by Dianne Drake
Janis’s words rang in her head as she made her way back to Mateo. It wasn’t just Mateo who was resistant, though. Or scared.
“So, you ready to get this done?” she asked, as the tech wheeled him into the room and helped him take his position on the CT bed. “Ten minutes and it’ll all be over.”
“Or starting again,” he said.
Lizzie swallowed hard. “If that’s how it turns out we’ll work through it. I’m not going anywhere, Mateo. So if you start over this time you start with someone in your corner.”
She bent down to kiss him, but he caught her off-guard and pulled her almost on top of him, gave her the kiss of a lifetime.
“That was...nice,” she said, pulling back from him. “But maybe not appropriate here.”
He grinned up at her. “That’s just me being true to character.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re incorrigible?”
“Has anyone ever not told me I’m incorrigible?”
“Dr. Peterson?” blared a voice from the microphone in the next room. “We need to get on with this test. Dr. Sanchez isn’t our only patient.”
“But way to go,” Janis added through the same microphone.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Lizzie said to Mateo as she left the room, fanning herself.
Rather than join her colleagues in the control room, she went to her office to wait, dropped down on the sofa, and shut her eyes until Janis came to talk to her.
“It’s a small hemorrhage. Same place as before.”
“Because we went bodyboarding?” Lizzie asked, as tears tickled the backs of her eyes.
“I’d say the first injury simply caused a weak spot. I think this would have happened no matter what he was doing.”
“I wasn’t cautious enough—just like I wasn’t cautious enough with my dad.” Finally the tears overflowed, and she batted at them with the back of her hand. “Have you admitted him?”
“We’re in the process. Then we’re going to fix him—hopefully for good this time.”
“With a drip?”
“Clot-busters save lives. And I think there’s a lot of life in Mateo that needs saving. And guiding.”
“Not my responsibility,” Lizzie said.
“When you love somebody the way you do Mateo, everything about him is your responsibility. It changes your world, Lizzie. Nothing’s the same anymore. But because Mateo is a sick man, you’re the one who must step up and assume more than responsibility. You need to step up and accept his love—because he does love you.”
“We have a long way to go before either of us can do anything. But I suppose now’s as good a time as any to get started.”
“After the procedure, please. This is Mateo I’ve got to deal with, and you know how he can be.”
She did—and that was a large part of why she loved him. To her, Mateo was nearly perfect. Sure, there were some flaws. But they were such a small part of him, while his kindness and compassion embraced most of him.
Maybe Janis didn’t see that, but she did, and that was all that really mattered.
* * *
Janis took off her surgical mask and threw it in the trash on her way out to see Lizzie. “It’s done. He’s sleeping peacefully. I need a tropical drink. Care to join me on my lanai?”
“Could I have a raincheck?” Lizzie asked. “I think I’d like to go sit in his room for a while.”
“He’s mumbling nonsense,” Janis warned her. “Something about letting it happen. I’m assuming that means you?”
“I hope it does,” she said, then headed off to Mateo.
“Janis says everything went well,” she said, sitting down next to his bed. “You’ve got a catheter in your head, which will stay there several days, but the clot was small and likely just a residual from your initial injury.”
He opened his eyes to look at her, managed a lazy smile, then went back to sleep. But he held on to her hand for dear life, and she vowed to stay right there with him until the anesthesia wore off and they were bringing him that green slime they commonly referred to as gelatin.
She recalled his first day there, when he’d asked her to please put on the first page of his chart that he loathed and detested green gelatin—or any gelatin, for that matter. And cottage cheese.
She’d never quite gotten around to doing that.
Lizzie laughed, even though nothing in her felt like laughing.
“Toward the end, Mateo,” she said, even though he wasn’t awake, “my dad only ate things with bright colors. I suppose he thought the color had something to do with the taste. But when they brought him his tray, if it didn’t have something red or yellow or purple on it he wouldn’t eat it.”
She looked up, watched his heart monitor for a minute, and noticed how perfect his rhythm was. He was a strong man. This would only be a minor setback for him.
“Oh, you’re back in your old room. Thought you’d appreciate being here...for old times’ sake.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “And your old hospital gowns are ready for you, too.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” he asked, even though he didn’t open his eyes.
“Does it bother you?” she asked, glad to hear his voice sounding so clear.
“No. It lets me know I’m alive and have something to look forward to.”
“What?” she asked breathlessly, thinking of all the things he might say. Hoping she topped his list.
“Green gelatin.”
* * *
“Funny thing is, I didn’t even know it was happening. It kind of crept up on me, a little at a time.”
She was sitting on the lanai with Janis, sipping something fruity from an original brown tiki cup. Janis was sipping something fruity from her favorite pink pineapple. It was late into evening now, and Mateo was still sleeping like a baby while she was trying to figure out the next step.
“I gave his case back to Randy,” Janis informed her. “He’s not as tolerant as you, so if you know what’s good for your boyfriend you’ll warn him to shape up or he’ll be kicked out of here one more time.”
