Prognosis Bad Timing

by Andrews, Amy

  ‘I thought you’d changed. I thought you’d started to see past the bottom line.’

  His barb found its mark. She had changed, Carrie knew he could see it, too. She’d changed so much in her time here.

  But that didn’t alter the facts.

  ‘My job is to look after the hospital’s money.’

  Charlie strode to the door and whipped it open. He pointed to the teenagers that were already lining up for their first game of pool. ‘What are these kids going to do? Where are they going to go?’

  ‘That data is not required by the board —’

  ‘Data?’ he interrupted furiously, slamming the door closed. ‘They’re people!’

  Carrie swallowed. ‘Rest assured, as with any report, I will also state the reasons against closure.’

  Dear God, she sounded so pompous. So bureaucratic.

  Charlie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The centre was the heart and soul of this needy community. He couldn’t allow this to happen.

  It was madness.

  ‘Is this because of us?’

  It took a brief moment for the full implications of his statement to sink in to Carrie’s consciousness. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, let’s see. You haven’t mentioned a word to me once about the state of play and then this morning you overhear a phone call and now you’re shutting me down?’

  Carrie stiffened. ‘I resent your inference. This was a professional investigation. What happened between us privately has absolutely no bearing on the outcome.’

  ‘You sure there isn’t a little vengeance in there?’

  Carrie stared at him, at his indignation, and her heart ached. But she didn’t need to stick around and be insulted. Have her integrity called into question. She’d been down that road once in her professional career and had barely survived.

  She wasn’t about to let Charlie do it to her again.

  Picking up her laptop, she fished around in her pocket for the locker key he had given her the first day. ‘You will be receiving official notification in due course.’

  Charlie rubbed a hand through his hair and stared at the key dangling from her outstretched fingers. This was making him crazy. First his father and then this? It was too much for one morning. She looked so self-righteous. So businesslike.

  What did tie-dye Carrie think of it? Didn’t this bombshell affect her at all?

  ‘There’ll be an outcry,’ he warned. ‘This centre will close over my dead body.’

  She hoped he was right, she really did. But the words wouldn’t come. This conversation had dealt the fatal blow to their relationship - whatever the hell it was. Now it was necessary for them to both move on. He had a chance with his ex and she had a life with Dana to get on with.

  Carrie affected a nonchalant shrug. ‘That’s not my concern. Goodbye, Charlie. I hope you and Veronica are very happy.’

  The light flippant delivery cost her dearly. She walked past him, her head held high, her back erect, her fingers squeezing the laptop bag handle with a death-like grip.

  She didn’t want to go. But she couldn’t stay, either.

  Charlie watched Carrie disappear with his heart in his mouth and realised the awful truth. She was ruining him twice. She wasn’t only going to take the centre away but she’d also walked away with his heart.

  He had fallen in love with her.

  It had crept up on him unawares but it was there nonetheless. No wonder he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. No wonder the women at the club the other night had left him cold. He’d been fooling himself that it was lust — a combination of pinstripes and abstinence. But as she walked away and an intense pain ripped through his gut, he knew it was deeper than that.

  Much deeper.

  Deeper than anything he’d ever felt before. Sure, he’d loved Veronica but, looking back, he wasn’t so sure he’d liked her very much. His father had liked her so that should have been a clue from the start. And to finally have his father’s approval had definitely helped keep the thing between them going.

  But Carrie was different. She had facets to her character that Veronica had never had. And he loved each one. The businesswoman, the re-emerging doctor, the generous lover, the devoted mother. She was multi-dimensional and complex and he couldn’t bear the thought of living his life without her.

  His feelings were so intense that not even her proposal to shut the centre, to tear his heart out, could dampen them. Now he’d opened the floodgates, his love was gushing through his system unabated.

  Not that admitting it helped. It seemed today, more than ever, their problems were completely insurmountable.

  He pulled up a chair and sank into it.

  Hell — it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet!

  Two days passed. Two long, slow, agonising days. Charlie relived their last words over and over. He relived the phone call from his father over and over. Every damning word. Her glib I hope you and Veronica are happy rang in his ears.

  He wished she’d given him the chance to explain. She hadn’t had the benefit of years of similar conversations with his father. She didn’t know the best way to deal with them was to tune them out. He’d barely been paying attention for most of it.

  But his words came back at him repeatedly. His noncommittal replies. His bored tone. His evasive comebacks. None of that inflection, the grimacing, the rolled eyes would have been obvious from the other side of the door.

  No wonder Carrie thought he was interested in his ex.

  Between that and exploring avenues to keep the centre open he’d had plenty on his mind. He felt like he had after Donny had first stabbed him with the syringe.

  Powerless.

  In limbo again. His options gone. His freedom denied.

  He stood and paced around his desk, shoving a hand through his hair. No. No more. Hadn’t he decided just last week that he was reclaiming his life? That he wasn’t going to wait around any longer? Carrie had challenged him to get a life and he’d taken her up on that.

  Was he really going to let this crap block him again?

  It had taken him a long time to build up the centre. To gain the trust of locals and authorities alike. And it had taken him for ever to find his soul mate. And he’d be damned if he was going to give up on either of them without a fight.

