Sarah shut her briefcase, and I gave him my final boundary.
“You have three business days to execute the agreement, Marcus. If you don’t, we proceed with a contested divorce, and I will submit a formal administrative inquiry requesting the medical board review how isolation protocols were applied during your project.”
The anger vanished from Marcus’s face and was replaced by genuine fear.
Because he understood that the next person examining those logs wouldn’t be his forgiving wife.
It would be the hospital’s board of trustees.
For illustration purposes only
Part 3
Marcus’s first instinct was to find someone who could pressure me into changing my mind.
He didn’t call to ask how I was feeling or whether I was recovering. Instead, he visited Dr. Arthur Vance, his former mentor and Metropolitan General’s retired Chief of Staff—a man widely respected throughout the medical community who firmly believed medical families should endure whatever hardships were necessary to remain together.
That evening, Dr. Vance called my cell phone.
“Clara, Marcus came to see me,” the old doctor said gently. “He’s deeply distressed. He explained the intensity of the transplant initiative, the quarantine, the sheer exhaustion. Is it possible you’re making a permanent decision during an emotionally vulnerable recovery?”
I listened respectfully and didn’t interrupt him.
When he finished speaking, I asked him a single question: “Dr. Vance, did Marcus show you Section 4, Paragraph B of the project’s administrative protocol?”
There was a pause. “No. What is that?”
“It’s the clause that explicitly permits project personnel up to two hours of leave for an immediate family medical emergency.”
Silence.
“Did he also mention that for the last ten days of my thirty-day stay, his quarantine had already ended, and he was attending celebratory dinners and TV interviews while I was five floors above him?”
Another long silence followed.
