time she went back to work two days later. She checked the patient log and was unsurprised to find that Ben had had no visitors during that time. 

When she went in to see him, she found him calm but listless. "I feel like my brain is filled with molasses," he complained. "All my thoughts seem to be in slow motion."

She nodded reassuringly. "That's a known side-effect of the clozapine," she told him. "It tends to go away pretty quickly once the medication is discontinued."

"When will that be?" he asked hopefully.

Gina realized she had blundered, but she tried to cover her mistake. "That will be up to Dr. Adenauer to decide," she said.

She expected him to protest, but he seemed to lose interest. "It doesn't really matter anyway," he said morosely. "I don't want to be able to think if I'm going to keep freaking out."

Having Ben fall into depression was the last thing Gina wanted now. Desperately she cast about, trying to think of some subject they could discuss that would be neutral but still hold Ben's attention. Suddenly it came to her. "Tell me about banking," she said abruptly. "I know you got into it because your father was a banker, but there must be something more that's kept you there."

He looked at her suspiciously. "What do you care about banking?"

She was committed now. "It's not that I'm so interested in banking, I just want to know why you're so interested."

He shrugged his shoulders in resignation and began to tell her the story about the Christmas Day excursion with his father so long ago. At first he simply recounted the event and the conversation in a neutral tone of voice. But as he got into it Gina could see his passion building. She asked him for clarification and heard a note of enthusiasm.

As he went on, Gina was delighted. Not only was he coming out of his depression but his speech patterns and thought processes seemed to sharpen in the process. At the same time, to her surprise she found herself being caught up in his story. Who knew that such a boring vocation could have so much impact on people's lives?

Their conversation continued on through lunch and into the afternoon. Gina was just about to ask Ben a question when there was a commotion at the door. In walked Cilla Mitchell accompanied by a man in a business suit. Gina had already formed her opinion of Ben's wife and she was not much more impressed by her companion. The man was about Ben's age, but he was overweight and his hair was thinning. "Who is he, and why is Cilla Mitchell with him?" she wondered.

Ben stood up as though to rush over to Cilla but, perhaps remembering Gina's prior caution, held himself back. "Babe, it's so good to see you," he enthused. Then he turned to the man beside her.

"Perry, thanks for coming. How are you?" he said excitedly. "Gina, this is my business partner, Perry Bergen." Eagerly he began to quiz the man about the bank, but Cilla interrupted him.

"That can wait till later, darling," she said. "There's something else that we need to discuss with you. As you can imagine, all sorts of issues have been piling up at CFB that need executive action. We've deferred those as long as we could, hoping you'd be able to resume your duties as CEO. But now with this latest setback, it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon."

Gina wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but one look at Ben's face told her he wasn't happy about it.

Perry picked up the topic. "That's right, Ben, there's a ton of things we've got to get done. We've got filings to make to the Securities and Exchange Commission, contracts to be signed, that offer from BankGroup that we haven't dealt with yet . . ."

"Wait a minute," Ben burst in, "we already agreed that we were going to turn down the BankGroup offer."




A Grip on Reality Ch. 02



"Of course, of course," Perry hurried on, "but we haven't done that formally, and they're waiting to hear from the CEO on it."

"What Perry is trying to say is that the bank was floundering without a CEO at the helm," Cilla said, "so he has stepped in to take over that role, just until you're well, of course. And to make sure our interests are covered, he asked me to serve as Executive Vice President."

Perry was stunned. "But, how can he do that? I'm the CEO and the largest shareholder. You can't just push me aside!"

"Of course not, darling. No one's pushing you aside. We've just gotten Judge Gray to grant me power of attorney for your affairs, darling, just until you're well again. It was the only way we could keep things running smoothly while you're in here and - you know - fighting your illness."

"You had me declared incompetent?" Ben asked in disbelief.

"Believe me, it was the only way, darling," Cilla said smoothly. "Besides, it's only until you recover. Then everything will be back the way it was before."

To Gina's eyes it looked as though someone had let all the air out of Ben. He seemed to shrink into himself, and he slumped back against the wall behind him. "If it's the only way . . . I understand. It's just a little hard to take, you know?"