  Two things he knew for sure. He wanted the centre and he wanted Carrie. The thought of being a father to Dana was completely terrifying, but Carrie’s daughter had wormed her way into his affections, despite his concerns, and he wanted to be a part of her life, too.

  A part of both of their lives.

  OK, Carrie didn’t love him. Yet. And he knew he’d be foolish to push that. That she would need time to be certain of his love for her and her daughter. And slow would be good to ease into a relationship with Dana.

  If they took things slowly, maybe the prospect of being a father wouldn’t be so daunting?

  But he had to be let in first.

  He may have only known her for a short time, but Carrie’s goodbye had seemed utterly final. He paced a bit more, trying to think of a way to reach out to her.

  It came to him a few moments later. Of course. The centre. She was good with figures and she knew the financial state of his workplace much better than he did. Surely she’d be interested in helping him to find a way to make it work?

  No, scratch that — more than make it work. He wanted to go grander. He wanted the expansion, damn it!

  Okay — she’d been sent here to do a job. And she’d done it. But was it how she really felt deep down? If he’d been a betting man, he would have wagered against it. Surely, with her own personal journey back to medicine so intimately linked with the centre, she could be persuaded to help?

  He picked up the phone and dialled her home number without giving himself time to change her mind. A young woman answered.

  ‘Hi, you must be Susie. This is Charlie.’

  ‘Ah, Charlie. Dana talks about you non-stop.’

&
nbsp; Charlie smiled. Nice to know he was in one of the Douglas women’s good books. ‘Is Carrie in?’

  ‘’Fraid not. She and Dana are spending a few days at her mum’s place.’

  ‘Oh, right. Okay. If you hear from her, tell her I called.’

  Charlie replaced the phone in the cradle. Damn it! What now? He had to see her. It had been two days and he was going mad without her. He sat at his desk and navigated to the online white pages, imputing Douglas and the suburb Carrie had mentioned last weekend where her parents lived.

  He found four. Hopefully one of them belonged to Carrie’s parents.

  Grabbing his stuff, he marched the kids playing pool and hanging out, off the premises, ignoring their protests. It was only an hour before its official closing time but he never shut the clinic early.

  Guess there was a first time for everything.

  He was on a mission. He would find Carrie. He just hoped to hell her parents didn’t have an unlisted number.

  Carrie was grateful, as she sat beside her mother, that her father had volunteered to bath Dana tonight. Her heart had been so heavy the last few days that any help getting through the day was appreciated. Coming to her parents had been a good idea. It was a distraction for Dana, whose incessant chatter about Charlie was heartbreaking.

  And a distraction for her, too.

  Someone to talk with to take her mind off being in love with someone who didn’t love her back.

  Her mother put her arm around Carrie’s shoulders and the brave demeanour Carrie had been putting on since she’d arrived cracked into a thousand pieces. ‘Why, Mum? Why? I should never have got involved.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’ Meryl Douglas stroked her daughter’s fringe. ‘We don’t get to choose who we fall in love with.’

  ‘Dana’s going to hate me,’ Carrie wailed, dissolving into tears. ‘She adores him.’

  Carrie despised herself for this weakness. After Rupert she’d vowed she’d never cry over another man and here she was, five years older but obviously not any wiser.

  Damn Charlie. Damn him to hell.

  It wasn’t fair to worm his way into her life, wake her from her sleep, show her a better existence and then deny her the right to claim it.

  Charlie pulled up at the fourth residence not at all confident that he’d have any luck here, either. The house was a typical Brisbane champher-board, high-set house. It was plain, nondescript, the paint a little worn in places. But it was neat, the grass clipped short, garden beds decorating the fence borders.

  An ancient-looking, floppy-eared Irish setter adorning the bottom, step hobbled towards him as he pushed open the gate. It sniffed the hand that Charlie offered and licked it.

  ‘Hello, there, boy,’ Charlie crooned, scratching the sweet spot behind the dog’s ear. ‘Is Carrie here?’

  The dog looked at him myopically and Charlie chuckled.

  Then he took a deep breath, climbed the steps two at a time and knocked on the door. His blood pounded through his ears as footsteps drew close.

  The door opened. ‘Charlie!’

  Charlie looked down to see Dana’s adorable face staring up at him. She’d obviously not long had a bath as her hair was damp and she was in her tie-dye pyjamas. She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his leg and he felt his heart would burst it burgeoned with so much love for this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub.

  He reached down and picked her up, settling her on his hip as she said, ‘I missed you, Charlie.’

  ‘I missed you, too, Sleeping Beauty.’

  ‘Dana?’

  A woman who must have been Carrie’s mother approached. They had the same hair and the same whiskey-coloured eyes.

  ‘Granny, this is Charlie.’

  A lump swelled in his throat. Dana had introduced him like he was Superman, and he knew he would leap tall buildings for the daughter of the woman he loved.

  Could he be a good father to her? Her trusting eyes made him believe he could.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Douglas,’ Charlie said politely.

  ‘I take it you’d like to see Carrie?’

