The Doctor's Courageous Bride

by Dianne Drake

  And her mother would have loved him.

  In the background, Solange could hear the squeals of delight starting up from the children playing hacky sack. Paul was heading up the trail, she supposed. When he’d left with Tsombé, he’d said he might be back in just over a week, his schedule permitting. Now it was a week and three days, and here she was sitting with ridiculous butterflies in her stomach, all over the approach of a man who had no place in her future. It was all silliness, of course, like the actions of a schoolgirl with her first crush. She would get over it in due time. But this wasn’t due time, she wasn’t over it, and she caught herself wanting very much to turn around and watch him, maybe even run to him, as the children were doing.

  Temptation wasn’t the object, though, and even the simple act of thinking about Paul was more tempting than she cared to admit. So instead Solange leaned back against a tree, shut her eyes, and let the gentle tropical breeze sweep over her. Sometimes a few moments of nothing were wonderful, the balm to soothe everything. No commitments, no bother…a very cherished nothing because it rarely happened to her. She worked, she slept. End of story. That was her life. Drawing in a deep, cleansing breath, she let it out slowly as she relaxed into the moment…still anticipating Paul, however. He was the one thing that wouldn’t be swept from her mind. “OK, maman,” she whispered in desperation. “Here comes your answer, walking up the path. Now tell me what to do with him.”

  “Doktè Candy! Doktè Candy!” The cries of excitement from the children were almost unison.

  “Toinette! Jean! Marie!” he called to them.

  When had he learned their names? She wasn’t even sure if she knew all the names of the children who scampered in from the villages. Suddenly, the gentle tropical breeze turned into a wash of melancholia. Of course he would remember their names, the way he loved children so. Her moment of nothing suddenly vanished, the old familiar lump of dread returned to the pit of her stomach, and she tensed up. “It’s not going to work, maman. It’s simply not going to work.”

  Paul waved briefly at her, but his attention was solely for the children as he tossed candy and fruit to them. And balls this time, instead of the hacky sacks. “He’s an amazing man,” Frère Léon said, sitting himself down next to Solange and handing her an apple as he adjusted his robe to cover his ankles. “The way he gets about, the way he gets things done…”

  “It’s not working,” Solange said, wiping her apple on the leg of her shorts. “He may have the most amazing attributes of any man in the world, but I’ve sworn off men, and you’re not going to convince me to do otherwise.”

  “You’ll change your mind.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “So you’re hating the male gender today?”

  “I’m not particularly fond of what several members of that gender have done to me and to people I love but, no, I don’t hate the gender as a whole.”

  “You’ve grown wiser since Mauricio. That whole ugly situation may not have turned out as you probably thought it would the first time you met him, but look what you’ve done since then. Look what you’ve done with your life, and to the lives of the people around you. I’d say that in spite of not being particularly fond of his actions, and they were abominable, you’ve managed much better without him.”

  “I had to. There wasn’t another choice.”

  “Which is why I said you’ll change your mind. Because you will. We evolve, Solange. Evolve, or die.”

  “Don’t hold your breath on my evolution. I’ve climbed out of the primordial ooze and I’m happy right where I am, thank you very much.”

  Frère Léon chuckled. “You always were such a stubborn one.”

  “Are you OK, Solange?” Paul asked, sitting down on the other side of her, now that the children had scurried away home with their new toys. “You look tired.”

  “Because she doesn’t sleep.” Frère Léon supplied. “An hour here, an hour there, but never enough to stay rested. We were all concerned about that when she came to stay with us…” He caught himself about to divulge something he shouldn’t, and took a bite of apple instead of continuing or backtracking.

  “Your father mentioned that you went away for some rest. Was it to Frère Léon’s cloister?”

  “Actually, it’s a monastery,” Frère Léon said. “Or I suppose you could call it a habitat of monks. I think abode is nice, though—”

  “My father was discussing me?” Solange interrupted.

  “His concerns for you,” Paul said.

  “Which are?”

  “Your lifestyle, basically. He seems to be against it.”

  “Of course he’s against it,” Solange snapped. “He didn’t choose it.”

  “Speaking of which, he did mention that there’s an opening in one of the hospitals Stateside. Are you looking for another position?”

  “Monsieur Léandre is always looking out on behalf of his daughter,” Frère Léon said. “He believes that it’s not fitting that she should be running around in the mountains with an old man such as myself, who wears long robes and sandals.” He pulled back his robe to reveal his feet and wiggle his toes. “There’s nothing wrong with my sandals,” he added. “Perfectly good footwear, and that’s what I said to Monsieur when he told me that Solange needed better.” He smiled. “So now the man believes me to be daft as well as poorly dressed.”

  “What else did he say,” Solange butt in impatiently, “about my going away for that rest?” Surely her father didn’t know. She hadn’t told him about her hysterectomy, and she wasn’t going to. It didn’t matter, of course, if he did know. But there were things in her life she wanted to keep private. At least for now, when the wound hadn’t yet healed in an emotional sense.

  “That after you left Mauricio it took you a while to get over it. And I know how that feels. Even though Joanna and I were quite friendly about our parting, there was that initial sense of loss. A nice retreat might have done me some good.” He glanced over Frère Léon, faking a scowl. “You never offered to take me in.”