Gina wanted to rush to him and console him in his obvious distress, but then from the corner of her eye she spotted the second-shift nurse signaling to her. Reluctantly she said, "Ben, I have to go now. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

"Sure, sure," he said listlessly.

Perry spoke up, "I think we should go too, Cilla. We don't want to interfere with the operation of the hospital."

As Gina finished putting her notes together for the shift, she watched the two of them go out, talking earnestly with each other in low voices. She ground her teeth in anger. Even if what they had done had been necessary, surely there was a better way they could have presented it, she thought.

When she was done she made her way to the stairs leading to the parking garage. As she walked through the shadows she suddenly heard voices arguing and she stopped stock still. The hospital was in a safe neighborhood and she'd never had any trouble before, but Gina knew that a woman alone always needs to be ultra-careful.

"Not here!" she heard a woman's voice hiss, and she immediately recognized Cilla. Intrigued, Gina slipped closer, trying to see what was going on.

"Come on, Cilla, it's done now. Ben's out of the picture and we're in control. There's no need for hiding any longer."

"Oh, crap, that's Perry Bergen's voice," Gina thought. "What the hell is going on?"

"Perry, it won't do us any good if anyone finds out before all this is over. Now if you'll just control yourself long enough to drive home, I'll show you why patience is a virtue."

Gina couldn't hear the man's response because the engine of his car suddenly roared to life. Then, as she crouched behind a pillar, the car sped off down the ramp to the street.

"Omigod," Gina thought as she headed home, "Are Cilla and Perry having an affair? That bitch - I wouldn't put anything past her!"

She found her brother helping their mother fix dinner, and Gina pounced on him. "Quick, tell me, did you get anything on Cilla Mitchell?" she demanded.

Marco got a sly look on his face. "You know, Gina, I did look into Cilla Mitchell, and I have to thank you for asking."

"Why? What did you find out?"

His sly look had turned into a broad grin. "I found out she's the hottest looking woman I've seen in a long time!" he chortled. "It was definitely a pleasure checking her out."

Gina was not amused. "Fesso," she yelled at him angrily, "I want to know what she's really like. I think she's having an affair with Ben's partner and the two of them are up to no good."

Marco's smile was replaced by a knowing look. "Well, that would fit the pattern."

"What do you mean?" Gina demanded.

"According to the information I got, she was married to a guy in Miami like she told Ben. And here's a coincidence: he was a banker too. But she didn't leave him because he was abusive. In fact he was the one who gave her the heave-ho when he caught her cheating on him. He also gave her the back of his hand, which is how she got that busted nose."

"Didn't she take him to court for that?" Gina wanted to know. 

"I'm afraid our gal was pretty naïve back in those days. She didn't know that her hubby was the banker to some pretty rough characters in the import business, if you know what I mean. Apparently some of those guys paid her a little visit and explained that if she wanted to keep the rest of her face intact she'd better accept her hubby's offer and get the hell out of town. They must have made themselves clear, because my contacts at Miami PD said she was on a plane out of there the next day."

"I guess she must have used the settlement she got from him to go to Wharton," Gina said, remembering what Ben had said.

Her brother chuckled. "Maybe her flight from Miami connected through Philadelphia International Airport, but that's as close as she ever got to UPenn. She attended Florida Atlantic for a couple of years when she was younger, and that's it for her formal education."

"That bitch!" Gina growled. "She's been playing Ben for a fool the entire time! I can't wait to tell him what she's up to now."

"Slow down, Sis," Marco said. "It's not a crime to tell a few white lies to make yourself look better to a potential husband. If it were, we'd have to arrest half the people on Match.com! And as for cheating, what proof do you have? Yeah, what you heard in the parking garage sure sounds suspicious, but there could be another explanation. Besides, your patient's already clinging to his sanity by his fingernails. Are you sure you want to loosen his grip any further? You need to go slow, girl."

Gina took a deep breath. "I guess you're right," she said reluctantly, "but I'm going to watch that woman like a hawk. She bothered me from the first minute I saw her, and everything you've told me makes me just that much more suspicious of her."

Marco grinned slyly at her. "You're just jealous that she found Ben before you did."

"I am NOT! He's just a nice guy who needs help, and he's sure not getting it from his wife."

"Sure, Gina, sure," he said, still grinning.

