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  Henry could see the tears start to stream down Samantha’s cheeks. Samantha stopped walking and seemed to be steeling herself for what she was about to say next. “So, have you got the balls to help her out or are you going to cut and run?”

  “I’ll help in whatever way I can,” Henry said, “but I have no idea what to do.”

  “Neither do I,” Samantha replied, “but we’re here.”

  Henry knew they had been walking for a while but had no idea where they were. He looked up and saw they were standing in front of the hospital.

  “Ready?” Samantha asked.

  “Wait,” Henry said. “What’s her real name?”

  “Laura,” Samantha replied. “Laura Walsh.”

  Henry went with Samantha into the hospital, but they didn’t say anything more to each other as they rode the elevator up to the eight floor. Samantha was deep in thought worrying about how Laura would react when she revealed to her that she’d spilled everything to Henry. Henry was anxious to see her again, but also worried about how she would feel about his presence.

  When they stepped off of the elevator, Samantha led the way as she knew where Laura’s room was. She had been coming to see her faithfully every day since the surgery. However, when they got to her room the only person there was an attendant who was changing the bedding and cleaning the room.

  “I sent them down to the library while I cleaned their room,” said the attendant when she saw them standing at the door. The attendant didn’t know which of the two patients of the semi-private room Henry and Samantha were there to see, but it didn’t matter since she’d sent them both to the same place. This was part of the normal routine for this ward. The attendant could have easily cleaned their room without them leaving, but they used whatever excuse they could to get the patients up and moving on a regular basis.

  Samantha led the way to the library, but then stopped and told Henry he should probably wait until she’d told Laura that she’d brought Henry with her. It seemed like an eternity until Samantha came back for him, but in reality it was only a couple of minutes.

  “Good luck,” Samantha said as she pointed the way to the library at the end of the hall.

  When Henry arrived at the door, he realized they were making very liberal use of the word “library”. Sure, there was a bookshelf with some books stacked neatly inside, but there were only about 40 books in total, and that was a generous estimate. There were a few tables with magazines scattered on them, a couple of leather loveseats and a few other chairs that looked like standard hospital issue and hard as rock.

  Henry scanned the room but didn’t see Laura. To his right was a little old lady huddled in a dark blue housecoat that had seen better days. In the middle of the room were two patients sitting at a table playing cribbage. A nurse was sitting in one of the leather loveseats drinking coffee and mindlessly turning the pages of a People magazine. The only other person in the room was a tall woman staring out of the window at the far end of the room. Henry didn’t think it was Laura but couldn’t be certain as she had her back to him. But this woman had blonde hair, so he wondered if Laura had somehow slipped out of the room before he got there.

  “She shouldn’t have made you come to see me,” said a voice that Henry recognized immediately.

  He looked down and suddenly realized the little old lady wasn’t a little old lady after all, but Laura. He would never have recognized her except for the voice. She seemed so much smaller than the last time he’d seen her. She was all huddled up as if she was outside in a major snowstorm trying to shield herself from the cold and the elements. Her hair was a muddled tangle of knots that hid her face almost entirely. And she seemed focused on Henry’s shoes.

  “She didn’t make me come,” Henry said. “I’ve been desperate to see you again. I’ve pretty much been stalking Samantha for the last several weeks, waiting outside of the Tribune building hoping to run into both of you.”

  He paused, hoping to get a response, but got nothing. “I think of you constantly and couldn’t bear the thought that I might not ever see you again,” Henry continued. “It didn’t help that I didn’t know your real name until today.”

  But again, he got no response, not even an acknowledgement. He felt like one of those people who talk to people in comas hoping they can actually hear them, but not really sure. Henry just kept talking and talking, not knowing what else to do. He talked about the warm weather spell they were currently having. He talked about the sad state of the library they were sitting in. He talked about his work and the merger his firm was going through. But Henry was getting nothing back from Laura, nothing at all. She had built a wall around her. When Henry finally ran out of things to talk about, he reached out and took Laura’s hand to say goodbye.

  “Please don’t come back,” Laura said, suddenly breaking her silence.

  “Sorry,” Henry said as he kissed her hand softly. “I don’t give up that easily.”

  Henry found Samantha waiting for him at the elevators. “Well?” she said as he approached.

  “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Henry said as they got into the elevator.

  Henry checked his watch as they were walking out of the front door of the hospital and saw that it was almost 3PM. “I completely lost track of the time,” Henry said, waving to a taxi that was waiting in the queue outside of the hospital. “I have to get back to work or else I’m going to get fired. Want to ride back together?”

  Samantha nodded as she walked around to the driver’s side and slid into the backseat.

  “How long has she been like this?” Henry asked, picking up the conversation.

