Fault

Crude tattoos of “LOVE” and “HATE” unfurled as the angry, muscular man clenched and unclenched his fists. I am not a small man, but this guy was scaring me.

“How the hell do you let my boy lay there for 4 days before you even call me?”

“Mmm-hmm,” echoed the large woman at his side who had introduced herself as the boy's mother. In her shadow was a nervous girl who had been crying or screaming a lot. She fidgeted and picked at invisible things on her blouse—I wondered briefly what she was withdrawing from.

Behind them were at least 12 other family members, or perhaps gang members, who glared at me. Catherine, a nurse I'd worked with in the intensive care unit for 5 years, had a strange expression. Was that fear in the eyes of the seen-it-all trauma nurse? To make matters worse, someone had called hospital security—add 2 beefy guys, and the room now felt very small.

“You tell me,” clench, unclench, LOVE, HATE. “Why do they take the boy out of his car, they don't book him, they put him right in jail, not in the holding area but in a cell—and then they do nothing. No phone call. Nothing. Why?”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I realized suddenly that my entire knowledge of the criminal justice system came from “Law & Order.” I had no answers to these questions.

“He had a bench warrant, but sheeeeit.”

Bench warrant?

“Let me tell you what we know.” I prayed that my doctor voice and the medical “we” would cover for my growing panic. I have given a version of this speech to at least 100 families in this very room. I write papers and give lectures about end-of-life care in the intensive …