Revealing the Real Dr. Robinson

by Dianne Drake

  “Fine. Run your hospital on any kind of emotion you want. But don’t disrespect me because I don’t choose to be the same kind of administrator you are. What I do works.”

  “And hurts your granddaughter. Can’t you see that? She’s as gifted a doctor as I’ve ever seen, and what you expect from her either diminishes or disallows that. And if you force her back to Brooks in an administrative-only capacity, it’s your loss.”

  “Or, depending on the perspective, my gain.”

  “Add manipulative to my description of you, Dr. Brooks. Because it’s not Shanna you want. It’s your victory over her.”

  “It’s never occurred to you that her family loves her and that’s why we want her back.”

  “No, because it’s never occurred to Shanna that her family loves her.” He watched the old man’s face for some sort of shock, or anger, because that was an outrageous statement to make, as true as it was. Sadly, nothing registered on Miles Brooks. And that was when it hit him again. Shanna had believed she could learn from him how to be like this cruel excuse of a man.

  “What her family loves, Dr. Robinson, is any equation that betters the hospital. Shanna is part of that equation. But do you fall into that somewhere? To get her, do I have to offer you something?”

  “Shanna’s too smart to get involved with me because she sees me as being just like you. She deserves better than me, and better than you.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re nothing like me, because men like me don’t have women like my granddaughter falling in love with them.”

  She was in love with him? It was everything he wanted to know, and nothing he wanted to know.

  Miles Brooks arched bushy eyebrows. “You didn’t know that? Because you conceal your feelings as poorly as my granddaughter does, which caused me to think you might pick up on the feelings of others as easily as she does. Doesn’t matter, though. You’ll stay here, she won’t. She’s a Brooks after all. We know where we belong. But I’m willing to make you part of this if that’s how it turns out.”

  How it would turn out was that there was nothing for Shanna here, especially if what her grandfather said was true, that she loved him. And, damn, did that jar him. More than he expected. “Look, Shanna’s in clinic right now, so please don’t interrupt her while she’s seeing patients. We’re going to have lunch together in a while, and you’re welcome to join us then. In the meantime, the brown building just to the front of the hospital has an empty room, and you’re welcome to make yourself at home there, for as long as you stay at Caridad.”

  “Just for the night, son. That will give Shanna sufficient time to get her things packed, and for you to make your decision.” With that, Miles Brooks stood, bowed slightly at the waist, and headed for the steps. “I understand that you’re concerned for my granddaughter, and if you care for her the way I believe you do, you’ll do what’s best for her. So, please, have someone come and get me when Shanna is available.”

  Or never, Ben thought. I’ll never have someone come and get you, you manipulative old...

  * * *

  “You’re not supposed to be up and wandering around yet,” Shanna said once she noticed Ben standing by the wall in her exam room, simply watching her bandage the lengthy cut to which she’d just applied twenty-two stitches on a little boy’s left leg.

  “I could have done those stitches. Simple thing, no physical effort.”

  “Or stayed put, like the doctor told you to do.”

  “I did, for a while. Read some. Had a visitor.”

  “Maybe you should have kept your visitor there longer so you’d have stayed down longer.” She turned to face him. “Look, I know you’re bored out of your head. I would be, too. But until we have some tests done that we can’t do here, I want you resting. And we’re not going to get them done until we can arrange a plane to get us there, which isn’t until next week at the earliest. So, please, be a better patient.”

  He chuckled. “Deaf ears, Doctor. Your advice is falling on deaf ears.”

  “Don’t I know that!” she said, then escorted the child out to the waiting room back to his mother. When she returned, Ben was seated on the exam table, legs dangling, the look on his face...well, she hadn’t seen it before, couldn’t determine what it was. But it was so serious it caused her to shiver. “You’re not feeling well, are you?” she asked, stepping back into the room and shutting the door.

