THE IMPATIENCE OF STEPPING-STONES

And indeed it was a difficult conversation. But not nearly as difficult as it could have been. The young American woman Kate had a view of her husband’s chances that was realistic. Surprisingly so.

Perhaps her clear view of the future came from a lack of fear? You cannot plan well for a future that you’re afraid of, Professor Dalrymple tells us. And many people facing the loss of a loved one are crippled by fear. So much so, in fact, that they can’t imagine what life would be like without the person. So they hold on and they cling to the person’s life. They won’t let go, no matter how much that person—the patient—may be suffering.

But not Kate. No, she would miss her husband terribly, of course. Yet it seemed as though she was not afraid of what life would be like without him.

This young woman had been through so much in her short life that the prospect of losing a husband—although certainly tragic—didn’t fill her with dread. She knew in her heart that life would go on. So although they didn’t come to any decisions at their meeting, they had laid the groundwork, so to speak. And Kate would be able to let go when she needed to.

It had been time well spent. And work well done.

And yet as she sat in her small basement office, facing the remaining piles of policies that were waiting patiently for her eyes, it did not feel like work well done. Or it did, she supposed, but just not enough. The meeting had gone well, she knew. And it had gone well at least in part thanks to her efforts. She had done some good, and she had helped the Fuller family.

Then why did she feel as though she was failing? Or not failing, exactly. But she felt as if she had stopped midway through a project.

It was the same sensation she had when she bought a row of twelve stepping-stones for her garden. It was around the time of the last Royal Inspection three years ago, was it not? She’d placed seven of them exactly so, but then she’d been caught up in work. And those remaining five stones nagged at her whenever she saw them. She knew in her mind that they were not urgent, those stones. They could wait. Stones may not have much to recommend them, but they do tend to be patient. And yet their unfinishedness nagged at her. Every time she was in her garden, sitting at her little wrought iron table, they chastised her for ignoring them.

“We’re still waiting,” they said. Sometimes loud enough that she was certain the neighbors would hear. Maewfawbaahn certainly heard them. He would give those unfinished stones a wide berth in his perambulations and midnight prowlings.

But why should she be having this feeling now? As Ladarat asked herself that logical question, though, she knew the answer. She knew it with as much certainty as she knew what those stones were telling her.

She could say that she was an ethicist, and she was. But she was also a nurse, and nurses help people. That’s what we do, she told herself. That’s why we do what we do.

So she knew, just as she did when she left those stepping-stones in a neat pile on the patio, that the Peaflower case was going to nag her with the same insistence that those stones had.

Even more so, to be sure. There were men who were dying. And a woman who was getting away with murder. That was wrong, wasn’t it? As wrong as anything in the world of medical ethics?

And didn’t she have a responsibility to fix those wrongs if she could?

It was at this point that Ladarat realized three things.

First, she was almost certain that she was talking out loud. To the pile of policies closest to her on the desk. That was not good.

Second, she realized that she needed to solve the Peaflower case. That need had nothing to do with being a detective. She was not a detective. But she was an ethicist. And she did have skills of reasoning and deduction. And above all, she was good at watching and listening. She had an obligation to use those skills, just as she had an obligation to finish placing those stones.

Third, she knew there might be consequences. Khun Tippawan would not be pleased if she learned that Ladarat was ignoring her duties. And it was entirely possible that the director might make such a discovery tonight, if Ladarat did what she needed to do.

Ladarat looked at her watch and realized that she had been lost in this conversation with the stack of policies in front of her for almost twenty minutes. It was almost three o’clock, and she had made no progress on the policies in front of her, or the Peaflower case. Or even in figuring out what she should do.

Easiest, she knew, would be to reach out and take a policy from the pile. On top, right there in front of her, was the nursing policy about proper visiting hours and family comportment in the obstetrics unit. That was all she needed to do. So simple. She would open that policy and make sure that its approval dates were current.

Much more difficult would be to stand up, gather her things, and make the trip that her conscience was telling her she needed to take. More difficult by far.

Although she had made up her mind to reach for that visiting hours policy, a quote from Professor Dalrymple’s good book came into her mind. Unbidden, as usual. The quote simply appeared in much the same way that a text message appears on a mobile phone. Although much more welcome, and useful.

“When a nurse is faced with an ethical choice,” the professor counseled, “the option that is most difficult to make is generally the right one to choose.”

So. There could be little doubt, in this case, of which choice was the most difficult. There could be little doubt, therefore, about which choice was the correct one.