  “Because you can’t stay in the same place for more than a day or two. We would have had to tie you down to keep you there, then you would have gone insane, and what would we have done with you then?”

  Solange shut her eyes and listened to the banter of the two men. She didn’t believe her father knew about her hysterectomy, or Paul, for that matter, and she was relieved. It had been such a rocky time in her life…sick on and off for two years. And enduring Mauricio’s reactions over it.

  Now she fought the daily hormone skirmish…not enough, too much. High, low. Grumpy. And all slamming in in what seemed to be the same blink of an eye,

  She’d had endometriosis. The lining of the uterus, the endometrium, had gone haywire on her. The cells and tissues normally lining the uterus had been growing outside it, causing her all sorts of havoc—pain, gastro-intestinal problems, urinary difficulties, lots of bleeding, terrible menstrual cramps. She had also been diagnosed with a tumor, and she shuddered, thinking about that horribly long wait to find out if it had been cancerous. Luckily, it hadn’t been. It was called, in layman’s terms, a chocolate cyst. But as Allain might have said, it had been quacking like a low-grade cancer. That had been the last straw. Two years of hell, and she’d decided to end it. Have it all removed. Be done with it.

  Mauricio had been marginally supportive until he’d realized that she had been becoming scant in the womanly duty department. Then her battle with endometriosis had been an inconvenience to him. To him! But like an idiot, she’d clung to him, probably because there had been no one else to cling to at the time. Of course, the day she’d told him her decision to have the surgery had been a classic. “Will you grow facial hair?” he’d asked. That had been his concern—facial hair!

  Now it seemed almost funny, but at the time it had been devastating. By the next day, she’d left him. Her illness, along with his moving-on-up attitude…She just hadn’t wanted to be bothered with a man who had been more concer
ned with the possibility of facial hair than the fact that she was going to have a major, life-altering surgery. She chuckled aloud, thinking about it.

  “I didn’t think it was funny,” Paul said.

  “What?” Solange said, homing back into the conversation.

  “That Joanna had completely left me for almost a week before I noticed. Frère Léon was just pointing out another of my horrible shortfalls as a husband.”

  “I wasn’t laughing at that,” Solange said. “I’d just thought of a bearded lady I saw in the circus once.”

  “On that bizarre note, I think I’ll leave you two and go scrounge a snack for myself. The apple was delicious, but not nearly enough.” Frère Léon patted his belly. “Not nearly enough.” He stood, straightened his robe, then bounced off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Was it a breakdown?” Paul asked, rather quickly.

  “What? My going to stay with the monks?”

  “Your father is over-protective, and I just thought that it might have been because—”

  “Yes,” Solange interrupted. “It was a breakdown. Not in the sense that I was bouncing off the walls or doing crazy things. But I did withdraw a bit. I needed time alone, to reflect, to figure out what I was going to do next in my life. Mauricio was moving into a life I didn’t want, and one, ultimately, he didn’t want me in, and that’s all there was to it. Frère Léon took me in.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, taking her hand.

  She didn’t refuse him. She should have, but his touch felt so good, and she craved it like she’d never craved anything before. “It wasn’t a tragedy, Paul. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I went, I rested, I left. It was merely a time in my life when I was vulnerable to things I shouldn’t have been, so I shut myself away until I was better. No psychotropic drugs, no counseling, no shock therapy. Just reflection.”

  “And the reflection led you here?”

  “With the aid of Frère Léon, yes, it did. I needed a fresh start, and it was right here, waiting for me when I was ready.” All these words to him were the truth. The part of her story he was entitled to know.

  “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Solange. Sleep, eat some of the fruit I brought.” He slipped a bar of lavender-scented soap from his pocket and handed it to her. “Pamper yourself a little.”

  She raised the soap to her nose, savoring the scent of it for a moment through the mask. Such a small thing, a bar of soap. But he couldn’t have brought her anything she would appreciate more. “Thank you,” she said.

  “I would have brought chocolates and champagne, but I remember what happened to the last man who brought them to you.” Her gave a fake shudder. “I didn’t hike all the way here for that. Also, I brought you these.” He handed a sample packet of medicine to her. Pyroxicam. A drug used for rheumatoid arthritis. “Maybe Louise Babin will tolerate this well. It was lying around in my sample drawer, and I thought that…” He shrugged. “I thought that I might use it as a good excuse to come see you.”

  “The soap is wonderful. And so is the pyroxicam.” So was having him here, no matter the reason. “Thank you for everything.”

  “So go pamper yourself for an hour or two, Solange,” he said. “I’ll take over your duties here.”

  “The only person in the infirmary is Bobo Laventure, and I don’t think he exactly needs help, unless you have some aspirin handy for his hangover.”

  “When do you go out again?”

  “Day after tomorrow. Keskeya and Ayida are taking the day off tomorrow to go to Abbeville for some shopping. I’ll stay here just in case anybody comes along. I need to get some things arranged in the infirmary, anyway. Another shipment of medical goods came in and I haven’t had time to store them properly. I also have some medical journals I’d like to catch up on. Maybe go take a splash in the falls, if I have enough time.”