The next morning Gina still wasn't certain what to say to Ben. The conversation she'd overheard was certainly provocative, but she had to admit that it was less than definitive. "And Ben is so fragile right now," she thought.

Just as she finished the hand-off from the third-shift nurse, her cellphone went off, and when she pulled it out of her pocket she saw that it was her brother calling. "I'm warning you, Marco, I don't want to hear any more of your teasing this morning."

"This is no joke, Gina. We just got word that Perry Bergen was found dead in his home of an apparent heart attack. I thought you ought to know."

"Omigod, Marco, that's terrible! I guess I've got to tell Ben, but it's going to be really hard on him. Perry was his best friend. Still, I don't want him to find out some other way. Damn, damn, damn!"

When she went into the rubber room, Ben was sitting quietly on the floor. He looked up to see her and a brief smile crossed his face, but then he seemed to slip back into apathy. "It's the drugs," Gina thought, hating that they had that effect.

She came and sat down beside, taking his hand in hers. "Ben, I have some bad news to tell you." 

When she had finished, he began to moan. "I can't believe Perry is gone. He was here in this room only yesterday. Why, why, why?"

He moaned again and Gina realized that he was perspiring heavily. She looked at his face anxiously and saw that his eyes were unfocused. "No!" he yelled suddenly, "Make it stand still!" Then he began babbling, his face contorted by fear.

The desk nurse must have heard him because her voice came over the intercom. "Are you okay, Gina? Do you need me to get Ed?"

"Not yet," Gina yelled back, half pleading. "Let me stay with him a little longer and see if it helps."

"Okay, Gina, but don't take any chances," came the disembodied voice.

Ben was writhing on the padded floor. Gina scooted closer to him. "It's alright Ben. I'm right here. Nothing's going to hurt you."

He continued to make unrecognizable sounds, but they didn't seem as frenzied to Gina as they had a moment ago. She reached over and rubbed his back with her hand. He flinched but he didn't try to get away. Encouraged, she continued to rub his back, murmuring soothing words to him. He shifted around blindly, his head bumping into her thigh. He lifted up slightly and then let his head fall into her lap. She held his head with her left hand and rubbed his back with her right, crooning to him like a mother comforting a frightened child.

Gina was so focused on trying to calm him that she lost track of time. Eventually she realized that he had fallen asleep. Gently she eased herself out from under him and pulled a foam pillow under his head. Then she walked quietly to the door and let herself out, locking it behind her.

"Are you alright? The desk nurse asked anxiously. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, why would you think that?"

The woman pointed silently at her face. Gina walked hastily to the ladies' room and looked in the mirror. Only then did she realize that her make-up was streaked with tears.

She kept watch over Ben for the next few hours, but he continued to sleep. Finally, late that afternoon he began to stir, and when Gina noticed she hurried back inside. 

Ben raised his head groggily and looked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then something clicked and a look of despair came over him. "It happened again, didn't it? One moment we were talking and the next everything started to go crazy. I saw your face melting and there was a weird taste in my mouth. I tried to warn you but all that came out of my mouth were colors."

He looked at her helplessly. "I really am insane, aren't I?"

Gina grabbed his hand and squeezed it to emphasize what she wanted to say. "Ben, don't you see, this time was different. Yes, you had another episode, but it only lasted a short while. And you came out of it on your own - we didn't have to knock you out or strap you down. I don't know what's going on clinically, but I have to believe this is a sign of improvement."

"It didn't feel like improvement to me," Ben said bitterly. "My brain stopped working right just the way it did before." Then he paused and seemed to think about his experience. "But it didn't seem as bad as last time, and I wasn't as frightened. It was still scary, but somehow I felt like I could get through it okay."

Gina didn't say anything, but inside she was glowing. This episode was much milder than the two others he'd experienced, and the fact that he'd been able to throw off the effects by himself seemed highly encouraging to her. And, if she were honest with herself, she felt gratified that she'd been able to help him get through it. "Cilla couldn't have done that," a little voice whispered, but she brushed it aside.

When her shift was over, Gina stayed later to look over Ben's records again. The fact that his experience this time was so different seemed significant to her, but what that might suggest she had no idea. She reread his entire file, looking for any clue. In particular she went over his blood work again, hoping to find some imbalance or deficiency that might offer an explanation. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and at last she gave up and left.