  “I’m feeling fine,” he said, patting the table next to him. “But we need to talk. I’ve already asked Dr. Hueber to cover the clinic for you for a little while so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Maybe I should stand...” She didn’t like bad news, and everything inside her screamed that this was bad. So bad, in fact, that last time she’d felt this way had been the day her grandfather had told her Elsa Willoughby had been turned down for a kidney transplant. That day had changed her life and, somehow, she knew this was going to be another life-changer. “Just tell me, Ben. Whatever it is, please, just tell me.”

  He patted the table again, and she climbed up next to him. Two people, sitting side by side, touching at the shoulders and hips, in an empty little room. Could have been intimate, but it wasn’t. Ben knew that as he reached for Shanna’s hand. Shanna knew that as she slipped her hand into his.

  “Your grandfather is here,” he finally said.

  “What?” she sputtered.

  “He was my visitor. He’s come to take you home.”

  Of all the things Ben might have told her, this was the one thing she couldn’t have anticipated. Her grandfather had come to get her. “Did he say why?”

  “He said it’s time.”

  “It’s time because my family doesn’t like to lose, and the longer I’m away from them the more they risk losing.”

  “Lose what? This isn’t a game.”

  “Isn’t it?” she snapped. Her body tensed. She could feel her muscles tighten, starting in her neck then working down to her shoulders, her back... “It’s all about control, Ben. That’s all it’s ever about in my family, and I’m willing to bet my grandfather never once told you he’d missed me. And why my grandfather, Ben? I have parents—a mother and a father who could have asked me. Picked up a phone and asked. But they didn’t because that’s not the way my family is run. And we are run, Ben. Make no mistake about that. We’re run like a business.”

  “Which is why you left them?”

  She shook her head. “When that’s all you know, you accept it. It is what it is. And it really didn’t bother me all that much, to be honest.” When she’d been allowed to practice as a doctor and not as an administrator.

  “Something bothered you enough to get you here, Shanna. And I know what it is now.”

  “To learn from you, Ben. That’s what I’ve always said.” Her heart started to pound because Ben had figured it out, and it hurt him the way she’d feared it would.

  “And what I’ve never believed. But your grandfather told me about his ultimatum.”

  In spite of the Argentine heat in the room, she shivered. “I’m not sure...”

  “Yes, you are. After your sabbatical you were to go back to Brooks either as a doctor who didn’t get emotionally involved with her patients or as an administrator. One or the other. In fact, it was an agreement you made with your grandfather, wasn’t it? Learn to be more like him or, as it turned out, like me? Me and your grandfather, one and the same.”

  “No, Ben. That’s not what I was doing.”

  “Really, Shanna? Can you really sit here and tell me that you don’t see me as a replica of your grandfather? That you didn’t come here to copy me just so you could get back into his good graces?” He pulled his hand away from hers and stood. Went to the window and stared outside. “Because that’s what it was. The one thing I couldn’t figure out about why you wanted to learn from me. I flattered myself in a lot of ways, trying to figure it out. Or should I say, deluded myself?”

  “You’re not wrong,” she conced
ed. “But you’re also not right.”

  “Which makes about as much sense as everything else.” He turned to face her. “Couldn’t you have been honest and up front? Told me you’d come to learn from my cold, detached, harsh, heartless, indifferent, insensitive, uncaring, unemotional, unloving, unsympathetic ways—take your pick, use one description or use them all because they all work. They’re all what you think of me.”

  “What I thought of you, Ben.”

  “Like I said.”

  This couldn’t be happening. She’d almost convinced herself she could stay here, do the work she loved, coexist with the man she loved even though he’d never return those same feelings. Because having even a small piece of Ben was better than not having him at all. Which was, ironically, where she was now.

  She couldn’t blame him for being hurt, though, because yes, those were the things she’d thought he was, the reason she’d come here. But the reason she’d fallen in love with him had been because he was none of those things.

