PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series)

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Come by tomorrow mornin’. Thelma’s makin’ coffee cake.” He scrunched his fingers up and brought them to his mouth with a smack. “You don’t wanna miss Thelma’s coffee cake. Believe you me.”

  “I’ll walk you into the hospital, Melissa. I have patients to check.” James fell into step beside her. When they were out of Rudy’s earshot, James said, “He’s a well-meaning man, very kind, but sometimes a bit misguided.”

  “About marriage, you mean?”

  “Well, yes. Certainly. That, too. Actually, I was thinking more of the prayer group. I think it’s unrealistic to build up false hope that way.”

  “I’m not that naive,” Melissa said. “Although now that I’m in this situation with Mom, I can really understand how tempting it is to pin your hopes on an alternative when medicine has failed.” Realizing how that sounded, she put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. I just wish there were something more I could do.”

  “Thank you, James. It means a lot to hear you say so.”

  He smiled. He was smiling more these days, Melissa thought. Maybe job action agreed with him. “I enjoyed our discussion with Rudy,” she added. “He’s an interesting man. And he’s your number-one fan.”

  James rolled his eyes. “He’s impossible. As a post-op patient, I told him to stick to a low-cal, low-fat regime. Did you see the food in that trailer? Every scrap is high fat, sugar-laden. Almost everything has meat and dairy. It’s a dietary disaster area.”

  “I heard him telling a buddy of his that now that you took out his gallbladder he can eat anything he wants, no more heartburn.” Melissa couldn’t help teasing James a little. “And Rudy said the other fellow shouldn’t worry about what he eats, either. You can whip his gallbladder out easy as anything if it starts giving him trouble. Sure you’re not drumming up business, Doctor?” She giggled at the horrified expression on his face. “And despite what they’re doing to my gallbladder, I did love the cinnamon rolls.”

  “Enough to meet me again tomorrow morning?”

  “Tomorrow it’s coffee cake, remember?” Why not meet him? It was the only time of the day she could really call her own. She’d actually had fun this morning.

  “Okay, James. I’ll be there, same time.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter Nine

  James pedaled into the lot at six-thirty, and Melissa drove in on the dot of 6:45. He realized how tense he’d been, waiting for her. She gave him a cheery wave and a smile, and his morning brightened considerably.

  Rudy had coffee ready, as well as a plate with a giant chunk of oatmeal coffee cake, raisins bursting from its fat golden sides and nuts thickly studding the sugary crumbs on top.

  Just looking at it had made James’s mouth water, and even though he knew it was a coronary time bomb, he couldn’t resist.

  “’Morning, Melissa.” She made his mouth water, too. She was wearing a short silky dress the color of chestnuts, and her long, lovely legs were bare. Her fiery hair was caught back in its usual knot, but tendrils escaped and curled around her ears. He liked her ears. He liked her hair. He liked her freckles. He especially liked her breasts. In fact, he concluded as she sat down beside him, there wasn’t anything about Melissa Clayton he didn’t like.

  “’Morning, James. Rudy, thanks for the coffee. And your wife’s cake looks scrumptious.”

  Rudy beamed. “I’ll pass that along to Thelma. And she said to tell you the prayer group’s gonna start working on your mom right away.”

  “I’m grateful.” She sipped her coffee and took a nibble of the cake, then smiled at James. “I can’t believe you’re up and about at this hour of the morning. How come you’re not taking advantage of the time away from the operating room and sleeping late?”

  “Too many years of scrubbing for surgery at the crack of dawn. It messes up your circadian rhythms.”

  “What’s those, if you don’t mind me asking?” Rudy looked puzzled.

  “Oh, circadian rhythms are our biological clocks,” James explained. “The natural cycles our bodies go through in a twenty-four-hour period, when we feel like sleeping, eating, that sort of thing.” And having sex. Melissa’s presence triggered that circadian rhythm, all right.

