"You have laid your papers on my table, in my house, above my vines," Dominic said. "You have called me confused, and failing, and a burden to myself, in front of people I trust. Very well. You will be answered. Point by point, witness by witness, on this same record."
He looked towards the door Claire had left slightly ajar.
"But not by me first," he said. "By a doctor."
Chapter 22: Dr. Nair Speaks
Dr. Priya Nair did not look like a woman who enjoyed an entrance, and she made none.
She came in through the side door with her bag in her hand, nodded to Dominic as she would have at any ordinary appointment, and took the empty seat Claire indicated. She was in her fifties, grey threading her dark hair, her sari's border just visible beneath a plain jacket. For ten years she had told Dominic truths he did not want to hear — about his knee, his blood pressure, his habit of skipping lunch during harvest — and he trusted her in the specific way a man trusts someone who has never once flattered him.
"Thank you for hearing me," she said to the board. "I am Dominic Stallone's physician. I have been his physician for ten years. I examined him six days ago, at his home, at length. I examined him again, briefly, this morning."
Julian recovered first. "Dr. Nair, with respect, loyalty to a patient can —"
"I have not finished my introduction," she said, pleasantly, and opened her folder. "But thank you. Loyalty is exactly the question we will come to."
A small sound escaped Dominic, not quite a laugh. He covered it with a cough, and failed.
Dr. Nair laid out her pages — her own notes, recent test results, a summary written in language plain enough for a board of wine people and lawyers. She walked them through it without hurry. Dominic's heart, lungs, and blood work were what she expected for a healthy man of sixty-nine. His memory testing, done properly and scored, was unremarkable — she used the word twice, unremarkable, as if it were a compliment she rarely got to give. His grip, his balance, his sleep, his mood: monitored, recorded, ordinary. Grief six years old, she said, was not a diagnosis. Neither was stubbornness.
"If it were," she said, "half of Napa would be in care."
One director shifted in his chair. "Mr. Mercer mentioned decisions repeated, meetings forgotten."
"He mentioned them," Dr. Nair said. "I checked the dates he gave me. Dominic recalled both meetings in detail when I asked, including who had disagreed with him. He remembers disagreement exceptionally well."
This time Dominic did laugh, and one of the directors laughed with him before he could stop himself. Julian did not.
"There is no medical basis," Dr. Nair said, "for a finding of incapacity. None. Dominic is medically sound. He is ageing, which, I remind the board, is permitted. He forgets names at parties because he has never cared about names at parties. His records show he has done that since he was fifty-one."
She let that settle. Then she picked up Julian's document, Dr. Feld's statement, between finger and thumb, as a woman might pick up something found on a kitchen floor.
"Now. This." She read the heading aloud. "Dr. Feld states that Dominic shows confusion, lapses, disorientation. Dr. Feld states that he bases this on examination. I have telephoned Dr. Feld's office. I have written to Dr. Feld. I have asked, through the proper channels, when this examination took place."
"And?" said the director with the glasses.
"There is no record of one," Dr. Nair said. "Dr. Feld has not examined Dominic recently. By his own office's account, he has not examined him at all in the past three years, and never for cognition. He has never been Dominic's doctor. I have been Dominic's doctor. In ten years, Dr. Feld's name has never appeared in his file until this statement appeared in Mr. Mercer's folder."
Elena, listening beyond the door, closed her eyes. Ada, beside her, put a hand flat on the ledger's cover, as if to keep it from opening itself too soon. They had known this was coming. Knowing did not make hearing it said aloud, in that calm voice, any less astonishing. Paper lies were still lies, but said aloud in a sunlit room they sounded thinner.
"In medicine," Dr. Nair continued, "a statement like this has a date for a reason. Will the board please look at the date on Dr. Feld's signature?"
There was a shuffling of pages. The board secretary leaned in. The director nearest the window held his copy closer to the light, as though the light might change it.
"Two days before the gala," Dr. Nair said, because no one else seemed willing to say it first. "This statement, describing a collapse in Dominic's condition and recommending that his authority be removed, was signed two days before the gala at which he was expected to drink a toast and — according to everything this family has since learned — to become unwell in public. At the date of signing, Dominic had attended his vineyard's working meetings that week. He had walked the rows with his cellar master. He had argued, vigorously, about irrigation. Whatever Dr. Feld was describing, it had not happened yet."
The silence changed quality. It was no longer embarrassment. It was the silence of people recalculating, quickly and uncomfortably, which side of a table they were sitting on.
Julian leaned forward. His voice remained smooth, but it had to travel further to reach the ends of the table now. "Dates can be mistaken. Clerical errors happen. A secretary, a form prepared in advance for a review that —"
"Prepared for what, Mr. Mercer?" Dr. Nair asked. "In advance of what event? A doctor does not pre-draft a man's incapacity on the chance he becomes incapable on Saturday. Not an honest one."
"I am sure Dr. Feld can explain —"
"Then the board should invite him," she said. "I would enjoy his explanation professionally." She closed her folder. "Until he gives it, this is my testimony. The patient in that statement does not exist. The man at the head of this table does. He is sound, he is himself, and in my opinion he is considerably more himself than is comfortable for the rest of us on a working morning."
Dominic looked at her with open gratitude, and she frowned at him, doctor to patient, as if gratitude were a symptom.
"Don't look so pleased," she said. "You still owe me a fasting blood test."
"I have been traumatised," Dominic said. "By paperwork."
"You have been annoyed," she corrected, "which for you is a vital sign."
Even Claire smiled then. But the smile did not last, because Julian was still sitting there with his perfect pile of pages, and a forged addendum still lay on the table beside the bought statement, and Dr. Nair, rising, paused with her hand on the back of her chair.
"One more thing," she said to the board. "Ask yourselves why a true concern for a man's health would need to be dated before his illness. Then ask who brought you both documents."