When she got home that evening she was surprised to find Marco waiting. "What's the matter, big brother, did the deli quit serving free food to cops?" she asked with a smile.

This time, however, Marco wasn't in a joking mood. "I came over because I wanted to hear what happened with your patient today."

Gina's smile evaporated as she told him about her patient's latest episode. "But I helped him, Marco. I was able to calm him down and he came out of it much sooner than the last two times. I think that's a good sign."

Marco looked at her appraisingly. "Sis, I know I'm not a doc, but I have to tell you your patient is taking LSD. Look, everything fits: the sudden onset, the wild hallucinations. I tell you he's had a couple of bad trips."

"But they're not all the same," Gina protested. "His episode today was very different from the previous two."

"Did you tell him about Bergen?" Marco asked.

"Yes," Gina said hesitantly.

"Well, there you have it. He had a flashback brought on by stress. It's a pretty common phenomenon."

"Marco, I'm telling you he's not on LSD. They did all kinds of tests on him when he had his first episode. They didn't find anything."

"Okay, so what kind of drug testing did they do?" he wanted to know.

"A urinalysis, of course. That's what the federal government mandates. They found nothing."

Marco nodded. "And how long after he went bananas did they test him?" he wanted to know.

Gina thought back, trying to recall the records she had just been reviewing. "Well, the onset of his first episode was around 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday. They kept him in the rubber room until Sunday, when they could get him to General Hospital for testing. Then they did all sorts of imaging on him. If I remember correctly, it wasn't until after they got him back to Longview that they did the blood work and urinalysis."

"So it could have been 24 hours or more," Marco said knowingly.

"So what?" Gina shot back. "A urinalysis can detect drug usage up to several days after use."

"Not LSD," Marco said. "That stuff can clear the urinary tract in as little as a couple of hours." When he saw Gina start to protest, he held up his hand. "Listen, I know you're the medical expert, but I'm the expert when it comes to drug testing. So how long after his second episode did they wait to run the tests again?"

"They didn't. There was no need - he was in the hospital. Everything he ingested came from there. There was no way he could get drugs."

"You're absolutely sure he didn't ingest anything from outside the hospital?" 

"Well, I did bring him a cup of coffee from the Starbucks stand in the hospital lobby - but I promise you I didn't drug him!"

Marco didn't even grin at that. "I don't even have to ask about the banquet. There was so much eating and drinking going on that drugging him would have been easy to do. But the hospital episode is a stumper. You're sure nobody else brought anything in?"

"Nobody but Cilla Mitchell - she brought him a cup of Starbucks too. But if someone had laced the coffee with LSD, half the hospital would have freaked out."

At Cilla's name, Marco perked up. "Does he take anything with his coffee - sugar, cream, one of those fancy toppings?"

"Just sugar."

"Then that's it," he said with certainty. "It was in the sugar packets. It would have been easy to pick up a couple of packets and doctor them at her leisure." He saw Gina start to protest and he went on quickly. "Come on, Gina, you're a nurse. You know how fine hypodermic needles are. And don't forget: LSD is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Somebody could inject a drop or two into a sugar packet and the user would never know anything was wrong until the walls started melting!"

"Then we've got to do something," she said urgently.

"Whoa, don't go off half-cocked there! All this is just you and me speculating about what might have happened. On the other side we've got a well-respected psychiatrist who says I'm dead wrong about what happened to Ben. And even if Ben's wife was messing with her husband's mind so she could pursue an affair with his partner, how could you prove it? That guy is now a body in the morgue. At this point all you can do is keep looking."

Gina shook her head. "I guess you're right, but I don't like it one bit."

Marco gave her a sharp look. "Just one thing, baby sister: keep your eyes open in that loony bin. Know what I mean?"

She nodded unhappily.

When Gina went to work the next day, she again found herself in a quandary about what to say to Ben. She felt it would be a mistake to bring up her suspicions for fear of upsetting him again. She'd already seen first-hand what the news of Perry Bergen's death had done to him and she didn't want to bring on another episode. Nor did she want to ask any questions about Cilla. As far as she knew, Ben had no doubts about his wife. For Gina to make accusations would risk alienating him. Eventually she decided to keep their conversations low-key and as normal as possible. Nevertheless, her brother's words stayed with her and she felt uneasy and unable to relax.

