Blind Vision

Nina Blakeman

Description

If Hollywood wanted to entrance movie goers with small-town America, the ticketholder could rest assured that the hamlet would model such a place as Sperling, Texas. Just shy of twelve-thousand people, it possesses a charm of a by-gone era. The fact that the bubbly Callie hails from such a Rockwellesque burg is a surprise to no one. Callie Wallace met Richard Cortez in medical school, and they've come back to her hometown to set-up their neurology practice. When there's a suspicious death of a hospitalized patient, Mr. Clyde Murphy, the situation presents a public relations nightmare for the administrator of Lake Sperling Medical Center. The Murphy's are a wealthy, prominent family in the region, and when the fault points to the man's admitting physician, Dr. Callie Wallace, an egregious widow is more than ready to take her pound of flesh. The situation at the hospital is a concern, but it soon becomes clear that Callie Wallace herself is having trouble with reality. Her head-trips can only be described as peculiar and she questions her own sanity. The analytical-minded Callie doesn't want to accept that her visions have any relevance . . . but she's in denial. This is because science dictates that hallucinations are nothing but the perception of a person's truth. In Callie's case, the truth is that bad apples don't fall far from their trees.

Sujets

• Psychological
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977235671
• Langue: English

Extrait

Blind Vision All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2020 Nina Blakeman v3.0r1.1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-3567-1
Cover Photo © 2020 www.gettyimages.com .. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -->
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Sixty
Sixty-one
One
Wednesday, October 4, 2017 12:40 p.m.
He wasn’t sure if it was a place for him a town full of gumdrops and marigolds. She said it would do him good, curbing the cynicism he’d been nursing ever since he could remember. He’d heard them talk. Some drivel about the weather, corn prices, and the scratch-off. Often times, it would be followed with a full belly laugh, content in their own hillbilly minds. Before he knew it, he was sending them a disingenuous grin, conveying that he cared when, honestly, he didn’t give a damn. But he’d bear it for her .
They were in their early thirties when Callie and Richard came to Sperling to set-up their neurology practice, a small town just forty-five miles south of Fort Worth, Texas. It was just shy of twelve-thousand people and possessed a charm of a by-gone era. The fact that the bubbly Callie hailed from such a Rockwellesque burg was a surprise to no one.
Callie had just rounded on her patients at Lake Sperling Medical Center. She needed to get back to the office, appointments were scheduled to start in twenty minutes. Waiting for the elevator, she dug through her bag for her keys until the personalized key chain found her hand. It was a small rectangular block of wood with a pyro-graphic Corky etched into it. It had been her father’s nickname for Callie, because of her buoyant personality one that would make even the crotchetiest cur crack a smile.
The elevator doors opened. A laboratory technician was riding down, a supply tote in his hand. Callie turned from him to look straight ahead, hitting the lobby button. The doors closed only to reopen at the floor immediately below. The technician got off, but before he did, made a flippant inquiry. "You be going hobo Hollister, Doc?"
The remark confused her. She ignored the man as the doors slid closed with a soft thump .
The elevator stopped on the first floor and Callie stepped off, merging into the busy traffic of the hospital foyer. Various signs with arrows were suspended from the ceiling Radiology, Surgery, Intensive Care, Cafeteria, Physician Parking. Staff and visitors were hurried, navigating their own predetermined course. Talk intermingled in the air with assorted conversations, varied in their degree of seriousness. But words such as frayed , punk , and grunge seemed to circle her.
A call came out. "Oh, Callie, I mean, Dr. Wallace, wait up. It’s me, Marta. Hold up, will ya?"
Callie stopped in her tracks, hearing her name. She looked over her shoulder to see Marta Gutierrez running after her, housekeeping cart in tow, using it to separate the crowd as if parting the Red Sea.
Marta put the brakes on, stopping just short of rolling over Callie’s foot. She was out of breath. "Well, my goodness. Little Callie Wallace, all grown up. Your mother told me you were back in town brought a handsome man with you, too!"
They shared a quick hug before Marta backed away sheepishly. The Gutierrez’s and the Wallace’s had been neighbors for years. Rose Wallace had remained in the family home, even after her husband’s death. "His name is Dr. Richard Cortez, and we are just friends. I’m still with Zane. But home just isn’t home without Daddy."