Her boyfriend. Lizzie liked the sound of that.
What would come of it? She didn’t know.
But right now that didn’t matter.
She had a brick wall to scale before she could do anything.
* * *
His head hurt like a son of a gun, and to make matters worse there were five containers of green slime on his bedside table. Just looking at them jiggling at him made him feel nauseated. So did the hospital gown and the no-slide booties someone had slipped on his feet.
“This isn’t the way life is meant to be lived,” he said to Lizzie as she entered his room.
“They told me you were awake and in your usual good humor.” She gave him a quick kiss, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Has Janis been in to see you yet?”
“Nobody’s been in to see me except the green gelatin fairy and you.”
“Well, the news is good. The clot was small. It probably resulted from a weak suture put in on the first surgery. And your recovery can be done at my house, if that’s what you want.”
“What I want is for you to listen to me, and then tell me if I’m right or wrong.”
“About what?”
“Your feelings for me. You’re in love with me—or I hope you’re in love with me—but it scares you because of what happened to your father. You’re not sure you can get involved with someone with memory loss again.”
“That’s very perceptive,” she said.
“But is it true, Lizzie?”
“Some of it is. You aren’t the same as he was, but sometimes when I see that lost look in your eyes...”
“Have you seen it lately?”
She paused for a minute to think about it. “Not really.”
“Your dad�
��s illness wasn’t your fault, Lizzie.”
He reached for her hand, then pulled her closer to him until they were almost lying side by side.
“I know that. But...”
She bit down on her lip, willing herself not to cry.
“It was a really hectic day. He wanted to go for a walk and I didn’t have time. I didn’t let his caregivers do it because it was about the only way Dad and I were connecting, and I didn’t want to be cheated of that. I promised him we’d go later...like he understood what I was saying. About an hour later I got the call to say that Dad had wandered off. It wasn’t the first time, but he always headed toward the ocean, and I was so afraid... Well, we searched the shore for hours and there was no sign of him. The search continued for five days. Five days, Mateo. He was out there lost and alone for five days. And then the rescuers found him. He’d gone to Kapu Falls, which was one of his favorite places. He’d actually planted a flower garden there.”
“Nobody went there to look?”
“Actually, they did. But Dad had crawled into some underbrush and apparently gone to sleep. At least that was what the coroner said. And he stayed in that same spot for five days. Maybe because that’s where he wanted to die, or maybe he was simply waiting for me to come take him home. We’ll never know.”
She clenched her fists and shut her eyes.
“That’s the nightmare I live with every day. And there are so many what-ifs. What if I hadn’t gone to work? What if we’d taken the walk he wanted to take? What if the caregiver hadn’t turned her back? What if I had one more lock put on all the doors?”
“It’s impossible to predict outcomes all the time, Lizzie. Sometimes you’re right, but as often as not you’re wrong.”
“Exactly, Mateo. You can’t always predict outcomes.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that at some point you’ve got to get on with your life or it will bury you. I was being buried. Not sure what I wanted to do. Yet the answer was always there. I was the one who had to open my eyes and see it, though.”
“And the answer?”
“You, me...a beachside clinic. You can’t operate anymore, and that may be a reality for the rest of your life. I think you’ve probably figured out that I’ve lost the heart for working in a hospital. I want a simpler life, and life’s too short not to go after what you want.”
“You said you and me in that clinic?”
“The reality is, for now, you’ll have to be supervised. I can’t predict the future, and I’m not even sure I would if I could. But you’re a good doctor and you deserve to be back in medicine. Maybe it’s not the way you want, but it’s what you can have. And perhaps that’s all we really need...what we can have. I think we could build a life around that, if you want to.”
“Me as patient, you as caregiver?”
“No. That’s not at all what I want.”
“Then, as your equal. Someone you don’t have to watch day and night. Or at work.”
“Why are you twisting this, Mateo? I thought...” She shook her head. “Have I been wrong about this all long?”
“You took in a homeless guy, Lizzie. What’s there to twist in that?”
“I thought I took in someone who wanted more from life. Was I wrong?”
She was battling gallantly against the tears that wanted to fall. To finally admit her feelings, then have them slapped back in her face...she couldn’t even begin to describe the pain.
“No, you weren’t wrong. But I’ve given it a lot of thought, and...” He paused, drew in a deep breath, then let it out again, agonizingly slow. “And I don’t see how it could work with us. I don’t want to be taken care of, like you took care of your dad, and I’m sure that’s not what you want either. But I’m afraid it’s inevitable. Also, I don’t want to be watched for the rest of my life, with you wondering if it’s the real me when I make a little slip-up. It’s got nothing to do with the way I feel for you and everything to do with breathing room.”
“I haven’t been giving you breathing room?”
“You have. As much as I can handle right now. But in the future...”