Two days later something happened that really set off her paranoia. In mid-afternoon the desk nurse flagged Gina down and told her that she was to take Ben up to Dr. Adenauer's office on the sixth floor. That order was so unprecedented that Gina had to ask the nurse to repeat it. Neither of them could ever remember a patient being taken to the executive level, and that set off alarm bells in Gina's head.

To stall for time, Gina asked the nurse to round up a wheelchair for Ben while she went to the ladies' room to "make herself presentable." Once in the restroom Gina grabbed her cellphone and called her brother. "Marco, something's happening here that really upsets me," she told him. "You need to get over here - stat." 

When she explained the strange order she'd received, Marco's voice took on a skeptical tone. "What's so weird about that?"

She tried to explain how out-of-the-ordinary this was and how uncomfortable it made her. "Patients never go to the sixth floor - never. I don't know what's going on, but after everything that's happened I feel very uneasy about this, Marco. Something about it just doesn't feel right. No, something about it feels very wrong. Please, Marco, please."

She could almost see him shaking his head. "Gina, I can't just bust into the Chief Medical Officer's suite and demand an explanation. A stunt like that could get me fired. And anyway, I'm really covered up with work here. I'm sorry, Sis, but I just can't get away."

"I'm scared, Marco," she said, but he'd already hung up.

She put the phone back in her pocket and looked at her face in the mirror. "Come on, Gina, it's probably nothing. Besides, whatever happens, you've got to be strong for Ben. You don't want to scare him into another attack."

When she came out she had calmed herself a little. The desk nurse had found a wheelchair so Gina took it and opened the door to the rubber room. Then she went in to explain their excursion to Ben as best she could. He was curious about the visit to Dr. Adenauer's office, but taken aback at the sight of the wheelchair.

"It's hospital policy, Ben," Gina reassured him. "This way you can't fall and sue Longview for negligence. We wouldn't want you to have an accident." Ben grudgingly complied.

When the elevator stopped on six, Gina wheeled him out. This was the first time she'd been on the executive floor and she looked around with interest at the furnishings. Unlike the terrazzo on the floors where she worked, this floor had thick carpeting that made it somewhat difficult to push the wheelchair. "They sure aren't expecting patients up here," she thought apprehensively.

When she neared the end of the hallway she was startled to see Ed open the double doors to Dr. Adenauer's office suite. "Ed, what are you doing here?" she asked nervously. The way the big orderly looked at her always made her uncomfortable.

"I'm just here to make sure there are no disturbances," he said with a grin as he stepped back to let her enter.

At first Gina saw no one else present, but then she spotted Dr. Adenauer talking with Cilla Mitchell out on what appeared to be a large balcony. "Come in, come in, Ben" Adenauer said jovially. "I'm so glad you could join us today. Bring him over here, Nurse, so we can all sit out here and enjoy the afternoon sunshine."




A Grip on Reality Ch. 02



At Adenauer's beckoning, Gina wheeled Ben across the marble floor to the balcony. As Ben stood up, his wife came over and gave him a quick hug. To Gina's eyes Cilla's action showed a distinct lack of affection, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Ben, Cilla and Dr. Adenauer seated themselves around the small table on the balcony, and Ed took up a position beside the entrance, leaving Gina standing their uncertainly. "This is a bit of a celebration," the doctor said grandly, "so I think refreshments are in order."

"No alcohol for me," Ben said quickly.

"No, no, of course not," Adenauer said, "I know your preference, Ben. We have coffee for you and tea for Cilla and me." He turned to Gina. "Everything is in the kitchen. Would you bring it out for us, Nurse?"

Gina bristled at being treated like a waitress. People had done that to her before and she'd quickly set them straight, but under these circumstances she held her tongue and went off in the direction the doctor had indicated.

As she walked into the little kitchenette she was confused about what was happening. What did they have to celebrate, she wondered. The whole thing seemed bizarre. 