  “Oh, like all that stuff about women’s clocks telling them it’s time to have babies,” Rudy said with a nod. “When Thelma and I were young, nobody worried over stuff like that. We expected to get married, have kids. It was the natural way of things. Still is, if you ask me. Only, nowadays you young folks put a lot of fancy names on it and set up more resistance than we did.” He laughed, and so did James.

  Rudy leaned forward, chin resting on his hands. “You plan on having kids someday, Melissa?”

  Rudy certainly had no qualms about asking personal questions. James waited for her answer.

  “Not soon, as in this year or next,” she said. She blushed a little. “But someday, sure, I’d like to have babies.” She turned to James, a hint of challenge in her eyes. “How about you? Think you’ll ever want some little Burkes?”

  “I’m not sure.” Six months ago, he’d have given a firm and definite no. But since his fortieth birthday, his ideas about being single were changing. He’d begun to notice families, in the supermarket, on the beach, surrounding someone’s bed at the hospital. And for the first time in his life, he’d begun to feel empty. “I suppose everyone thinks about having a family.”

  “You come from a big family, Doc?” Rudy rested his huge arms on the counter.

  James shook his head. “I was an only child. My mother died when I was fourteen. Dad remarried. He lives in San Diego. He’s a researcher for the U.S. Navy.” He hadn’t seen his father in two years. He’d never gotten along with his stepmother; she was possessive of his father, almost to the point of paranoia, and that possessiveness excluded James.

  “How about you, Melissa? You have brothers and sisters?”

  She shook her head. “Only child, same as James. But my mom and I have always been really close. Well, apart from a couple of years when I was a rebellious teenager.” She gave a small, sad smile. “Mom told me from the time I was little that I could do anything I wanted in life, and that education was the key. My dad died when I was a baby. He had life insurance, and no matter how hard up we were, my mom never touched a penny of it.” Her voice wobbled, but she went on. “Mom worked as a clerk in a grocery store to support us, and she always told me the insurance money was for my education.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She was so proud when I got this job. I was going to take her to Hawaii at Christmas.”

  With Melissa’s words, the detachment about his patients that James always strove so hard to maintain crumbled entirely. Betsy Clayton went from being the bowel obstruction who happened to be Melissa’s mother to a woman who’d had dreams and hopes and plans, a woman who’d sacrificed to give her daughter an opportunity at a better life than she’d had.

  “Thelma and me are going to Hawaii in February,” Rudy said. “We been saving for a coupla years, and last month Thelma won a bundle at bingo that put us over the top. We got all the brochures, and I got Thelma a CD of Hawaiian music, told her if she learns the hula for me I’ll buy her a grass skirt when we get there.” He chortled. “I bet you get to Hawaii a lot, huh, Doc?’ ’

  “I’ve never been.” James hadn’t taken a real holiday for three years. “Most of my time is spent here at St. Joe’s.”

  Rudy was perplexed. “But that’s work. So what d’ya do for fun?”

  “I guess I see my work as fun.” James felt a little defensive. “I enjoy riding my bike to work. And sometimes I ride with a group on Sunday mornings, out toward Squamish.”

  Rudy nodded and waited, and when James didn’t continue, he said in an incredulous tone, “That’s it, a bike ride now and again?”

  “Well, I like to fly-fish,” James added. He hadn’t done any fishing since early spring, though, and then only for a long weekend. He hadn’t really thought about it much
, but now he realized that surgery had eaten up his life. He had no close friends, no pets, and his social life at the moment consisted of an occasional movie or a few glasses of beer at the local pub on a Sunday afternoon.

  Even his sex life had ended six weeks ago when Heidi Menzies, whom he’d met in the swimming pool just after she’d moved into his building, broke off the relationship they’d had for five months. She was moving to Las Vegas in the hope of becoming a showgirl, she’d told him, and she had a word of advice for him before she left. He needed to take a long, hard look at his priorities. Any guy who’d choose to hang around the ER just in case there might be a surgical emergency rather than go to a club with her— well, a guy like that had some major issues he ought to deal with.