  “What else was I supposed to think of you?” she asked, fighting not to cry, not to drag the emotions into this that had gotten her into trouble in the first place. “In Italy, we shared time together yet you kept your distance. You did the polite, expected things, like opened doors for me, and deferred to my lunch choices. But you kept this icy distance. And, yes, I thought you would be the perfect role model for what I needed to accomplish if I wanted to go back to my hospital...my hospital, Ben. It’s all I know. All I ever wanted to do was grow up and be like the rest of my family. And you seemed...like the rest of my family.

  “So I thought maybe observing someone like them outside the whole Brooks atmosphere might be what I needed. You know, keep it objective. Do it someplace where there weren’t so many expectations of me. So I chose you. After I met you, I thought you’d be the perfect person to observe. Someone exceptional in his skills yet separated by an emotional mile from everything but the pure aspects of doctoring.”

  “See, that’s what I don’t understand. Why do you want to separate yourself that way?”

  She smiled sadly. “It gets in the way.”

  “How, Shanna? Tell me how?”

  “I’ve always loved the connections we have as doctors, Ben. You know that about me. It’s why I’m happy in family practice because I can have those connections. In medicine, we’re fortunate because we can touch so many lives, connect to so many people. I truly believe, in ways I don’t understand, that everybody is connected. Maybe it’s as vague as we’re simply connected by the universe, or maybe there’s this personal connection we have to find for ourselves. Whatever it is, I like that connection, and tried really hard to find it with everyone I took care of.

  “But then there was this patient...Elsa Willoughby. End-stage renal. I told you about her. Anyway, I was furious my grandfather took her off the kidney transplant waiting list. Furious. Because she might have had a good outcome. I wanted so badly for her to live that my objectivity was totally clouded by my emotional attachment.”

  “Age aside, was she a bad risk?”

  Shanna nodded. “Medically, she had problems. But I cared for her, and because of that I made promises I couldn’t keep. Then she died, and I...” Okay, so the emotional block didn’t work. Now there were tears running down her cheeks, and she didn’t give a damn. “See, this is who I am,” she said, swatting at the tears. “I lead with my heart and I can’t change it. Although for a minute I thought if I watched you, I might find out how you did it, but you don’t, Ben.”

  She sniffled. Looked up at him through blurry eyes. “You don’t turn it off. None of it. You channel it differently, but you’re not like my grandfather or any of the other people I’ve tried to emulate. I saw that in you almost immediately, and should probably have walked away before it came to...to this. Because, yes, I always knew I was going back to Brooks. That was the agreement. Return one way or the other.”

  “So you’re going to return to something that will make you miserable?”

  “We all learn to adapt, don’t we? Just look at you.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, Shanna, that your emotional attachment to your patients is what makes you the extraordinary doctor you are? I’ve watched you, envied your confidence to become involved on the level you do.”

  “You don’t have to be kind to me, Ben. I’ll be fine.”

  “But will you be happy?”

  Truly happy? No. Not without Ben. But Ben wasn’t available, and the part of him she might have had earlier had vanished. “Happy is such a relative term.”

  “Okay, then skip happy. Will you be fulfilled?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I care about you, Shanna. I’ll admit I’m not sure how to get past all those things you thought I was, but that doesn’t change the fact that I care about you, and I see you diving headfirst into the worst mistake you’re ever going to make.”

  “So, what’s my alternative? Stay here and work with the man I’ve fallen in love with, always knowing he doesn’t want me? How does that make me happy or fulfill me?”

  “You what?”

  “Love you, Ben. And don’t pretend you didn’t know it. You did. But because you’re not open to it, you’ve ignored it. But I don’t hide things well, and you’re not oblivious.”

  He sighed deeply. “Whatever you think you feel...”

  “Think I feel? Whatever I think I feel? How can you say that to me?”

  He sighed deeply again, and this time outwardly braced himself. “I’ve told you ever since you got here...”

  She thrust out her hand to stop him. “It doesn’t matter what you told me. Okay? Once again, I led with my emotions, and look where it got me. So why not go back to Brooks and be what I’m supposed to be?”

  “Because it’s not what you want to be.”

