He Sat Me by the Warming Racks, So I Pulled the Funding novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Character Witness
I went to the Thursday session because I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
The board met in a paneled room on the fifth floor, and the public seats were full.
Nurses stood against the back wall again, in scrubs, on their breaks.
Curtis sat at the witness table with his lawyer, in a gray suit that no longer fit him.
Lowell sat at the far end of the board's table, recused, with his hands folded and his eyes on the wood.
He did not look at me once, and I knew exactly how much that cost him.
The chair read the item.
"To consider the removal of Dr. Curtis Ainsley as Chief of Cardiology, and the dissolution of the Ainsley Fellowship."
She turned a page.
"The review committee has found two hundred and twelve thousand dollars paid to Dr. Ainsley from the fellowship's program fund without authorization."
A murmur ran along the wall.
"Dr. Ainsley, do you wish to respond?"
Curtis stood and buttoned his jacket.
He took a long, slow breath, and he looked out at the room.
Then he looked at me, and I saw him decide.
"Madam Chair, I'd like to call a character witness," he said. "My wife."
Every head in the room turned.
My lawyer, in the seat beside me, did not move a muscle.
"Mrs. Tolbert," the chair said. "You are under no obligation."
"I know," I said.
I stood.
I had thought about it the whole drive over.
I had thought I might say something cutting, and I had thought I might say something kind.
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