Her father’s heart had failed him Callie’s third year of medical school. If it hadn’t been for Richard, she wondered if she would’ve even made it through. Richard had never wanted to take credit for the strength he knew she had within her all along. The death of her father had hit her hard, but when Richard had asked her what her father would say if he saw her crawling up into a ball and quitting, she knew the answer. Callie chuckled at the thought of her father using one of his many fishing metaphors. Corky, I knew when I caught you, you were a keeper. But seeing you like this, maybe I ought to have just thrown you back.
"You know if you come by and see your mother, I know she’d love it. And while you’re there, I’m still pretty handy with a sewing machine. I mean, you’re an important doctor now. No sense going around like a stray."
All of a sudden, Callie remembered how meddlesome Marta could be, and to make matters worse, she didn’t have a clue what the woman was talking about. "Look, Marta, I’m really running late. Nice seeing you, but I need to get going. Appointments start in the office at one. Richard is a good friend, but I’m not going to take advantage of his good nature by sticking him with my patient load. I’ll see you around, okay?"
Callie made her way to the automated doors that separated the hospital from the covered parking garage designated for physicians only. She stepped over the threshold and the doors slid closed behind her, shutting out the chaos of the hospital to echoing sounds of the advancing car, the screech of a brake, the occasional horn. She was oblivious to the alarm being sounded inside the facility, code blue, code blue, room 501.
Callie Wallace and Richard Cortez’s friendship took root in medical school. They were both determined to be neurologists their youthful fancy to be revered as Galileo to astronomy. Despite being separated during their one-year internship, the residency program put them right back into each other’s orbit. And that’s where they stayed, two dippers aligned in the sky. Now that Callie and Richard were in practice together, their relationship extended to colleagues. They took call for one another, shared administrative duties, and even gave each other a flu shot at the start of fall. Callie grimaced at the thought of the nagging ache that still lingered in her bum, even after a week. Injections are definitely not Richard’s forte , she thought.
It was a little after one o’clock when Callie got to the office. Richard couldn’t help himself. "Whoa, is that what they’re wearing in Paris this year or should I say Milan? Since when have you been into distressed fashion?"
Callie looked down at her ensemble, clueless to another baffling remark. She went into the bathroom to check in the mirror. At first, she didn’t see it. But then she turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder. There it was, where the sleeve met the bodice, the blouse was torn, revealing her bra strap, the color naughty noir, as it laid across the back of her bare shoulder. She walked back out with disgust plastered across her face. "I knew it would be just a matter of time before something like this happened. First, I over-slept and was rushed. Then, it was that tricky closet light. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This morning it didn’t. I’ve asked Zane to take a look at it, but he hasn’t gotten to it yet. Do you know he had the nerve to ask me if the bulb was burned out? I’ve already made rounds at the hospital and no one said a word or maybe they did: hobo Hollister , can you believe it? I’m sure this wardrobe malfunction is the joke of the hospital gossip-line. Do I have time to run home and change before we start seeing patients?"
Richard grabbed her lab jacket off the coat rack and fed her arms through the sleeves of the white lab coat. She obediently accommodated him. "There," Richard said, "no one else will know. Patients start any minute. Jamie already has the rooms filled. You know, this could be the start of a joke. How many neurologists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
"Very funny," Callie pouted.
"Oh, come on," Richard said. "Where’s your sense of humor? You, better than anyone, know the Atkins’ ranch is about an hour’s drive from Sperling. When Zane comes to see you on the weekends, I don’t think home repairs are on his mind. You bought an older house. The problem could be a number of things. Sounds like a wiring issue to me. I’ll tell you what. You make those chicken enchiladas of yours, and I’ll come by tonight and see if I can’t get to the bottom of the problem. Deal?"
"Deal," a grateful Callie replied.
It was then that Jamie Collins, the office nurse, popped her head in. It struck Callie as strange as the nurse usually knocked. Callie half expected Jamie to tell them she was ready to get started on the afternoon appointments, but that wasn’t what Jamie had o