“You don’t have to say it, Mateo. What I saw as the beginning of something that might last was merely a port in the storm for you. But I’m glad I put myself out there for you—because it proved to me that I can do it. It was my choice, and it had nothing to do with my dad.” She got up from the bed. “I’ll have your things brought to the hospital, Mateo.”
“This isn’t what I want, Lizzie. I want to figure out how we can be together—not apart.”
“What you want, Mateo, is a life that doesn’t come with the complications we both have. That’s what I wanted at first as well. But we don’t always get what we want, do we? Oh, and as for falling in love—it shouldn’t be about figuring out how to do it. It should be about how you can’t live without the other person. How loving the other person makes you a better person. I’m sorry it didn’t work that way for you, because it did for me.”
He started to get out of bed, but he was connected to too many wires and tubes, and the instant he tried to stand every single one of the alarms went off.
“I do love you,” he said as she headed for the door. “It’s just that—”
“And that’s where it ends, Mateo. After you tell someone you love them there should be no more words. No qualifiers. But you have a qualifier, and that says it all. I’m sorry this didn’t work, because I love you, too.”
With that, she was gone.
And he was stuck in a lousy hospital bed, with a tray full of green gelatin which he wanted to throw at the wall.
But he didn’t. That was the Mateo who had existed before Lizzie. The one who existed after her merely shoved the bedside tray away, slunk down in bed, and pulled the sheets up to his neck.
CHAPTER NINE
Eight weeks later
MORNINGS WERE NOT her friend. Especially now, when she spent every one of them being sick and looking puffy. It was part of the process, her doctor had told her, but that meant nothing when she was sprawled on the bathroom floor, glad for the cool feel of the tile underneath her.
“Come on, Lizzie!” Janis yelled through the door. “It’s perfectly natural. If you spend your entire pregnancy this way, by the time the baby gets here you’re going to be a basket case.”
“Babies!” she yelled back. “Not baby. When he got me, he got me good.”
Janis opened the door a crack and peeked in. “You’re not even dressed.”
“Not getting dressed today.”
“So what do I tell your patients?”
“That pregnancy and doctoring don’t mix.”
Janis pushed the door the rest of the way open and went in. She sat down next to Lizzie, who still wasn’t budging.
“Someone should have told me,” she moaned.
“Ever hear about using protection?”
“We did. It didn’t work—obviously.” Lizzie rolled over on her back but still didn’t get up. “See how big I am and I’m only two months in. Do you really think I’m in any shape to see patients? I mean, I’m wearing a muumuu, Janis. A freaking muumuu.”
“Get used to it. The bigger you get, the more you’ll come to appreciate your muumuu. Oh, and if you want another, I hear there’s a mighty handsome man working in a surf shop a couple blocks over from the hospital. In case you didn’t know, he stayed here, Lizzie. He’s working hard with a PTSD counselor, as well as sticking to Randy’s cognitive behavior program. I’ll bet he’d like to see you.”
“He knows where I live.” Lizzie wrestled herself to a sitting position and leaned against the wall.
“Doesn’t he have a right to know about the babies?” Janis asked.
“He does—and he will. But he’s so deep into his treatment programs now I wonder if I should wait, rather than throw him another curve ba
ll he has to deal with.”
“Have your feelings for him changed?” Janis asked her.
Lizzie patted her belly. “No. In fact, they’re growing deeper every day.”
“And you expect to work things out sprawled here on the floor in a muumuu?”
“There’s a lot to work out,” Lizzie said, finally ready to get up.
“Do you know who you sound like?” Janis asked, pushing herself up and heading toward the door.
“No. Who?”
“Mateo. Do you remember when he was full of excuses, not doing anything to help himself, and everybody was getting frustrated with him?”
Lizzie thought about it as she pushed herself off the floor. “I didn’t accept his excuses, did I?”
Janis gave her a knowing wink, then left.
And Lizzie put on some regular clothes and decided a walk was in order.
Funny how that walk took her right by a surf shop, where the clerk inside was keeping a whole line of people entertained with stories of his days as a surfer. Like he’d ever even been on a real surfboard.
It was such a funny sight, Lizzie laughed...probably for the first time in weeks. This was the father of her babies—the man she loved despite his faulty memories.
Lizzie waved at Mateo when he finally spotted her in the crowd, then waited until he made his way through the crowd to smile at him.
“Looks like you’ve found your calling,” she said, fighting back a laugh. “Talking about your exploits from your days as a surfer?”
“Give the people what they want,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading her out of the crowd. “I’ve wanted to see you. To talk to you about that day. I was overwhelmed, Lizzie. I hope you realize that?”
“You could have come around to apologize,” she said, as they sat down on a bench under a banyan tree.
“I did. Every day. Who do you think has been tending your dad’s flower garden?”
“I never saw you. And as for the garden... I just...” She shrugged. “I didn’t give it any thought.”
“Which is why it was getting weedy, and droopy from a lack of watering. I know I hurt you, Lizzie. And I’m sorry for that. But for a while I couldn’t live with myself, let alone draw somebody else into my mess. I needed time...and space.”