  Charlie could see the reticence in the older woman’s eyes but he could also see an innate kindness. He nodded.

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Come in.’

  Charlie breathed a sigh of relief as Carrie’s mother stood aside and allowed him to enter. Dana clung to his neck and jiggled around in his arms.

  He was led into a lounge room. ‘Come on, Dana, sweetie. Bedtime.’

  Dana protested and Charlie passed her over to her grandmother reluctantly. ‘I want Charlie to read to me,’ she said with a pout.

  ‘Another day, Sleeping Beauty.’ Charlie shot Dana his most reassuring smile. If he had his way, he’d be reading to her every night.

  ‘Promise, Charlie?’

  Dana looked so earnest and he crossed his fingers behind his back. ‘Promise.’

  They left the room and for the first time he noticed Carrie standing in the doorway. He wanted to rush to her but she looked distant, her arms crossed, everything about her discouraging any familiarities.

  ‘Don’t do that. You’ll only build her hopes up. You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.’

  Charlie swallowed. ‘I’d like to be able to keep it.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to be a father to a four-year-old?’

  ‘Carrie...let me explain.’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath. Save it for Veronica.’

  ‘Damn it, Carrie,’ Charlie swore, striding towards her. ‘I don’t want Veronica. I only want you.’

  He was right in front of her now. Close. So close she could almost touch him.

  And she wanted to.

  She’d not seen him for two whole days and the potency of his presence was lethal. She pushed away from the doorframe and took care not to brush against him as she moved into the room, away from his intoxicating nearness.

  He turned to face her. ‘I know how it must have sounded the other day.’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Really?’

  Charlie sighed. ‘You have to understand how it is with my father and I. We have a fraught relationship. I didn’t turn out to be what he wanted. My rebellion had always stuck in his craw. So I endure dinner with my parents every Sunday and he rings every week to chew my ear about something I’ve done that’s disappointed him. I guess you can say it’s the price I pay for walking my own path.’

  Despite Carrie’s animosity towards him, Charlie painted a bleak portrait of his family life. She almost felt sorry for him. No wonder he doubted his ability to parent. No wonder he had enjoyed his time in her home so much. She couldn’t imagine not having the support of her parents.

  They’d always been there for her in everything she’d done.

  ‘I usually just tune him out. Take the phone call because otherwise he rings incessantly and then I have Angela on my case. He prattles on about my divorce and a surgical position he could get me and I barely even listen. I just say yes, no, really, maybe and grunt a lot.’

  Carrie sighed. She didn’t want to know this. She didn’t want to listen to this. She wanted him gone. Before she did something stupid, like throw herself at him.

  ‘I really don’t want to rehash this, Charlie. If that’s what you came for, you might as well just leave.’

  Charlie could see the dark smudges under her eyes. She obviously hadn’t been sleeping. Now, there he could relate. She looked like she was out of patience and he knew that trying to convince her of his love tonight was the wrong move.

  ‘I want you to help me save the centre.’

  ‘What?’

  Bingo! ‘Have you completed your report?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Have you submitted it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Tomorrow.’ Along with her resignation.

  ‘Don’t.’

  Carrie shot him an exasperated look. ‘I hope you didn’t come to persuade me to interfere with my investigation.’ She love
d him but she wouldn’t do that.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘Of course not. I’m just asking you to...delay it a little.’

  ‘Charlie...’

  He put his hands up in a silencing gesture. ‘Just hear me out, OK? You know the centre’s finances backwards. You know how it got broken. You must know how it can be fixed. I have a bunch of ideas I’ve been working on —’ He thrust a folder towards her ‘To make the expansion and the clinic viable. And I know you can do the rest.’

  ‘Charlie...’

  Couldn’t he see she just wanted to get on with her life? She didn’t want any more involvement with him. It would be hard enough loving him and never seeing him again. But having to work with him to save the centre?

  She’d never survive it.

  ‘I know you care about the centre. You go on about the bottom line but I’ve seen the change in you over the last few weeks. And the centre did that. It gave you back your love of medicine.’

  Hot tears well in her eyes. ‘No, Charlie. You gave me back my love of medicine.’

  He shrugged. ‘I am the centre.’

  She nodded. He was right. Every patient, every basketball game, every ding in the walls was his. He’d built it up. His personal stamp was everywhere. Every corner, every piece of furniture had a story. And he could relay each one.

  ‘I know you care what happens to my community. To people. I could see that in you that night you knelt on the road beside me.’

  He walked towards her slowly until he was so close he could hear her uneven breathing. He stroked a hand down the side of her neck and rubbed his thumb over the pulse that was beating frantically at the base of her throat.

  ‘You were scared rigid but you helped anyway. I need your help again, Carrie.’

  She swallowed. The man she loved was standing before her, touching her, asking her for help. Did she have the power to deny him? My community, he had said. His community. Could she turn her back on a bunch of people who needed Charlie and his centre?

  People who in a few short weeks had also entered her affections?

  ‘I’ll look...’ She stopped and coughed to clear the huskiness from her voice. ‘Look over it and let you know,’ she acquiesced, taking the folder.

  ‘Thank you.’