  “But I don’t get to choose what I want to be, Ben. Wearing my heart on my sleeve the way I’ve been accused of doing so often hurts. And I can’t be good at anything if that always gets in my way.”

  “Don’t let it get in your way, Shanna. Embrace it.”

  “To what end? Because all I want is to embrace you, and a life here at Caridad with you. But you won’t let me have that.”

  “Which is what I’ve been saying all along. I can’t get involved with you the way you want to get involved with me.”

  “Because of your scars? Or the fact that you had a problem with alcohol in the past? Do you think so little of me, Ben, that I can’t get past those things?”

  “No, I think so much of you, because I know you can. I’m the one who can’t. Every time I look in the mirror...it’s there, staring back at me. And if you thought all those horrible things of me before... Shanna, there are parts of me that are dead. Nobody wants that around them. I don’t want it around me, but that’s how it is. How I am.”

  “Not dead, Ben. Maybe held back, but you have such a pure passion for medicine on a level I didn’t even know was out there. I mean, here you are, this doctor who built a hospital out of a board and a couple of nails. There’s nothing dead in that. And nothing dead in the man who made it happen, and succeed.”

  Good argument on deaf ears. She could see that in him, see him pull back emotionally. In his mind he was distancing himself even more, and that was what she couldn’t endure. He wouldn’t let her in. More than that, he fought to keep her out.

  “You know, I was willing to take anything just to stay with you. I love the medicine here, and I love you, and I would have taken whatever you allowed me. But you’re not allowing me anything, Ben. Nothing.” So maybe it was time to go, to end it. To do some of that distancing herself, so she could figure out what came next. Because it wasn’t Brooks.

  Ben had shown her who she was, as surely as he’d shown her he didn’t want her. Loving Ben had made her realize who she wanted to be, though. But it had also shown her what she’d never have, and she couldn’t stay here, facing that pain every day. “Anyway, unless you need me, I’ll be
packed and out of here by tomorrow.”

  “You’re welcome to stay and work. Caridad needs you, Shanna.”

  “But you don’t. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Ben. All those things I thought about you as a doctor were wrong. You’re amazing, and I hope you have a happy life. Oh, and just so you’ll know, I’m not going back to Brooks, because you’re right. The kind of doctor I am is fine. That’s what you’ve taught me, and for that I thank you.”

  * * *

  She loved Tuscany in the winter, and she was glad it was still winter here. Loved the amazing slopes of Garfagnana, even though she hadn’t done any skiing since she’d arrived two weeks ago. Loved the Tuscan wines, even though she hadn’t drunk any on this stay. Loved the fairy-tale villages, age-old churches, hermitages, castles and fortresses, although she didn’t feel up to exploring them just now. But she loved Tuscany, just not as much as Argentina. Argentina was her past, however. Its memories her heartbreak.

  This morning she simply didn’t have the will to move away from this table. Their table by the window. Some might call her crazy, sitting there, thinking of it as their table, but it was. She could still feel Ben here, and that was where she needed to be for a while—in a place where she could still feel him. Love lingering, love dying, neither was easy.

  But she didn’t know how to move on yet. Maybe because she didn’t want to, or because the anchor of losing the life she loved wouldn’t allow it. Either way, she’d come here every morning the way she used to, and stare at the mountain. Sometimes she stared for minutes, sometimes hours. Then the rest of her day was lost in aimless strolling, uneaten meals and forced smiles for those who greeted her.

  She wanted her purpose back, and Ben and Caridad were her purpose. Except she was unwanted there, even though there had been a time she’d believed that Ben loved her and, in the end, that love would break away everything that held him back. But that had been an illusion the way everything else had been. Two weeks ago, when she’d walked away, part of her had clung to the hope he’d run after her. He hadn’t. Hadn’t reached out to her in any way. And that wasn’t an illusion. It was a reality, the one he’d tried to convey to her, and she wouldn’t see. Yep, heart on her sleeve all the way. Too bad she couldn’t have traded it in for blinkers, but what was done was done.