  “When she was first diagnosed, she showed almost no emotion at all,” Samantha replied. “She researched all of the treatment options and survival rates herself, almost like she was just doing research for one of her stories. The doctors said they believed they had caught the cancer in the first stage and they were only recommending a partial mastectomy, but Laura wanted them to do a total mastectomy. She said something about having an aunt that had gone through the same thing. Apparently, her aunt didn’t treat it aggressively enough and it ended up costing her her life.”

  Henry didn’t respond, but seemed deep in thought.

  “She was totally logical up until just a few days before the surgery, almost like it was happening to someone else,” Samantha continued. “Then a few days before the surgery, she said she wanted to have one last fling, which is when she met you. She was in a totally positive state of mind when she went into surgery, but it was almost like a different person came out of the operating room than who went in.”

  The taxi pulled up in front of the Tribune Tower and Henry got out to let Samantha out on his side of the car. “I’m supposed to fly back to Toronto tonight,” Henry said, “but I’m going to see if I can stay a few more days. I’ll try to go see her again tomorrow after work.”

  “That would be great,” Samantha said. “I usually try to see her on my lunch break and then again in the evening.”

  Samantha gave Henry a hug and then started to walk towards the building. Henry climbed back in the taxi and gave the driver the address for the law firm’s Chicago office.

  When Henry finally got back into the office, he discovered that the first vendor had successfully completed his software upgrades and had already left. However, the second vendor had encountered problems and was at a loss as to what to do next.

  “Long lunch?” Sharon said when she saw Henry arrive back in the office. Sharon was the Systems Manager for the Chicago office. Henry had already determined that she was totally competent, but he sensed there was a bit of resentment from her that she now reported to him instead of directly to the partners. Henry ignored the shot about taking a long lunch, realizing she had a legitimate complaint.

  “Give me ten minutes to reschedule my flight,” Henry said, “and then we’ll gather together in the small meeting room to figure out what to do.”

  Henry’s first call was t
o home and was pleased when his mother answered. “Hi Mom - We’ve run into some problems here in Chicago so I won’t be coming back tonight. I probably won’t be back until Friday night. Can you watch the boys for me for a few more days?”

  “No problem,” said his mother. “They pretty much take care of themselves, but I’ll make sure they get fed and behave themselves.” Henry thanked his mother and placed a quick call to the airline and changed his flight for that evening to a flight on Friday night.

  When Henry walked into the small meeting room, Sharon and Dan were waiting for him. Dan was in his early twenties and fresh out of school. He had only worked for the vendor for a few months and this was the first software upgrade and conversion that he had done entirely on his own. He was obviously embarrassed that things hadn’t gone as expected as he started apologizing as soon as he saw Henry.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Henry said, trying to reassure him.

  Dan showed him a large computer printout showing the balances for each of the clients and matters for the firm. He said the total was out of balance by about twenty thousand dollars after the conversion, so it was not an insignificant amount. He then showed them a more detailed report with a breakdown by individual client and matter. Most balances were correct as he had indicated by the check-marks beside each one. However, every fourth or fifth entry was out of balance by a few dollars which were highlighted on the report by red circles.

  “Sharon and I have been going through the reports trying to figure out where the problem is,” Dan said.

  “Well nobody said it was going to be easy,” Henry said. “Can you produce another report breaking down each balance by time and disbursements?”

  “Sure,” Dan said as he started hitting the keys on his keyboard.

  Henry knew that law firms billed for everything. Most of an invoice would be for the lawyer’s time, but they also billed for every long distance telephone call and photocopy made on behalf of a client. Henry suspected that the problem would be in the disbursements, not in the billable hours of a lawyer. The report that Dan produced a few minutes later confirmed that suspicion.

  Henry started checking on the interface to their telephone system while Sharon investigated the interfaces to the firm’s printers and photocopiers. Henry suggested they start their search focusing on the clients and matters that had the biggest discrepancies. It would be easier to see any patterns looking at a file that was out of balance by fifty dollars rather than one that was out by fifty cents.

  It was a few hours later when Sharon found the source of the problem. The copy tracking system attached to the photocopiers on one of the floors of the firm was using an old file of valid client/matter numbers so some of their records were being rejected by the accounting system. She had found the problem by scanning log files of all of the transactions.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dan said when they found the source of the problem. “I thought for sure that I had converted all of those files.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Henry said. “Anyone could have missed it. It’s a lot easier to solve a problem when you have multiple people working on it.”

  Dan scurried to gather up all of his stuff. If he hurried, he might still be able to catch his flight.

  Henry stopped by Sharon’s office a few hours later as he was heading out and was surprised to see that she was still there.

  “Thanks for stepping up today,” Henry said, “and sorry I was missing in action this afternoon. I’m going to be counting on you to keep things running smoothly here in Chicago. I’m going to be around here for a few more days and I’d like to sit down with you to discuss how we’re going to work together.”