  “Did I ever mention that I have a small collection of swimming trophies? That I’m very good in the water?”

  “Is that a hint that you want to stay on, Doctor?”

  “It could be. No strings attached, of course.”

  “No strings,” she confirmed.

  “Promise.”

  She looked into his eyes, those gorgeous blue eyes, and somehow she didn’t believe that promise. Somehow, she didn’t want to.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “‘CONSISTENT with empyema necessitatis. Although the outcome of the pleural biopsy was culture-negative, the pleural-fluid culture was positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Since the mycobacteria were, in full, susceptible to all anti-mycobacterial agents, the patient began therapy with a standard antituberculosis regimen, and his condition improved.’ Whew!” Paul took in a deep breath, laughed, and flung the medical journal out into the grass. “I could have told them that!” he exclaimed, lying down on the blanket next to Solange, so they were both now gazing up at the sky. With a discreet picnic hamper separating them, of course. He’d watched Solange place it just so an hour ago, the intention of that little action quite obvious. That was the line. Their relationship stopped at the loaf of crusty bread.

  “You could have told them that in plain English, no less.” Solange added. “They took an X-ray, discovered the condition, and treated it. I’ll bet the person writing that article was being paid by the word.” She laughed. “I skipped the jargon class in medical school. Preferred poetry and literature. Good literature.”

  “I think the philosophy is that they can’t make it sound too simple or us poor slobs might make it out of medical school in three years instead of four.”

  “I did make it out in three,” Solange replied. “Would have been less, but I was taking a pottery class at the university at the same time, so I wasn’t in any hurry to go. And besides, I rather liked medical school. It was simple then. You worked twenty hours a day, somebody yelled at you because you didn’t get it right, and somebody yelled at them because they didn’t get it right. It’s a pretty standard order, I think, that goes on the same way until they give you a diploma and turn you loose on an unsuspecting public.”

  Paul was tempted to raise up and gaze over the hamper at her for a bit, but instead he stayed safe behind it. It was a perfect day for this little impromptu picnic: reading a medical journal on a blanket in the grass; sipping fresh fruit juice from tumblers; eating crusty bread and hard cheese. Turning this day into a short holiday hadn’t been his intention when the day had started, but now he was glad it had turned out this way. It was a respite he desperately needed in an otherwise back-breaking schedule, and it was nice to lie here with his pants rolled up to his knees, barefooted, and count the clouds. With Solange. That was the best part. There were moments to savor because he didn’t know how many more he’d be allowed. “In three years? You finished medical school in three years? Are you trying to show me up?” He chuckled. “Because if you are, you succeeded brilliantly, Doctor.”

  “If it took you more than three years, Doctor, I suppose I did.” Laughing, Solange raised up to pluck two coconut cookies from the hamper, the chocolate-dipped macaroons a Chef Frère Léon specialty, and tossed one over to Paul. Then she lay back down.

  “It seemed like it took a dozen years, but it was a mere four. And it wasn’t so bad later, during my residency, once I got to the top of the yelling heap. But that was sure one hard climb.”

  “You made chief resident?” she asked.

  “Yep. There was a time when I was ambitious like that. I thought it would look good on my résumé and snag me that job to which I was aspiring. Then I’d buy an awesome set of golf clubs, one like the pros would assemble—my three-wood a Callaway S2H2, my irons Maxfli Revolution, my putter—”

  “Whoa,” Solange interrupted, waving at Paul over the top of the hamper. “At least I understood the medical jargon, but now you’re talking in a completely foreign language.”

  “A Ping Anser 2,” he persisted. “I need just a moment to savor the fantasy because until you’ve had one of those babies in
your hands you don’t know what it’s like to putt.”

  “Lesson learned,” she giggled. “Never come between a man and his fantasy putter.”

  “His Ping Anser 2.”

  “Am I sensing a little wistfulness for the good old days?”

  “No. But I still like a good round of golf when I can get to it. Just not on the clubs I once thought I would own.”

  “Well, putters and drivers aside, being chief resident does look good on your résumé, even out here. And I’m impressed.”

  Paul chuckled. “Out here, what’s even more impressive is knowing the correct bug repellent and sunscreen SPF factor.”

  “Then I take it you’re not waxing melancholy over your schooldays?”

  “Hell, no. I had other things to do, and all I wanted was to get out and into the real world. Which was what I got, because this is just about as real as it comes.” He popped the cookie into his mouth, rose to fish another out of the hamper, and became distracted watching Solange eat her cookie. It was a methodical process, one little nibble at a time. When she caught him watching her, she smiled shyly and waved off the next cookie he was holding out to her. “I’ll bet you don’t even spill crumbs,” he said.

  “I thought we were talking about golf.”

  “Actually, I was talking about golf, and probably boring you to death. So enough about me. Tell me about you, Solange. Golfing was always at the top of my leisure-hours list. What’s at the top of yours?”

  “I told you I’d taken pottery classes…I love it, really. It may not be as exciting as owning a Ping Anser 2, but someday I’d like to have my own little studio and makes plates and bowls or something. Maybe sell them to the tourists.”