Looking around she spotted the cups and saucers set out on a silver tray. A pot of hot water was keeping warm on the stove, and next to it there was an expensive coffee maker with a full pot already brewed. As she poured the water into the cups with the tea bags and the coffee into the remaining cup, she noticed that packets of sugar had already been laid out on each saucer. She was about to take the tray out to the balcony when a terrible thought struck her: what if the sugar had been tampered with? The thought sent a chill through her, but before she could think what to do she heard Dr. Adenauer calling impatiently for her.

When Gina set the tray down on the table, Cilla quickly reached across and distributed the cups and saucers in their proper positions. Dr. Adenauer nodded approvingly, then looked up at Gina. "Thank you, Nurse, that will be all. You may return to your ward."

Leaving Ben alone with these people was the last thing Gina wanted to do. "Shouldn't I stay to help Ben?" she asked desperately.

Adenauer countenance hardened, and in a peremptory voice he said, "We'll take good care of your patient. Now go, and close the door behind you when you leave."

Gina turned and reluctantly made her way to the door, desperately trying to think of something she could do to help Ben. Failing that, she went out, pulling the doors to behind her.

Ben had been watching, and it was clear that he was growing uncomfortable. "I don't understand, Dr. Adenauer. Why am I here? What's going on?"

"We'll explain everything in just a minute," Cilla offered. "But first let's just enjoy our beverages and this beautiful fall sunshine."

As the three of them sipped their drinks, Adenauer used the opportunity to describe his vision for Longview Hospital and to boast about some of its achievements. When he had finished, Ben looked at him curiously. "That's all very impressive, Dr. Adenauer, but I don't see how that affects Cilla and me."

Cilla and the doctor exchanged a quick glance before Adenauer turned back to Ben. "The fact of the matter is that there are always challenges to any great vision, and there are always those unable or unwilling to see the opportunity. In the case of Longview, for instance . . ."

"What Dr. Adenauer is trying to say," Cilla interrupted, "is that he is a much better psychiatrist than he is a business manager."

Adenauer gave her an indignant look, but she pressed on. "I'm afraid the good doctor's grand vision has fallen on hard times financially. The hospital is experiencing a short-term but extremely serious cash flow problem. To make matters worse, the other lending institutions around here have all seen fit to deny the hospital the loans that would maintain its solvency. In short, if someone doesn't extend him some serious credit very soon, his hospital is going to go belly up."

"Now I think that's exaggerating the situation," Adenauer said, but Cilla ignored him.

"Community First Bank could have met the hospital's needs, but of course it doesn't make those kinds of loans," Cilla went on.

Ben shook his head emphatically. "That's right, we serve a completely different customer. We'd never make an institutional loan like that."

"That's true," Cilla said, "unless there were a change of management at CFB, one that brought in a new philosophy. But that could never happen unless the old leadership was somehow incapacitated, forcing a replacement."

"What are you saying, Cilla?" Ben asked in shock.

"Cilla, I'm not at all comfortable with this discussion," Adenauer said.

Cilla ignored them both. Looking at Ben she continued, "Once Dr. Adenauer helped me get you declared incompetent, it was a simple matter to manipulate poor love-struck Perry Bergen into doing what I wanted. Regrettably, Perry got impatient and wouldn't listen to reason, so it became necessary for me to get rid of him as well."

"Cilla, we didn't discuss this at all," Adenauer said anxiously. "This is making me very nervous."

Before he could say anything more, Ben leapt to his feet. "My God, Cilla, I can't believe this! You did this to me? You murdered Perry? Who are you?"

She gave him a cold hard smile. "I'm a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. And what I want now is for BankGroup to acquire CFB and make me very wealthy. Unfortunately, our negotiations have hit a snag. BankGroup is concerned that the power of attorney I hold could be reversed and the deal could fall through. To resolve this issue, Dr. Adenauer and I have to make sure that you never regain your faculties."

Ben felt a cold sweat come over him as he registered the implications of Cilla's words. "What are you planning now?" he asked anxiously.

"I'm afraid you're going to have another episode, Ben, a major one. In your delusional state, you're going to leap over the balcony railing and fall to your death."

"You can't do that!" Ben gasped with alarm.

"Actually, I already have," she said coolly. "The sugar in that coffee you just drank was laced with LSD, which should be taking effect any minute now. Look at you - you're already beginning to sweat like a pig. Soon you'll be totally helpless. Then our large friend Ed here is going to help you try to learn how to fly."