  He’d brushed her words aside at the time, reminding himself that it wasn’t Heidi’s brain that had attracted him in the first place. But these past few days, with job action making it impossible for him to immerse himself in his usual routine of surgeries, her words had come back to haunt him. If his work was factored out of his life’s equation, there wasn’t one hell of a lot left, was there.

  James turned to Melissa. “How about you? What d’ya do for fun?”

  “Fun? Gosh, I don’t know—”

  She shrugged, and it was reassuring to James to see the confusion in her expression.

  “I’ve been so busy these past few years, going to school and working at the same time, I guess I haven’t given too much thought to fun.”

  “What did you guys used to like to do, when you were kids?” Rudy wasn’t letting either of them off the hook.

  She pursed her mouth, thinking. She had a lush, full mouth, made for kissing, James noted.

  “Roller-skate. And dance, I loved to dance.”

  “There ya go.” Rudy sounded triumphant. “Why don’t the two of you go dancin’? It would do you both good. You need to get out more.”

  James shook his head. “I don’t dance.” It was one activity he hadn’t been able to master right away, so he’d stopped trying years earlier.

  Luckily, Melissa was also shaking her head. “I don’t have time enough these days to breathe, never mind go dancing.” She glanced at her watch and let out a squawk of horror. “My God, I’ve gotta run. Thanks, Rudy.” She flashed a smile at James. “See you later, Doc.”

  James watched her hurry off, long legs making the flippy little chestnut skirt swing, red hair gleaming like brass in the morning sunlight.

  “She’s one good-lookin’ woman,” Rudy said with an appreciative sigh. “How old is she, anyway, thirty, thirty- one, maybe?”

  “Thirty-six.” James had made it his business to find out.

  Rudy whistled. “She’d better get cracking with the babies. Her clock is on fast-forward,” Rudy said. “You got a lady friend, Doc?”

  Although it wasn’t any of Rudy’s business, James shook his head. “Nope, not at the moment.”

  “Then, why don’t you ask Melissa out? Sounds to me like she could use some R and R. Sounds like all she does is work, work, work. That can’t be healthy, right? In fact, you ask me, both of you are on the wrong track there. It’s kinda pathetic.”

  Pathetic? Who did Rudy think he was, calling two professional people who took their work seriously “pathetic”?”

  “I did ask her to dinner,” James snapped. “She turned me down.”

  “So you got rejected. It happens to the best of us.” Rudy gave him a disparaging look. “So ask her again, Doc.”

  James’s temper flared. He didn’t appreciate being given advice. Didn’t Rudy know that meeting Melissa here at 6:45 in the bloody morning wasn’t exactly an accident? It had been an inspired move on his part, James felt. And he wasn’t exactly a charity case when it came to dating. Rudy needed to mind his own business.

  A few days ago, James might have told him so. Now, though, he had to admit he’d grown fond of Rudy, in spite of the endless personal questions and the banal advice on life in general. He didn’t want to hurt him, so he swallowed his irritation.

  “Maybe I’ll do that. See you later, Rudy.” James headed for St. Joe’s. He was a doctor, a surgeon, responsible and hardworking, and a benefit to society, he reminded himself.

  He certainly wasn’t pathetic. But as he showered and changed into the fresh pants and the newly laundered golf shirt he kept in his locker, Rudy’s words troubled him, and they were still with him when he arrived at Betsy’s bedside.

  “Any change?” He couldn’t remember the nurse’s name, although he’d seen her often enough. “No more incidents that involve my patient falling out of bed, I hope.”

  “No on both counts, Dr. Burke.”

  He waited until she moved away, and then James leaned close to his patient.

  “You can wake up whenever you choose, you know, Betsy,” he told her, feeling like an idiot as he did so. He was aware the nurses advised relatives to speak to comatose patients in this manner, but he’d never done it himself, and it felt strange. He glanced around, but there was no one to hear him. “You have a beautiful daughter who cares about you. She’s very upset because you’re not getting well,” he said in a stern tone.

