“Who are all these people?” she asked Steve.

“There are always spectators. Or perhaps witnesses are—”

“Oh my God,” she said, momentarily frozen in place. “I know some of them! I know a lot of them!”

A woman separated herself from the crowd and came to the rail that divided the gallery from the attorney’s tables. “Jaycee!” Maggie exclaimed, reaching over the rail to hug her. “What are you doing here?”

“I can’t really do anything except show support. I just want you to know I’m here. I might not be able to get here more often—babies, you know. They’re relentlessly being born. But I wanted to make sure I was here for this evidentiary hearing. I’ve been in your shoes and it’s so difficult. Think positive, the outcome has to be good!”

“Steve, this is my best friend, Dr. Jaycee Kent, ob-gyn.”

“Pleasure,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Thank you,” Maggie murmured to Jaycee. Next to neurosurgeons, OBs were very vulnerable to civil suits. “You told me to take a week or two off and I haven’t been back yet.”

“Then you needed the time to regroup. Maggie, you’re not unique. A lot of doctors who are under enormous pressure have to schedule downtime just to recover. Now think positive. We’re here for you.”

Over Jaycee’s shoulder Maggie saw Terry Jordan, an RN from the operating room, a round and stern fifty-five-year-old woman who ran that OR with an iron fist and had saved Maggie’s ass more than once by knowing almost as much as Maggie did. And next to her Rob Hollis touched two fingers to his brow in a salute. She spied her old office manager, Susan, a smile on her usually tight and grim face. And there was Kevin from radiology, Kevin who could read those emergency CTs better and faster and more accurately than anyone she knew. There were three OR techs, a couple of nurses, a couple of paramedics she ran into in emergency quite a lot. An audience. They were here for her. She prayed she wouldn’t just draw their pity.

She hadn’t even told her mother and Walter about this preliminary hearing! Now she remembered, she had told Jaycee and Terry in emails when they asked for updates on the lawsuit. Word must have spread like wildfire.

Maggie turned around. She was faced with the plaintiffs for the first time in over a year and it was shattering to see them. They were young, not that much older than Maggie at right around forty, yet they looked so devastatingly old. Mr. and Mrs. Markiff; she remembered telling them their son had expired. She’d held Mrs. Markiff in her arms for several minutes as she sobbed. Mrs. Markiff appeared to be losing her hair and was painfully thin, sallow, her face so deeply lined. She looked so weak. Mr. Markiff, on the other hand, looked so much bigger than she remembered. He had a fierce look on his face and a huge belly that strained the buttons on his white dress shirt. Both of them looked at her with loathing.

She had tried. She had tried so hard. Losing those kids was horrible. And yet it was her work and she didn’t have time to second-guess split-second decisions or pause to reconsider.

“All rise! The Honorable John Bestover White presiding.”

The judge entered, the entire courtroom rose and Maggie studied him. He looked very big in his robes but she thought, given the perspective of him passing the bailiff, he was actually a small, chunky man with a large, intimidating mustache and a ring of white hair around his otherwise bald head. And he was scowling.

He was efficient. They began going through the paperwork, first the complaint of wrongful death, then the motions—each one was read and had Maggie’s attorney not explained them all, she would be lost. There was the complaint, which was the plaintiff’s case. There was the counterclaim, which was essentially her side of the story and as close as she’d ever get to testifying, which she probably would never get to do. With the help of her lawyer and depositions, they had reconstructed the emergency in a timeline with supporting facts. There was the reply to the counterclaim in which the plaintiff alleged it should be obvious to any certified and experienced neurosurgeon that the patient to take to surgery was their son and not the unconscious boy—they alleged she had mismanaged triage. Then there was the statute of limitations, forcing the trial in a timely manner. She found that laughable a year and a half after the event. There were several more motions as well as evidence in discovery. All of these motions, each one read and explained and denied, took almost two hours. Denied to the defense team was the district attorney’s report in which he declined to prosecute any malpractice. A blow to the defense.