Rita looked back over her shoulder at the pair. “That’s Brian. He went to school with Tyler. He’s a lovely boy. Or man, I should say. He’s not a boy any longer.”
“No, he’s not. He’s gorgeous. Is he single?”
Rita glared at her cousin. “What is wrong with you? He’s less than half your age.”
Cathy shrugged. “I look good for my age.”
Rita chuckled. “Honey, you’d better leave the young guys alone. Didn’t you learn your lesson with the tacos? Besides, Tyler would be so embarrassed if you asked his friend out. Behave yourself!”
Chapter Fifteen
On the first day of the trial, Matilda was overwhelmed by the number of tasks on her to-do list. She’d spent long hours at the clinic yesterday getting ahead, so she could be in court today. Up early this morning, she’d taken a run to clear her mind but she still felt like she could hardly breathe — her heart was in her throat. Anxiety had a firm grip on her.
At first, the proceedings were fairly dull. Matilda wasn’t sure what was happening, but her lawyer, Samuel Boone, smiled at her frequently and seemed confident. Every now and then he’d bend his head towards her and whisper an explanation. So, she sat ramrod straight in her chair beside him and moved her gaze from the opposition’s lawyer, to the judge and back again. The other lawyer was making a case against her, negligence was the charge. And even though she knew the lawyer was wrong, she couldn’t help the panic that fought its way up from her gut and into her throat. The lawyer was a woman in her forties. Her black eyes were piercing and she stared at Matilda as though looking through her.
Matilda and Mr Boone had already tried to reach a settlement with the complainants. It would’ve been so much easier, Mr Boone said. With jury trials, there was no way of knowing how it might go. She was reluctant, since it could wipe her out financially and she was adamant she’d done everything she could to save the animal. But in the end, the dog’s owners had refused to settle anyway. The two men glared at her from across the room, before returning their attention to the action in front of them, arms crossed. Both wore sweaters with blue and white patterns on them. Each wore a pair of glasses, one black framed, one clear. And they were very obviously emotional over the whole thing — she felt bad for them, but there wasn’t anything else she could’ve done.
Before long it was her turn to testify and she was sworn in, hands shaking. The room was mostly empty. She could imagine it packed to the rafters for an exciting case — murder, theft, assault. But for a veterinarian negligence case, there were only a few people present. Ryan sat on the back row alone — she hadn’t seen him come in. He’d had a crisis at work and said he’d get here when he could. She swallowed around a lump in her throat at the sight of him. He smiled at her encouragingly.
She studied the opposing lawyer nervously. What if she said the wrong thing? How much trouble could she be in? At first, the lawyer asked her simple questions about herself, her clinic, her work as a veterinarian. Then, she changed tact.
“And why did you decide that dialysis would be the best course of action?”
She inhaled a quick breath and glanced at her accusers. “They begged me to do it.”
“Begged?”
“Yes, that’s right. I told them that the kidney failure was advanced, and it was unlikely to work, but it was really the only option other than palliative care.”
“But isn’t it right you promised them the treatment would give the dog the best prospect of a positive outcome?”
“I told them it was the only option left, but that it wouldn’t be likely to reverse the illness at this late stage.” She linked her fingers together.
“When did you realise things had gone badly?” The lawyer asked.
The question took her back to the day it’d happened. She’d been confident, careful.
“I knew from the beginning that there was very little chance we’d manage to save the animal,” she said. “But it wasn’t long after we began dialysis that I could see the dog’s stats were dropping and it would only be a matter of time.”
One of the owners frowned and leaned towards his partner to whisper furiously.
“So, why did you take the patient on at all?”
“I try to save every animal that comes into my clinic. I do my best. I want to help, if I can.”
“And yet you couldn’t.”
Matilda tugged at a jagged fingernail silently, as her heart hammered against her ribcage. “In the end, I wasn’t able to save the animal. Although we did everything we could.”
“Would you walk me through what you did? And how things progressed?”
Matilda let her mind travel back in time — they were in the largest room at the clinic, the dog lay on the sterile steel bench in front of her. Her assistant stood to her right. Matilda had freshly washed hands, she pulled on a pair of gloves. Her heart rate slowed. She knew what she had to do.
Her testimony was measured, thoughtful. She laid out the procedures they’d completed. How the dog had reacted. How none of it was enough in the end. She even spoke about the statistical chances of a good outcome — which were heartbreakingly low.
When she walked back to her seat, her legs felt weak but her anxiety was gone. There was nothing more she could do now. It was in the judge’s hands.
Matilda hadn’t been to a bachelorette parties in years. In Australia, they were called hen’s nights, and were generally more lowkey. For Stella’s hen’s night, they’d gone out dancing at the clubs in Brisbane’s CBD. It’d been a fun night that had ended by three a.m. with Matilda bopping her way through the living room, still high on the music. But Julie didn’t want a typical bachelorette party. She wanted to have some wholesome fun, so they’d hired horses to come to the farm, and Matilda and Sophie had planned a BBQ for afterwards.