  Maybe stern wasn’t the way to go. The lack of any response was strangely freeing, and in a softer tone, he added, “I like your daughter very much, Betsy. And I feel responsible for what’s happened to you, which really complicates the situation between Melissa and me. So it would be much better all around if you just woke up.”

  He looked down at her, for the first time recognizing in Betsy’s features faint echoes of her daughter’s beauty. “I brought you some tapes I had lying around.” He fumbled in his medical bag. He’d actually searched them out in one of the secondhand bookstores he frequented. He slid one into the portable player by the bed and turned it on.

  “You Are My Sunshine” began playing, and like an idiot James watched for a response. None came, naturally, which annoyed him.

  “Damn it all, why don’t you just quit this nonsense, Betsy? We need you awake,” he said forcefully. “Melissa does, and I sure as hell do, too, if I’m gonna get anywhere with her.”

  A sound behind him made him turn. The nurse he’d spoken to was standing there, an expression of utter amazement on her freckled face. Why the hell did nurses wear shoes that allowed them to sneak up like that?

  James’s face burned, and he beat a hasty retreat into the corridor.

  Chapter Ten

  Three days passed for Melissa in a frenzy of activity. Every moment of every day was crammed. Meetings were the worst; she met with the ministry in an effort to come to some agreement about the conflict. She met with the press, and because the strike was attracting province-wide attention, there were swarms of radio and television stations vying for interviews. She met with the union heads of the various departments; they were worried about nonunion people moving in on their jobs. She spent endless hours on the phone trying to get patients to other facilities, and their families often insisted on speaking directly to her, concerned about the care their loved ones were receiving.

  Every time she could steal a few moments, she raced upstairs to be with Betsy. And every time she entered her mother’s room, she prayed silently and hard that there would be some change, some little thing that would be cause for hope.

  There was nothing. Betsy remained in stable condition but unresponsive, and with each day that passed, Melissa’s hopes grew fainter and her spirits sank.

  The only bright spot was meeting James. Each morning as she pulled into the parking lot, he was there, waving at her from the front of Rudy’s trailer. Seeing him, finding out more about him, became something to look forward to, something that took her mind off both her mother and her work for just a while.

  They talked about everything, and sometimes about nothing at all. He told her and Rudy about a boy who’d died from a medication he’d prescribed, and how it had almost ended his career as a doctor. She found herself able to talk about her marriage to Nadim and how it had a
ffected her. Rudy acted like a catalyst, asking the bold questions that neither Melissa nor James dared put to each other.

  She learned that he liked eating fish and chips from a certain vendor in Stanley Park, that morning was his favorite time of day, that he collected old medical journals and loved prowling through dusty bookshops.

  She heard herself confiding that she’d always wanted to learn to ride horses, she broke out in hives from shellfish and she liked watching Oprah. That confession brought a lump to her throat; Betsy had always taped the shows for her.

  On the afternoon of the tenth day of the physicians’ job action, Melissa was sitting through yet another meeting, when her pager sounded. Glancing at the number, she saw that it was Arlene. Melissa excused herself and hurried down the hallway to a phone.

  “It’s your mom,” Arlene said, and Melissa’s heart gave a lurch. “The nurses called down a few moments ago. She’s become very restless. She’s moving around and she seems agitated.”

  Heart racing, Melissa hurried up to her mother’s room. Two nurses were with her. Betsy was tossing and turning. She was also mumbling, although the sounds made no sense.

  “We’ve called Dr. Burke. He’ll be along any moment.” The nurse met Melissa’s troubled glance. Neither of them needed to verbalize that this change in Betsy’s condition could be one of two things: either she was improving, or she was exhibiting signs of brain damage.

  Melissa tried to be optimistic, but Betsy had now been in a coma for more than a week. Brain damage was the most probable diagnosis, and when James arrived, he reluctantly admitted that he, too, thought Betsy was exhibiting classic signs of trauma to the brain.

  He took Melissa into the same little office in which he’d spoken to her after her mother’s operation. The difference this time was that his words were gentle, his tone regretful, and when Melissa nodded and then felt her chin wobble, he reached out and drew her into his arms.