  “That would be great,” Sharon said, looking a little relieved. She had been worried that she would lose her job after the merger.

  As Henry walked out of the office, he suddenly realized how tired he was. A lot had happened today. He didn’t know that things were just getting started.

  *** Chapter 13 ***

  The next morning Henry was in the office quite early and was surprised to see Sharon already at her desk. “Good morning,” Henry said. “I was going to go see Mr. McTavish this morning and give him an update on how our systems conversion is going. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

  “Sure, if you think I can help,” Sharon said. She grabbed her suit jacket from the back of her chair and slipped it on. She wasn’t normally invited to meetings with the senior partner.

  Henry tapped lightly on the open door when they arrived at Mr. McTavish’s office. He was on the phone, but waved them in to sit at a meeting table in the corner of his office while he finished up with his call. Henry noticed that the table was covered in documents and detailed geographical maps.

  “Here, let me get those out of your way,” Mr. McTavish said when he got off of the phone. He quickly gathered up the documents and placed them on his desk which was already covered in paper and files.

  “It looks like you’re working on a large environmental litigation case,” Henry said.

  “No, that’s actually some pro-bono work that I’m doing. I’m working with Daryl Pender from the Toronto office since it has an international element to it. What brings you two by here this morning?”

  “We just wanted to give you a quick update on our systems upgrade and conversion,” Henry said. “We had a bit of a hiccup yesterday but Sharon found the source of the problem so we’re back on track.”

  “Good work Sharon,” said Mr. McTavish. “We’re really depending on you to make sure this all goes smoothly.”

  Sharon felt a little awkward receiving such praise. She was more used to lawyers complaining when things weren’t going well. Henry and Sharon continued to talk as they walked back to Sharon’s office. “I was going to put together a training plan for the accounting staff,” Henry said, “but I think it’s probably best if you take that on. You know the staff much better here in Chicago than I do.”

  “I think the secretaries and the paralegals will also require some additional training,” Sharon said.

  “You’re probably right,” Henry said. “We put some money in the budget for training and the only thing the partners will care about is to make sure we stay within that budget.”

  Sharon was more used to being told what to do and when to do it. The ability to have this much input made her feel more empowered. “I’ll put together a plan and have it ready for you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Henry headed over to the hospital after work to see Laura. He stopped by a flower shop on the way over to pick up some flowers, but had no idea what kind of flowers that she liked. It had been quite a while since he’d bought flowers for anyone. He chose some daisies that he saw in one of the display windows because they somehow seemed more cheerful than roses.

  Henry rode the elevator to the eighth floor and headed off to Laura’s room. However, he was interrupted in his quest as he walked by the nurse’s station. “Excuse me sir,” one of the nurses called out. “Who are you here to see?”

  “Laura Walsh,” Henry replied. “I was here yesterday and I already know where her room is,” he continued, pointing to a room that was just down the hall.

  “Ms. Walsh left instructions that she didn’t want to see any visitors today, except for her friend Samantha,” the nurse said. Henry could see that she wasn’t going to just let him stroll by and continue on to her room.

  “Are you family?” asked a doctor, looking up to assess Henry. She was standing in front of the nurse’s station filling in a patient’s chart, but had overheard the conversation.

  “No, not really,” replied Henry, changing his focus to the doctor. The doctor looked like she was in her early fifties and Henry could tell she was a senior physician in the hospital, not by her age, but by the way she carried herself and the way the nurses all backed off when she had intervened. She was obviously in charge.

  “So what is your relationship with Ms. Walsh?” she asked.

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sp; “Good question,” Henry thought to himself - a damn good question. He suddenly realized he had no idea how to answer her. “It’s sort of difficult to define,” he finally blurted out.

  “Try,” she retorted. She wasn’t going to let him off easy.

  “Well, um, we sort of have a history,” Henry said. “Sort of like a boyfriend, but not really. To be honest, I don’t really know what our relationship is.”

  Henry was pretty sure she was going to ask him to leave. The nurses at the station had been listening to the conversation and looked ready to spring into action if the doctor gave the word. But she didn’t. She just continued to stare at him as if she was reading his mind.

  “I’m Dr. Vant,” she finally said, smiling and reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m her doctor and I was just about to go see her. Come with me and we’ll see if she wants to see you.”

  Henry walked with her toward Laura’s room and struggled to keep up. Doctor’s always seemed to walk with a purpose and at a quick pace. Places to go, people to see, things to do.

  “Good afternoon Laura,” she said as she walked into the room, pulling the curtain separating Laura’s bed from the other patient as she did so. “I found this nice young man outside waiting to see you. They said you weren’t taking visitors today but I thought you might want to make an exception for him. He seems pretty harmless and he’s got flowers. And dear, a man who brings flowers can’t be all bad.”