An Irish Affair
Page 24
Their mother, Jane Parker, had been the woman who died in the car accident just over a year ago. I hadn’t treated her, because she was like family to me. But I was with her while she was in the emergency room. She’d made me promise to look after her husband, Jim, who’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s the year before. She’d known, as did her husband, that I’d been in a relationship with Mia, but didn’t hold it against me like Eli did. She and Mr. Parker had been like a second set of parents to me. More so when my own parents retired and decided to leave cold winters behind and moved to San Diego.
In some ways, I was like another son. I hadn’t treated Jane when she was brought into the emergency room after her accident, but I’d held her hand in the hospital as we waited for Jim and Eli to arrive. She was wheeled into surgery before they got there. She died on the operating table. Eli blamed me for that as well, even though I wasn’t her doctor.
I shook my head at the memory. It was so fucking sad, and made me wonder why medicine could fall so short. But thinking of Mia, Eli and Jane reminded me that I should check in with Jim. Because Eli hated me still, my friendship with Jim was on the downlow, but we did get together at times to play chess or I’d take him fishing.
“Did Joyce succeed in getting a date?” Peggy Shoals, an emergency room nurse asked, getting a cup of coffee after me.
I laughed. “Not with me.”
“Do you think her insurance has raised her deductible for all the trips she makes here?” Peggy sat with me at the table.
“Not so much that she stops coming.” I sat at one of the three tables to relax for a few minutes.
“What are you going to do when she comes in worried about a lump in her breast?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to have Alice examine her,” I said of Dr. Alice Kramer.
“That’ll teach her,” Peggy laughed.
I finished my coffee, and rose from my chair to rinse my cup out. “Back to work.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
I walked out of the lounge and headed back to the emergency area. Before I could reach the corner, Dick Waterson, the hospital administrator walked around the corner. Following him, a woman also rounded the corner. I stopped in my tracks and my heart made a hard thump in my chest.
She stopped, too, and stared at me.
“Ah, Dr. Foster,” Dick said to me. “I’m glad we caught you. I’d like to introduce you to the new hospital lawyer, Mia Parker.”
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