Ben felt Ed's heavy hands pressing him back down into his seat. "No! Let me go!" Ben shouted, and then began to struggle while yelling for help at the top of his lungs. Even as he did so, he felt another attack coming on.

Suddenly the door to the suite flew open and Gina rushed in. "What are you doing to him?" she cried out. "You let him go."

Adenauer was panic-stricken at Gina's sudden appearance, but Cilla remained cool. "Well, well, isn't this touching? Our little nurse is trying to save her patient. I wondered if you might have lost some of your professional detachment over my husband, and now I see that I was right."

"She heard what you said," Adenauer yelled hysterically. "What do we do now?" 

"Actually, I think this is perfect," Cilla said calmly. "It will make a great story: caring nurse tries to save her patient only to be pulled to her death by the psycho. All those detailed notes you've been keeping will document how devoted you were to him as well as how demented he could become. We'll make a martyr of you, my dear."

At that moment Adenauer gave a loud, incoherent shriek, causing everyone in the room to turn and gape at him. "No, no, get away from me! Make it stop!" he shouted. His arms flailed wildly as he leapt to his feet, and his head swiveled right and left repeatedly, staring at something none of the others could see. "Keep away from me, don't touch me!" he screamed in terror. Then, as the rest of them watched in astonishment, the doctor suddenly lurched backwards, climbed up on the railing and toppled over the balcony with a wail.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't know that would happen," Gina said piteously. The rest of them turned to her in surprise. "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want Ben to use that sugar so I switched it with Dr. Adenauer's," she said.

Ben began moaning as he felt the onset of the flashback, and then he slumped helplessly in his chair. Ed gave a snarl at Gina, pulled a knife out of his pocket and started toward the frightened nurse. When she saw him coming she screamed.

"Don't you touch her!" a voice yelled out from behind her, and Marco ran into the room, his pistol drawn. The big man saw him and changed direction to attack this new intruder. Marco fired, but the bullet seemed to have no effect. He fired again and then a third time. A look of surprise came over Ed's face and he looked down in wonder at the red blood pulsing out of his white jacket. Then he took a step backward, tripped over the wheelchair and tumbled to the floor. He moaned once and then lay still.

Cilla was the first to recover, and she quickly began to slide toward the door. But Gina saw her and grabbed her arm. "You're not getting away, you bitch," she snarled. 

Seeing there was no escaped, Cilla stood up and straightened her clothing. "Office, I want you to arrest that woman," she said, pointing at Gina. "You heard her admit that she drugged poor Dr. Adenauer."

"That's a lie!" Gina gasped. "She was the one who was trying to drug Ben. And that man," she said, pointing at Ed's body, "was trying to kill me."

"Nonsense," Cilla spoke up quickly. "Ed was an employee of the hospital who was trying to protect Dr. Adenauer from what he thought was an attack by intruders. And that man over there - who is obviously mentally disturbed - is my husband, who was being treated by Dr. Adenauer."

Gina calmly crossed her arms and stared coldly at the woman she had come to hate. "Oh is that so?" she asked. "We'll just see about that." With that she darted into the kitchenette and came back out a moment later holding her cellphone. "I left this in there when you tried to send me away, and it's been recording everything that was said. I wonder what a jury will think of that, Cilla?"

The attractive woman stood there in silence, staring at her antagonist balefully.

As Marco went over to cuff Cilla, Gina rushed over to Ben, who was still sitting slumped in the chair. As she reached his side, he lifted his head and gave her a bewildered look. "What happened?" he asked weakly.

"I think the stress pushed you into another flashback," Gina said gently. 

Recognition flashed in Ben's eyes and he sat upright. "Oh my God, I remember. Cilla killed Perry and she was going to have me killed as well. She's the one who's been feeding me the drugs!"

He stared at Gina, expecting to see his own shock mirrored in her expression. But what he saw was a happy smile, and his face showed his confusion. "Ben, listen to yourself," she said excitedly. "You shook off the flashback! You were out of it only a few minutes and now you're back to normal. You really are getting better!"

With that she threw her arms around him, and he returned the embrace in happy relief.